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I am running Ubuntu 14.04-64bit. I have a HP Pavilion dv7 laptop with a nVidia GEForce GT 650M video card. I am not using the nVidia drivers that are in "synaptic". This morning when I booted up, after I logged in, the desktop screen came up, but there was no "task bar" (I think that is what you call the bar at the top of the screen) & any program that was launched via the "Startup Applications" has no bar with the "exit,minimize, whole scree" buttons on it. I am able to kill any program using a terminal. The graphics is as it should be, no distortion. Now I rebooted, and this time, after the login screen, I just get a "black" screen. I was unable to get anything to respond, so I had to hit the power button in order to exit and try another reboot. Eventually, it all worked as it was suppose to, and I am now able to open any program and send this question to ya'll. I am not sure where to begin to figure out what has happened, and I have not tried another reboot to see if the problem is still there or gone. If I need to give you more info, please let me know what (an maybe how to get it) and I will respond ASAP. Thanks for your time looking at this, and I welcome any help you may be able to give.

user18432
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Well, a little advice, a little help:

Unresponsive system - here's a set of what you can try before resorting to the power button. One of the 'hidden' gems in here is holding the PrntScr and slowly typing "reisub"

I have a dv7 also, and the heat generated by the machine is terrible. I've had to reflow the graphics chip down onto the motherboard twice, and when 14.04 came out, Ubunti could not recognize the graphics chip. I never did get the proprietary drivers to work with that machine.

For me on my Pavilion, the graphics solution is a launchapd PPA by Oibaf - these are open source drivers, a bit more advanced(?) than those packaged by canonical, and perhaps less stable, but they work in my HP.

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Charles Green
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  • I'll give it a try. Thanks, I'll let ya know what happens. – user18432 Jul 02 '14 at 16:56
  • I'd be interested to know if the oibaf repository works as well for you as it does for me. I think the xorg-edgers repository is supposed to have greater performance, but is perhaps a little more risky. – Charles Green Jul 02 '14 at 16:57
  • Sorry that it has taken me so long to get back with you. The "oibaf" video drivers installed without a hitch. I don't really see any difference, but. It did not fix my problem. When I boot, it may take 3 or 4 boots to finally get to a screen that I can see my working desktop and etc. On the screens that just have the background image on, I am able to open 'guake", and do 'sudo reboot" which takes me back to a reboot, but after 3 or 4 times it finally gives me a working desktop. I am beginning to think I may just have to completely reload Ubuntu 14.04LTS-64. – user18432 Jul 05 '14 at 18:46
  • Kind of sounds like it to me. Do you also have the non-free firmware loaded? – Charles Green Jul 05 '14 at 18:48
  • sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree – Charles Green Jul 05 '14 at 18:49
  • I went into 'synaptic' and looked up 'linux-firmware-nonfree', it says that I don't have that loaded. Is this software "not good" or should it be installed? Thanks for your comments and help, it has given me commands, things to do, to help me to try and solve my problem. I also noticed (by accident) that in the "Software and Updates" in synaptic, the 'update' page has 'pre-released updates (trusty-proposed) checked. Is that 'bad'? – user18432 Jul 06 '14 at 17:11
  • The 'firmware' is a collection of code used by various device drivers, such as wireless interface cards. The 'nonfree' indicates that the source code for the drivers is not available - they are considered proprietary, although the compiled code is freely available. I think you may need them - hp has lots of funny little quirks that the nonfree drivers help with. – Charles Green Jul 06 '14 at 22:01
  • Thanks, I'll load them, reboot and see if it helps. Wish me luck. Thanks again. Will let you know results. – user18432 Jul 07 '14 at 12:29
  • Well, the problem seems to have just gone away. I'm not really sure what did the trick. But, alls well.....so far. Thanks for your help – user18432 Jul 14 '14 at 17:25