black screen of Death booting knoppix while X loads

[bubazoo]

after the hardware detection phase, during the X startup, I keep getting the dredded "black screen of death"

my hardware:

Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0 ghz) processor
Asus N8V-VM motherboard
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS PCI-E video card

I have tried booting with cheatcodes

"knoppix xserver=XFree86"
"knoppix xserver=XF86_SVGA"
"knoppix xmodule=nv"
"knoppix screen=1024x768"
"knoppix fb1024x768"

nothing I try seems to be working. Still black screen of death. mouse don't even come up, but yet is detected during hw detection. besides, my other 3 computers on the same KVM switch, all run the same knoppix CD just fine..

I'm thinking its probably the PCI-E video card, but how would I get around this?
the hw detection detects an AGP bridge, which isn't even right, the motherboard doesn't even have an AGP slot to begin with. its got a PCI-E x1 slot, and PCI-E x16 slot. The x1 slot isn't being used, the x16 is being used by the video card.

any suggestions as to what I can try?

am using the Knoppix DVD version 5.1.1
I tried the CD version, same problem. tried a version 3 and version 4 series knoppix CD too, same problem.

I know its not a bad DVD image, because the same DVD works fine on all my other computers, even those connected to the same KVM switch, so if its not hardware related, I don't know what it could be.

thanks

[kirol]

"knoppix fb1024x768"

nothing I try seems to be working. Still black screen of death. mouse don't even come up, but yet is detected during hw detection. besides, my other 3 computers on the same KVM switch, all run the same knoppix CD just fine..

What happens when you try without the KVM ?

Also in order to use the frame-buffer, type simply "fb1024x768" at the boot prompt (it's aliased in isolinux.cfg, no need to prefix it with "knoppix")

[bubazoo]

What happens when you try without the KVM ?

still same problem. black screen loading X. its NOT the KVM. ruled that out along time ago.

Also in order to use the frame-buffer, type simply "fb1024x768" at the boot prompt (it's aliased in isolinux.cfg, no need to prefix it with "knoppix")

I did type fb1024x768 without using knoppix in front of it. still same problem.

[kirol]

its NOT the KVM. ruled that out along time ago.

Possibly. But since you hadn't bothered mentioning it in your initial post, how were we supposed to know?

Only thing I can think of trying besides what you already did is "knoppix xmodule=vesa".
Also check /etc/X11/xorg.conf to see what knoppix auto-detects. You can boot to the command-line using "knoppix 2", review/edit the file then try it with "telinit 5"

[DirkS]

Same here!

My hardware is different :
Intel mainboard,
Intel CPU (of course ),
But exactly the same video card: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS PCI-E.

The system (incl. the video card under X11!) works nicely under Sabayon 3.3 and Kubuntu 7.04, I will try some other Linuxes soon. But so far, the blackout seems to be knoppix-specific.
Some details: The system seems to boot fine (except the wrong AGP report, what the heck), then when it comes to X the screen goes completely black and a few seconds later the monitor reports "No Signal". When I hit <Ctrl><Alt><F1> it switches to the first virtual console, the monitor wakes up and everything seems fine. So it is not exactly a black screen "of death", I rather assume that knoppix misconfigures the card for X. Just FYI: No KVM switch involved (I know they can cause some mischiev but this is usually because the monitor is not recognised, causing a "safe" (= too low, e.g. 640x480) resolution).

I have not yet tried "knoppix xmodule=vesa", Maybe tomorrow. Thanks for the hint, kirol!

On the other hand, while this might work, Vesa-mode would obviously be less than optimal. And as I said, Sabayon 3.3 and Kubuntu 7.04 can drive the system just fine... hmmm... I'm quite confident that Sabayon uses an NVidia driver... but Kubuntu... no idea, it might be Vesa-mode. I'll investigate...

[DirkS]

Only thing I can think of trying besides what you already did is "knoppix xmodule=vesa".

This works, at least for me. A BIG THANK YOU, Kirol !!!

[kirol]

[This works, at least for me. A BIG THANK YOU, Kirol !!!

Hey, thank you! It's not that we crave for gratitude, but few posters take the time to report whether a suggestion helped at all!

[trashchris]

Only thing I can think of trying besides what you already did is "knoppix xmodule=vesa".

This works, at least for me. A BIG THANK YOU, Kirol !!!

hey guys thanks so much, i looked over the forums for the answer to the same issue, "xmodule=vesa" worked a treat for me too

much thanks

chris