[lug] RHEL 6 Nouveau versus Nvidia for graphics

[Steven A Hart]

Just a follow-up on this in case anyone is interested.

I think I finally found the culprit.  For the past month I just ran 
RHEL6 with the Nouveau drivers and it was OK.  Graphics were a bit 
choppy at times but all in all OK.  I decided to take another look and 
do some testing with hardware.  I ended up reloading the system for 
RHEL5 as RHEL6 was also acting a bit weird for me.  I confirmed that the 
graphics issue still existed with the NVIDIA drivers on the clean RHEL5 
install.  I then replaced the video card with an older nVidia 
Corporation G72 [GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS] card and voila, no graphics 
issues whatsoever.  Acceleration using the NVIDIA drivers works like a 
charm with no weirdness.  Either I got a bad card originally or there 
may be an issue using a card with the DDR3 memory.  Other than that, I 
don't see too much of a difference between the cards on the whole.

Here's the card I had originally that was causing the problems:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125366

I went ahead and ordered a couple new card to test things a bit more.  
Also, it never hurts to have a couple spare cards around.

I ordered these:
First one using DDR2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121473

Then another using DDR3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130607

Once they get here I'll test and see what happens with each new card.  
It could just be that I got a bad apple.

I'm just happy it works with NVIDIA as I was not really happy using nouveau.

Steve

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steven A Hart <shart at Colorado.EDU>
> Cc: Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List 
> <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>
> Sent: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:13:24 -0000 (UTC)
> Subject: Re: [lug] RHEL 6 Nouveau versus Nvidia for graphics
>
>
> Just a follow up on this.
>       I disabled Nouveau and installed the latest NVIDIA drivers but
>       it's acting a bit wonky.  Here's what I did:
>
>
>       - created /*/etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf*/
>       which contains the following line:
>
>       blacklist nouveau options nouveau modeset=0
>
>
>       - Then I modified /*/etc/grub.conf */so that the
>       Kernel vmlinuz line ended with:
>
>       rdblacklist=nouveau
>
>
>       - Then I rebooted and manually installed the NVIDIA drivers as I
>       usually do.  The installer ran normally and modified the
>       /etc/X11/xorg.conf as usual.
>
>
>       - Brought the system up to telinit 5 and graphics work normally
>       using NVIDIA.  Acceleration is active and looks good.
>
>
>       Now here's the wonky part.  I log off to get back to the login
>       screen and the graphics wig out.  Everything gets choppy and
>       distorted.  I tried ctrl-alt-f2 and was barely able to make out
>       the words printed on the screen.  I tried going down to telinit 3
>       and then back up to telinit 5 but that did nothing.  I had to
>       reboot the system which resulted in graphics running normally
>       again.  The problem repeats when I log in and then log off.
>       Everything is cool until I log off graphically at the terminal.
>
>
>       This is all new hardware:
>
>
>       GIGABYTE GV-N440D3-1GI GeForce GT 440 Video Card
>
>       GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard
>
>       Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz processor
>
>       ASUS VE276Q 27" monitor
>
>
>       Everything graphical worked normally using Nouveau.  Could I have
>       missed a setting and the system is trying to load something
>       Nouveau related and wigging out?
>
>
>       Any ideas would be appreciated....
>
>
>       Thanks
>
>
>       Steve
>

-- 
Steve Hart
Systems Administrator
Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research
University of Colorado Boulder
Steven.Hart at colorado.edu
(303)492-8109
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