No display on Inspiron 8200 / NVidia GeForce 2 Go

J

jmusgrove

The symptom: Whenever I start X, I'm greeted by a black/ blank screen (no pointer; no standard patterned X server background). Ctrl-Alt-Backspace doesn't kill the X server (I have to switch VTs and then kill the server).

The background: I'm using xorg-server-1.6.0.1 installed using packages via sysinstall on FREEBSD-7.2-RELEASE-p2. The machine is a Dell Inspiron 8200 with a GeForce 2 Go with 32Mb on board. Initial config file was provided by "X -configure".

What I've tried:

* Using the "nv" driver, as suggested by the autoconfiguration.
--> Setting "CrtcNumber" to 0 (and 1) in xorg.conf
* Using the "vesa" driver
* Installing the proprietary "nvidia" driver (nvidia-driver-96). With this driver, I see the NVidia logo when the X server starts, but it still returns to a black screen
--> Setting "UseDisplayDevice" to "DFP" in xorg.conf
--> Setting sysctl hw.nvidia.registry.SoftEDIDs to 0
--> Setting sysctl hw.nvidia.registry.Mobile to 1 (and various other numbers, too)
--> Setting hint.agp.0.disabled to 1 in /boot/device.hints to disable FreeBSD's AGP support in favour of NVidias
* Hitting it a little, and swearing at it

I can't see any issues in the Xorg log file and I've run out of ideas (and google search terms).

My xorg conf: http://phoenix.dnsalias.org/~jason/xorg.conf.txt
My Xorg log: http://phoenix.dnsalias.org/~jason/Xorg.0.log.txt

Can anyone think of anything I've done wrong, information I've missed, or anything I should try?

Thanks in advance.
 
Even though the laptop has an LCD screen it might be connected using VGA. In that case UseDisplayDevice should be set to CRT.

You only use DFP if the display is connected using DVI.
 
Ok - I have just tried that and got the same result (logo on LCD, then nothing). However, it looks like the proprietary nvidia driver thinks that the LCD is a DFP device after all, as indicated by this section of the log (trimmed and unwrapped for readability):

Code: 
Connected display device(s) on GeForce2 Go at PCI:1:0:0: Nvidia Default Flat Panel (DFP-0)
Nvidia Default Flat Panel (DFP-0): 162.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
Nvidia Default Flat Panel (DFP-0): Internal Dual Link LVDS
Option "UseDisplayDevice" requested "CRT", but no unused CRTs are available.
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT" converted to "".
Unable to find any of the requested display device "" in the list of available display devices "DFP-0".
Assigned Display Device: DFP-0
 
[Solved]

Apologies. It would appear that it's been "working" all along - I just didn't know that newer versions of Xorg didn't put up the patterned background when started on their own (nor, for some reason, didn't show the mouse pointer until some random event).

When I tried "X -retro" the background pattern appeared as expected, and startx fired up the traditional 3 xterm windows and twm.

Sorry for wasting everyone's time :(
 
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