Not sure what happened but.....

[Cedric62]

I had some free time this afternoon, so I decided to try and play around with FreeBSD. I was operating under the assumption that I may have had two different nvidia drivers installed at the same time. All I could get was a black screen with a mouse cursor, but I seemed to be making progress with it.

However that, I tried to boot into Kubuntu, and it froze without loading KDE. Hmmm... Well after that I rebooted and picked Windows 10 at the Grub menu. Windows 10 also failed to boot, when it had been working fine just a little while ago.

To make a long story short, it couldn't boot from an Ubuntu live USB, but it could boot into a thumb drive containing Windows PE. Very strange. However, Windows PE couldn't see my network card (when usually it can) and there was a lot of gibberish listed under device manager. Hmmm

After that I opened up the case and tried reseating the video card, ram, and all of the sata cables. Unfortunately this made no difference, and I'm guessing that something must have happened to either my motherboard or video card during my reckless monkeying around with video drivers.

I'm not blaming FreeBSD, or anyone else. All hardware eventually breaks or wears out, and now my trusty PC has finally met its end.

Fortunately I still have an old HP laptop that is about seven or eight years old, but I'm going to need to keep that intact in order to deal with my wife's appointment. I guess that the moral of the story is, if you're on a tight budget, then don't put your hardware at risk by senselessly playing with it. Oh well. Ciao, it was fun while it lasted.

 

[balanga]

I'd suggest getting a ThinkPad T61 which you should be able to pick up fairly cheaply. I'm currently using an X61 (same vintage 2008), among other systems, and it works well albeit a bit slowly, but ideal for getting to know FreeBSD.

 

[SirDice]

I'm guessing that something must have happened to either my motherboard or video card during my reckless monkeying around with video drivers.

No amount of mucking around with drivers is going to break the hardware itself. A long time ago, when monitors still had cathode ray tubes, and zero protection, you could destroy it by feeding it horizontal and/or vertical frequenties far beyond its specifications. But those days are long gone.

All hardware eventually breaks or wears out, and now my trusty PC has finally met its end.

That's certainly true. Some hardware even breaks within its warranty period, others will last years if not decades (some of my homelab systems are 15+ years old, they still work fine). You know what kills most of the hardware? Switching it off, oddly enough.

 

[Cedric62]

No amount of mucking around with drivers is going to break the hardware itself. A long time ago, when monitors still had cathode ray tubes, and zero protection, you could destroy it by feeding it horizontal and/or vertical frequenties far beyond its specifications. But those days are long gone.

That's certainly true. Some hardware even breaks within its warranty period, others will last years if not decades (some of my homelab systems are 15+ years old, they still work fine). You know what kills most of the hardware? Switching it off, oddly enough.

Well, I know that this is getting away from the topic of FreeBSD, but I took out the video card and plugged the HDMI directly to the back of my PC, and now I can occasionally boot to a live USB, but sometimes the monitor will show a weird checkerboard pattern instead of showing the boot process. I guess that either the video card or the powersupply must have failed.

 

[Maturin]

When all those different OS you tested fail to boot, it's a hardware problem.

 

[SirDice]

I took out the video card and plugged the HDMI directly to the back of my PC

I guess that either the video card or the powersupply must have failed.

It's not the video card, you took the card out and problems remained. The onboard video is entirely separate from any 'external' (PCIe graphics card) video circuitry.

sometimes the monitor will show a weird checkerboard pattern

Yeah, that's weird. Often happens when the GPU overheats. As you have this with the onboard video (and the "GPU" is integrated on the CPU die), did you check for dust bunnies in the CPU fan? Does the fan still work? As it's an older system, it might be broken, clogged up or just not cooling enough (old thermal paste could be an issue too).

You were looking for a junior sysadmin job, right? Troubleshooting and figuring out what part of the hardware is broken, and how it can be fixed would certainly be part of that job description. So, maybe take this as an opportunity to learn how to diagnose and troubleshoot

 

[bgavin]

Divide and Conquer.
Strip down to least components.

Swap Until You Drop.
Don’t forget power supplies and RAM.

Test components in a different machine.
MemTest86 for 24 hours will shake out flaky DRAM.

Visual inspection of failed power supplies usually reveals bulging capacitor tops.

System board controllers do go bad but l SS frequently than the above. In my business power supplies and disk drives are the highest failure rates.

 

[Cedric62]

Does the fan still work? As it's an older system, it might be broken, clogged up or just not cooling enough (old thermal paste could be an issue too).

Fan is completely clear of dust, and it is spinning from the moment I hit the power switch.

Yeah, that's weird. Often happens when the GPU overheats.

I never noticed it before, but this particular video card doesn't even have a fan installed on it's heat-shield, and when I first crack open the case yesterday afternoon, the heat-shield was surprisingly hot to the touch.

Troubleshooting and figuring out what part of the hardware is broken, and how it can be fixed would certainly be part of that job description.

Yep, if I cannot fix it, I want to know exactly what happened before I hold a funeral for my computer. . Since it impacts both the video card and the built in HDMI, maybe the power supply is a big part of it. It is almost six years old, but I don't see any bulging capacitors inside of it.

When all those different OS you tested fail to boot, it's a hardware problem.

No doubt about that now.

Swap Until You Drop.
Don’t forget power supplies and RAM.

I think that I may try another power-supply, and maybe using the jumper switch on the motherboard to clear the bios.

 

[Cedric62]

Eventhough my destop PC appears to now be permanently kaput, I'd still like to understand why I wasn't able to get Xfce back up and running, and I've included the below information in the hopes that someone might be able to tell me where I went wrong. That is, where I went wrong in regards to Xfce, and not so much where I went wrong with my computer's hardware.


Below is what I found regarding my video card's identification while booted into Kubuntu:

$ lspci | grep VGA
VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] (rev a1)

Meanwhile, below is what I found while attempting to identify the nvidia drivers installed in my installation of FreeBSD. I had to retype the below on my laptop, while looking over my shoulder at my desktop's monitor screen. I'm not certain, but it appears that there maybe two different nvidia drivers listed within the below output? That cannot be right.

# pkg info | grep nvidia
nvidia-driver-470-470.256.02_2 NVidia graphics card binary drivers for hardware OpenGL rendering
nvidia-kmod-470-470.256.02.1500068 kmod part of Nvidia graphics card binary drivers for hardware OpenGL rendering
nvidia-xconfig-580.119.02    Tool to manipulate X configuration files for the Nvidia driver

Also, below is the line within my /etc/rc.conf file referencing my video card:

kld_list="nvidia-modeset nvidia-drm cuse"
microcode_update_enable="YES"
linux_enable="YES"

Additionally, here is what I had listed in /boot/loader.conf:

hw.nvidia-modeset.modeset=1

Below is the information I had listed in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

   Section "Device"
        Identifier "Nvidia Card"
        Driver "nvidia"
        # If you have multiple GPUs, add "BusID" "PCI:x:x:x"
    EndSection

My gut feeling is that I may have some sort configuration error, but since that particular machine is now dead, I guess that it doesn't really matter. But I would still like to know.

 

[MG]

Quite convinced it happened coincidentally with different software running. I don't remember any software to be able to damage hardware except a floppy drive that could shake its head so fast that it breaks. Very rare possibility is a static discharge from wool clothing or something. Never happened to me with damage but I have seen sparks from my fingers to the frame.

 

[hasbeen]

Maybe, you are using the wrong (outdated) nvidia driver version for your GPU.
You can always try nvidia-driver-580.119.02_1.

Your GPU is part of Nvidia's 10XX product family:

GeForce GT 1030 | Features | GeForce

View the latest Game and Application features, including the recommended GPU and system requirements.

www.nvidia.com

Nvidia's x64 580.126.09 display drivers supports your GPU:

Driver Details | NVIDIA

Download the <dd~LanguageName> <dd~Name> for <dd~OSName> systems. Released <dd~ReleaseDateTime>

www.nvidia.com