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I recently upgraded my machine from 12.04LTS to 14.04LTS and discovered that my resolution is stuck at 800x600; the Display setting does not show any other resolution available. I strongly suspect that a faulty video driver is at fault since I tried loading an application that draws 3D objects and it runs ridiculously slow.

I have currently tried the following:

  1. Force a higher resolution via GRUB: didn't seem to do anything
  2. Install nvidia-340 from xorg-edgers: no change, and it seemed to have changed multiple modules to the version from this ppa
  3. Use the Additional Drivers setting to install other drivers: tried all of the drivers listed and none of them worked: 340.96 352.63 352.79 355.11 358.16 361.45.11 364.19 Noeveau (some of them are proprietary and others open-source)
  4. Reset xorg.conf: when the OS upgraded to 14.04LTS it automatically backed up the original file but did not create a new one. I have experimented with creating a blank file but that doesn't change anything.

At this point I'm at a loss as to what else there is to try.

Command outputs that might be helpful:

username:~$ sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a; xrandr
  *-display UNCLAIMED     
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       version: a2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:fa000000-faffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:d000(size=128) memory:fb000000-fb07ffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:   trusty
Linux psych-lab-va-linux 3.13.0-87-generic #133-Ubuntu SMP Tue May 24 18:32:09 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 800 x 600, current 800 x 600, maximum 800 x 600
default connected primary 800x600+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   800x600        75.0* 
username:~$ lspci -k | grep -EA2 'VGA|3D'
04:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti] (rev a2)
    Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device 3753
04:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0fbc (rev a1)

UPDATE

After reviewing the Xorg log files I realized that it was trying to load the nvidia driver but couldn't because it couldn't be found, so I followed this answer and rebooted. It didn't solve the problem, but at least I got a different problem; I can get to the login screen, but I encounter a login loop after entering the credentials. The Xorg log file shows that the nvidia driver is loaded but gives an error: "Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module". I've tried the debugging steps for a login loop (checking Xauthority and /tmp) but nothing has worked. modprobe nvidia-352 returns with no errors.

Community
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Setsu
  • 131

2 Answers2

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You might try moving/backing up your xorg.conf, or monitors.xml files to see if a rebuild corrects them. There are quite a few changes to X and the desktop environment between the long-term releases.

mv ~/.config/monitors.xml ~/.config/monitors.xml.old
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.old

Additionally, if that doesn't work - try making sure your nvidia drivers are above 334 (the version where the GTX 750 was supported). The oldest "stable" release related to the card is the 340 version. 352 is pretty common as well, and 361 is cutting edge. The graphics repoistory ppa has 367 in it, which I wouldn't recommend.

  1. Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to drop to a console.
  2. sudo service lightdm stop
  3. sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
  4. sudo apt-get install nvidia-340
  5. If your motherboard has onboard intel graphics additionally install nvidia-prime (That's the package name)
  6. sudo shutdown -r now

You may also want to look into blacklisting nouveau. A google search will tell you how to do that.

Jared Starkey
  • 119
  • I don't have either xorg.conf or monitors.xml so I skipped that step. I removed all the extra ppa's and installed 340 like you described, as well as blacklisting nouveau using this post. I later tried 352 as well, but I'm still stuck with 800x600. – Setsu Jun 03 '16 at 19:07
  • @setsu, When you run nvidia-settings, does it show that you're using the nvidia card as your GPU?

    Also, can you paste the output from xrandr

     – Jared Starkey Jun 03 '16 at 19:40
  • nvidia-settings only shows application profiles and its own general settings. xrndr shows the same "failed to get size of gamma for output default" message as posted above. But I later thought about whether the driver was being loaded and checked Xorg's log file and it wasn't! Will update main post – Setsu Jun 03 '16 at 20:48
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After many hours of trying all options I still couldn't get anywhere, so I tried booting from a live USB.

It displayed perfectly, using nouveau no less.

So I went ahead and reinstalled Ubuntu and now everything is fine. Sometimes upgrading from LTS to LTS just doesn't work it seems.

Setsu
  • 131