Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 961895
old nvidia card with nouveau driver gives corrupt output on 3.7 and later kernel (with fix)
Last modified: 2013-06-14 07:53:30 EDT
Created attachment 746259 [details] the fix for the problem Description of problem: All 3.7 and 3.8 kernels I have tried make the display of my old laptop unusable. From the moment the graphics display start, the display is a slowly changing combination of various shades of grey. There is nothing recognizable on the display. My nVidia hardware is: # lspci | grep VGA 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 440 Go] (rev a3) The problem looks a bit like the one described in http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/tumbleweed/482510-3-7-2-18-kernel-broken-nvidia-fx5200-latest-tumbleweed-kernel-5.html, and the fix that is referred to in that thread (comment 48) works. The fix is the following changeset (also attached): http://cgit.freedesktop.org/nouveau/linux-2.6/commit/?id=6d175e8f672836711497e9deb0f3cbf77e618aff I compiled the kernel from the kernel-3.8.11-100.fc17.src.rpm sources but with this patch applied and the result is a display that just works. The unpatched 3.8.11-100.fc17 kernel does not work. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): All kernels with version >= 3.7. How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: 1.boot into such a kernel 2. 3. Actual results: Unusable display. Expected results: Usable display. Additional info: Earlier I was running Fedora 18 on the laptop. There the problem was exactly the same, so I was forced to use the latest 3.6 kernel available (from Fedora 17). I have since reinstalled the laptop with Fedora 17 and have been running the latest 3.6 kernel that I could find (3.6.11-5.fc17).
That patch went into the upstream tree as commit f6853faa85793bf23b46787e4039824d275453c2 and is contained in the 3.9 kernel release. F17 currently has 3.9.4 in updates-testing. Could you please test that kernel and let us know if it works? https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-9123/kernel-3.9.4-100.fc17
I just came back from vacation, hence the delay in answering. I upgraded the laptop to Fedora 18 and am running the 3.9.5-201 kernel. In that kernel the problem is fixed. None of the unpatched 3.7 or 3.8 kernels I had tried worked.
Thanks for letting us know.