1

The problem

When I boot Ubuntu, the purple login screen is extremely pixelated. Once I log in, the display is perfectly fine.

Background

My system uses an old graphics card, a NVIDIA 8800 GT. When I initially installed Ubuntu, the boot process failed using the default Nouveau drivers so I booted with nomodeset (which stretched out the screen but it worked). I then installed the proprietary nvidia drivers supported by the GPU (sudo apt install nvidia-340). The nvidia drivers allowed the computer to boot, but the screen was pixelated. I believe this is because the graphics card only supported 60Hz output for 1080p, and my monitor is 1080p at 144Hz.

Attempted Solutions

I tried setting the refresh rate to 60Hz in the terminal, but I got an error message:

xrandr -s 1920x1080 -r 60

Output


> Rate 60.00 Hz not available for this size

I then tried setting the refresh rate manually to 60Hz in Ubuntu settings. This seemed to solve the problem, but after rebooting, the purple login screen was still very pixelated. Upon logging in, though, the display was fine.

I also tried setting the refresh rate to 60Hz in the NVIDIA X Server program, but that didn't do anything. (I also saved the 60Hz configuration to /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the program because I thought that might get loaded before login. It still didn't do anything when I rebooted.)

Finally, I tried xrandr again, but using an output parameter:

xrandr --output DVI-I-2 --size 1920x1080 --refresh 60

There was no error message, but it still didn't work. I also tried putting that same command as a startup program, but again, nothing happened.

Diagnostic Information

  • Monitor: Acer XV240Y (144Hz@1920x1080)
  • Monitor connection: DVI from GPU into HDMI adapter into monitor
  • GPU: NVIDIA 8800 GT
  • NVIDIA driver version: 340.108

I am able to provide more details as needed.

Log Files / Command Outputs

# sudo systemctl status display-manager

    

  • gdm.service - GNOME Display Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2021-02-16 19:52:47 PST; 19min ago
  Process: 27678 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/gdm/generate-config (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 27708 ExecStartPre=/usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-wait-for-drm (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 27717 (gdm3)
    Tasks: 3 (limit: 19072)
   Memory: 8.0M
   CGroup: /system.slice/gdm.service
           └─27717 /usr/sbin/gdm3
    • 



Feb 16 19:52:47 desktop systemd[1]: Starting GNOME Display Manager...
Feb 16 19:52:47 desktop systemd[1]: Started GNOME Display Manager.
Feb 16 19:52:47 desktop gdm-launch-environment][27773]: pam_unix(gdm-launch-environment:session): session opened for user gdm by (uid=0)
Feb 16 19:52:54 desktop gdm-password][28089]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: No such file or directory
Feb 16 19:52:56 desktop gdm-password][28089]: pam_unix(gdm-password:auth): Couldn't open /etc/securetty: No such file or directory
Feb 16 19:52:56 desktop gdm-password][28089]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
Feb 16 19:52:56 desktop gdm-password][28089]: gkr-pam: stashed password to try later in open session
Feb 16 19:52:56 desktop gdm-password][28089]: pam_unix(gdm-password:session): session opened for user felix by (uid=0)
Feb 16 19:52:56 desktop gdm-password][28089]: gkr-pam: gnome-keyring-daemon started properly and unlocked keyring

# cat /var/log/gpu-manager.log

log_file: /var/log/gpu-manager.log
last_boot_file: /var/lib/ubuntu-drivers-common/last_gfx_boot
new_boot_file: /var/lib/ubuntu-drivers-common/last_gfx_boot
can't access /opt/amdgpu-pro/bin/amdgpu-pro-px
Looking for nvidia modules in /lib/modules/5.8.0-43-generic/updates/dkms
Found nvidia module: nvidia.ko
Looking for amdgpu modules in /lib/modules/5.8.0-43-generic/updates/dkms
Is nvidia loaded? yes
Was nvidia unloaded? no
Is nvidia blacklisted? no
Is intel loaded? no
Is radeon loaded? no
Is radeon blacklisted? no
Is amdgpu loaded? no
Is amdgpu blacklisted? no
Is amdgpu versioned? no
Is amdgpu pro stack? no
Is nouveau loaded? no
Is nouveau blacklisted? yes
Is nvidia kernel module available? yes
Is amdgpu kernel module available? no
Vendor/Device Id: 10de:611
BusID "PCI:6@0:0:0"
Is boot vga? yes
Skipping "/dev/dri/card0", driven by "nvidia-drm"
Skipping "/dev/dri/card0", driven by "nvidia-drm"
Skipping "/dev/dri/card0", driven by "nvidia-drm"
Skipping "/dev/dri/card0", driven by "nvidia-drm"
Does it require offloading? no
last cards number = 1
Has amd? no
Has intel? no
Has nvidia? yes
How many cards? 1
Has the system changed? No
Single card detected
Nothing to do

After removing nvidia-340

screenshot

# new gpu-manager.log

log_file: /var/log/gpu-manager.log
last_boot_file: /var/lib/ubuntu-drivers-common/last_gfx_boot
new_boot_file: /var/lib/ubuntu-drivers-common/last_gfx_boot
can't access /run/u-d-c-nvidia-was-loaded file
can't access /opt/amdgpu-pro/bin/amdgpu-pro-px
Looking for nvidia modules in /lib/modules/5.8.0-43-generic/updates/dkms
Looking for amdgpu modules in /lib/modules/5.8.0-43-generic/updates/dkms
Is nvidia loaded? no
Was nvidia unloaded? no
Is nvidia blacklisted? no
Is intel loaded? no
Is radeon loaded? no
Is radeon blacklisted? no
Is amdgpu loaded? no
Is amdgpu blacklisted? no
Is amdgpu versioned? no
Is amdgpu pro stack? no
Is nouveau loaded? no
Is nouveau blacklisted? yes
Is nvidia kernel module available? no
Is amdgpu kernel module available? no
Vendor/Device Id: 10de:611
BusID "PCI:6@0:0:0"
Is boot vga? yes
Error: can't access /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:06:00.0/driver
The device is not bound to any driver.
Error : Failed to open /dev/dri
Error : Failed to open /dev/dri
Error : Failed to open /dev/dri
Error : Failed to open /dev/dri
Does it require offloading? no
last cards number = 1
Has amd? no
Has intel? no
Has nvidia? yes
How many cards? 1
Has the system changed? No
Single card detected
Nothing to do

How can I get the login screen to load in at 60Hz? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

applemonkey496
  • 137
  • Not positive, but I think the gpu-manager.log is indicating after skipping the nvidia-drm drivers, it doesn't say that it FOUND a driver card to use. Would you consider uninstalling the nvidia-340 drivers that you indicated above and reboot? – mondotofu Feb 17 '21 at 05:18
  • @mondotofu I added a screenshot after having removed nvidia-340. The login screen looks the same, it isn't pixelated but it is stretched out. It seems like Ubuntu just defaulted to safe graphics / generic driver (I blacklisted Nouveau before because it was causing boot problems so that's why it didn't default to Nouveau) – applemonkey496 Feb 17 '21 at 17:38
  • I added the new gpu-manager.log. This one seems more problematic. – applemonkey496 Feb 17 '21 at 17:45
  • Try setting a different wallpaper for your login screen. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 21 '21 at 00:25
  • I tried that. Unfortunately, it didn't do anything. – applemonkey496 Feb 21 '21 at 00:31

2 Answers2

1

What about bypassing the login screen?

https://techpiezo.com/linux/enable-or-disable-automatic-login-in-ubuntu-20-04/

Alternatively, you could press Ctrl Alt F3 to drop out of the graphical screen to a text login.

I wonder if you get any useful information about your display manager with the following command: systemctl status display-manager

Sorry -- do you have a file /lib/systemd/system/gpu-manager.service?

cat /lib/systemd/system/gpu-manager.service
[Unit]
Description=Detect the available GPUs and deal with any system changes  
Before=display-manager.service
Before=oem-config.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gpu-manager --log /var/log/gpu-manager.log
StandardOutput=null
StandardError=null


[Install]
WantedBy=display-manager.service
WantedBy=oem-config.service
mondotofu
  • 777
  • I had it on automatic login before, but I started having this problem when I chose to turn it off. So although technically it prevent the problem, it doesn't answer my question of getting the login screen to load in at 60hz – applemonkey496 Feb 12 '21 at 01:03
  • I updated my question with the result of sudo systemctl status display-manager – applemonkey496 Feb 17 '21 at 04:15
  • The systemctl status display manager output looks good. Do you have a file /var/log/gpu-manager.log on your system? It checks all the video drivers and picks one for you. It also has the job of creating a new /etc/X11/xorg.conf file from scratch each time. The gpu-manager can be disabled, I think, so that your settings will persist from one boot to another. – mondotofu Feb 17 '21 at 04:34
  • I would consider the suggestions in https://askubuntu.com/questions/813826/what-does-gpu-manager-do – mondotofu Feb 17 '21 at 04:36
  • I added my /var/log/gpu-manager.log to my question as well – applemonkey496 Feb 17 '21 at 04:51
  • Looking at that the suggestions from the question you posted, I don't actually have an /etc/init/gpu-manager.conf file. – applemonkey496 Feb 17 '21 at 18:00
  • Do you have a file /lib/systemd/system/gpu-manager.service ? – mondotofu Feb 20 '21 at 22:47
  • Yes I do have that file – applemonkey496 Feb 21 '21 at 00:02
  • Now this is a bit of a gamble. if you don't want to do it, then maybe there's another way. How would you feel about commenting out the line with ExecStart that starts GPU manager? – mondotofu Feb 21 '21 at 00:06
  • Because if you can keep that from starting, you might be able to edit your xorg.conf file and get it right. See https://askubuntu.com/questions/813826/what-does-gpu-manager-do – mondotofu Feb 21 '21 at 00:09
  • Ok I'll try that. I've commented out that line. Should I reboot now and configure later, or edit xorg.conf now? – applemonkey496 Feb 21 '21 at 00:12
  • Yes, I'd try rebooting now. – mondotofu Feb 21 '21 at 00:12
  • Ok, I just rebooted and everything seems to be exactly the same, no problems – applemonkey496 Feb 21 '21 at 00:15
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – mondotofu Feb 21 '21 at 00:16
  • Hi, I kind of forgot about this question. The chat room you posted before has expired, but here's a new one – applemonkey496 Mar 20 '21 at 01:44
  • Really puzzled by this. A number of video modes are tried and rejected. It's still finding the DRM driver software from Nvidia, too. – mondotofu Mar 23 '21 at 03:09
  • Yeah it is weird. Since it is an old gpu I might just try installing an older driver. The nvidia-340 driver that I'm using is the legacy driver from 2019, but my gpu is much older than 2019 so I can work backwards in time and maybe something will solve the problem. I'll see how it goes. – applemonkey496 Mar 24 '21 at 16:44
  • I tried it, but the legacy 304 and 173 drivers failed building from the runfile. I couldn't find any ppa repositories that had it available for focal either. – applemonkey496 Mar 29 '21 at 16:29
0

I ended up just upgrading my GPU to a slightly less old Radeon card. Everything works fine with the default amdgpu drivers.

This may not be a very satisfying conclusion, but after a lot of digging, I can't find the source of the problem.

Thanks goes to @mondotofu for helping me along the way.

applemonkey496
  • 137