Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 818291
Newer kernels boot to black screen, NVIDIA GeForce 7050
Last modified: 2013-02-13 07:50:34 EST
Description of problem: Kernel image 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64 boots fine. Anything newer and the display fails, giving me only a black screen. Trying to switch to a text terminal with ctrl+alt+Fkeys has no apparent effect. So, there's no way to log in locally (thus the "high" severity). Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Kernel image 3.3.2-6.fc16.x86_64 is known to fail. (Other recent updates also fail, but I haven't kept track of exactly the first one to fail. Sorry. When a new images came out in rapid succession, I assumed that one of them was going to fix the problem, and just applied them.) How reproducible: Try to boot from kernel image newer than 3.1.0-7.fc16.x86_64. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Start computer 2. Let GRUB default to newest kernel image 3. ??? 4. Profit! Actual results: Black screen. (No "X". No cursor. No TTYs.) Expected results: Twinkly Fedora logo on calming blue background. Additional info: Comparison of messages and Xorg.0.log from a successful and a failed boot show almost no differences. There are no unique errors reported when display fails. (Meaning, there are errors in the logs, but they occur during successful boots, too.) Oddly, a failing kernel image detects an HDMI connector, but no DVI. A working kernel image detects a DVI connector, but no HDMI. However, while there is an HDMI connector present, there is *not* a DVI connector, and, for added fun, the monitor is actually connected to a D-SUB connector. Some logs available. Let me know what might be useful.
Created attachment 581763 [details] Messages from failing boot
Created attachment 581764 [details] Messages from successful boot
Created attachment 581765 [details] Xorg.0.log from failing boot
Created attachment 581766 [details] Xorg.0.log from successful boot
This may be related to: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=806091 The attached failing log includes lines about the HDMI port, while the working log doesn't.
Created attachment 585325 [details] dmesg output from a successful boot
Created attachment 585326 [details] dmesg output from a failing boot
Hi, I have seen this problem too with F16 (64 bit) and still have the problem with the latest Fedora 17 64-bit, including all updates. During boot or at least within 5 minutes I get a black screen. There is no way out other than to reboot. Ctrl-Alt-Delete sometimes works. It also happened during install/upgrade with Anaconda. I have a GeForce GT220. It doesn't matter if I use the HDMI, DVI or both outputs. My only workaround is to install the driver from nvidia.com. I have to re-install it after every kernel update. When I boot in text mode I have a few minutes more before the system freezes to a black screen. Just enough to install the driver from nvidia.com. regards, Erwin Waterlander
Erwin: you have a card of a completely different generation, and therefore your bug is very unlikely to be the same as Mike's. 'It boots to a black screen' is a very generic symptom and is a very poor indicator that two bugs are the same bug. There have been, over the years, thousands of completely different bugs for which the symptom was 'it boots to a black screen'. Especially since in your case, apparently, it doesn't really *boot* to a black screen, but somehow winds up at one shortly after boot. Please file a separate bug, with all information requested at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Xorg_problems . Thanks.
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Fedora 16 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2013-02-12. Fedora 16 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.