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I have a sony vaio desktop (PCV RZ221) which runs windows xp. I installed ubuntu on a separate partition. The install runs fine but the graphics runs on fallback drivers even though it has a nvidia geforce ti 4660 graphics card installed. I have tried installing the nvidia drivers (nvidia-96) which were recommended by the 'Additional Drivers' application. This results in complete garbled text and video. Everything turns white once I restart the system after installing the nvidia drivers. The nouveau drivers do not work etiher. I have tried three different versions of ubuntu (10.10, 11.04 and 11.10) and all of them have the same issue.

Below is the technical information of the motherborad

Technical Platform
Architecture
SiS 651
CPU Section
Processor Name
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor
Processor Manufacturer
Intel
Processor Speed (Mhz)
3060
Model
3.06 Ghz
Type
Pentium IV
L2 Cache (kb)
512
Graphics
Graphic Card Name
nVidia GeForce4 TI4600
Total Graphics Memory (MB)
128
Ubuntuser
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1 Answers1

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Old video cards often dont like KMS and can result in the garbled video display you have indicated.

I would try adding the boot option "nomodeset" for either the open-source graphics driver or the nvidia-96 driver.

If you are having an issue with "nomodeset" as well, try forcing the use of VESA graphics until you install the nvidia driver i.e. use "xforcevesa" as the boot option or in combination "nomodeset xforcevesa"

Linked Question:

  1. How do I set 'nomodeset' after I've already installed Ubuntu?
Community
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fossfreedom
  • 172,746
  • Thanks for your answer, however, the problem persists with nomodeset after installing proprietary or experimental mesa graphics drivers. I tried recovery mode which has nomodeset by default and it displays the same white screen. I will try with xforcevesa . Thanks again. – Ubuntuser Sep 21 '11 at 19:51
  • It would be helpful if you can edit your question as to what you have tried - what drivers, installed from where, how? etc. Have you tried using standard ubuntu drivers with nomodeset & xforcevesa? – fossfreedom Sep 21 '11 at 22:36