ubuntu and graphic driver problem :(

[luv2liv]

i have the nvidia 8500 gt.
after installing ubuntu, it prompted me to install the card driver. so was good when i was seeing fancy animations of the windows being dragged and everything.

next thing i know, the OS freezes. the screen locked up on me. some parts look like it was smeared. silly me... i tried to alt ctrl del, that didnt work. i had to restart the machine.
any idea?
should i just get another graphic card? is my card supported?

 

[Nothinman]

I haven't had a chance to mess with any 8xxx series hardware but they've been out long enough that I can't believe they don't work. From what you describe I would first start looking at a hardware issue like heat.

 

[EQTitan]

Did you use the Ubuntu repository drivers for the card or the actual drivers listed on Nvidia's site? I had the same thing happen and I had to use the restricted driver provided by Ubuntu repositories.

BTW just a useful tip instead of restarting your system just do CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE (restarts x-server same as system restart)

 

[OUCaptain]

I thinks i heard something about an issue with the 8xxx cards at the Ubuntu forums. Enough talk that I saw a noob get scolded for bringing it up.

 

[Markbnj]

Would ctrl-alt-backspace work to kill X so you can get a shell and edit the xorg.conf file to load the vesa driver, or something along those lines? All ctrl-alt-del does on my Debian system is bring up a little box that asks whether I want to see task manager or log out. Not sure how Ubuntu handles it, but since the graphics are messed up that wouldn't do you much good .

 

[IEC]

I remember the weirdest issue I had with Ubuntu 7.10 was that I could have it nuke the xorg.conf file (as in completely disappear) by installing the restricted driver for my X850 XT. I might have to try out 8.04 and see if it fixed anything

 

[luv2liv]

i used the repository drivers n thats when it happened after the reboot.
anyways, so far it hasnt freezed up again. so far, so good...

 

[Adn4n]

Just have ENVY install it for you.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: Adn4n
Just have ENVY install it for you.

^ +1

I used Envy to install my recent ATI driver when the current driver gave me problems. The 2 previous versions I installed manually.