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I have a Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card that worked on windows before I switched to Ubuntu 14.04. When I booted up for the first time the screen had white pixel sized rectangles appearing and moving around (similarly to a tv screen that is staticky) and the screen would freeze. I tried switching to A Nvidia proprietary driver but none of those were Nvidia GeForce 8600. I went to the website to download the driver manually but I would never get far enough before the computer would freeze and I would have to enter the R.E.I.S.U.B command to shutdown the computer. After this happened a few times i finally decided to switch to the integrated graphics card. It has been working fine but now I want to change back to my Nvidia card because it is faster and compatible with more games but every time I try to turn it back on from the shutdown menu settings and boot it up It either partially boots and then blacks out or fully boots and shows "acpi ppc probe failure" then quickly freezes. I am starting to wonder if my graphics card is compatible with Linux since on the box it says "built for Vista" Is there any way to make it work?

Alex Diviney
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  • The 8600 GT is fully supported by Linux and Xorg and should work well enough in software render mode to install the standard "Recommended" Nvidia binary driver. The "acpi pcc probe failure" is a not an issue, it is a bogus message from the 3.19 series kernel that is not a problem, just information. Do not attempt to use the drivers for the 8600GT on the Nvidia website (100.14.xx) they are for older kernels and are ancient, installing these could cause your system to no longer boot. – acejavelin Nov 25 '15 at 19:34
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    Be sure to only install the correct legacy version for your card. And you need to use nomodeset until you get the correct driver installed. If any other driver installed, you must purge completely before installing correct one. http://askubuntu.com/questions/47506/how-do-i-install-additional-drivers AND: http://askubuntu.com/questions/162075/my-computer-boots-to-a-black-screen-what-options-do-i-have-to-fix-it Version:http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_32667.html – oldfred Nov 25 '15 at 19:52
  • The main problem is that I can only change the graphics card from the system settings (f2 after self test during boot up) – Alex Diviney Nov 26 '15 at 00:20
  • Also, since I am not able to fully boot up with the external graphics card i am not able to install the drivers onto it... – Alex Diviney Nov 26 '15 at 00:24

1 Answers1

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I have a GeForce GTX 860M on newer hardware that was giving me problems after installation of 14.04. My problems are a combination of video card and other unsupported hardware. I updated my kernel and driver and that has resolved most of my problems. One relevant glitch that persists is my system boots to a black screen because the nVidia driver doesn't know how to switch the output to the LCD correctly. (Solution: close lid of laptop after boot. System goes into suspend. Then, open lid and unsuspend. Video driver figures it out and login dialog appears.)

To do what I did:

  1. Get a newer kernel. It is not clear to me from your description if you need this but it is fairly safe and fully reversible. sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-vivid It will leave your original kernel in place. Make sure you have some extra free space on /boot if you are going to let Ubuntu auto-update both series of kernels. Afterwards pay attention to the kernel that GRUB selects when you boot up.
  2. Install the xorg edgers ppa and then sudo apt-get install nvidia-352. to get a newer nVidia driver. Note that 352 is not the newest release. I am using it because the newer ones have/had a bug in them that conflicted with my upgraded kernel. Feel free to try the others but you can only test one at a time. If you want to be able to go back to your previous configuration after installing this PPA be sure to read the information on the PPA page before you begin.
ChinnoDog
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  • Are you saying that performing this procedure will fix my GeForce 8600 problem? Or are you saying that it would fix a problem for a GeForce GTX 860M graphics card problem? – Alex Diviney Nov 26 '15 at 00:02
  • @AlexDiviney I'm saying it will probably fix it. I can't say for sure because I don't have an 8600 here to toy with. As the comments above indicate, you need to find the correct driver for your card but your card is supported. If it is simply too new to have working drivers present in 14.04 like mine was then using newer drivers should resolve the problem. With some luck it will be fully supported in the next version of Ubuntu out of the box. – ChinnoDog Nov 26 '15 at 00:11