how do i restore default video driver - screen is not legible

Asked by ebrown

1) updated to release 7.10
2) accepted option to use nvidia driver
3) refresh rate and resolution not as good as generic video driver
4) attempted to restore default video driver
5) now screen is not legible - i am lost!

thanks in advance for any help you offer.

ebrown

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Ubuntu Edit question
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Solved by:
Gabriel Bauman
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Best Gabriel Bauman (gabrielbauman) said :
#1

Here are some steps that might help you:

1. Reboot.
2. When the 'countdown' appears, press escape to enter the GRUB boot menu.
3. Select 'Recovery Mode' and press enter.

You will end up at a terminal prompt.

4. Type "dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg". You will see a series of questions about your display. Answer them conservatively! When you get to the "driver" question, select "nv", not "nvidia", just to be safe.

5. Type "reboot". This time, don't use recovery mode.

With any luck, you'll get to a graphical login this way. Let me know!

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Dan Smith (bytesandbolts) said :
#2

Hey!
Cheers for that mate! The problem I had was I installed Ubuntu and then installed the Nvidia Drivers, but after the reboot the screen could'nt be displayed? It was coming up with a resolution error from the monitor. Went into recovery mode and typed what you put. Rebooted and worked straight away!

Thanks again

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ebrown (kg4tuf) said :
#3

Thanks Zin Slan, that solved my question.

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ebrown (kg4tuf) said :
#4

Thanks again.

I am typing this message on the computer that was "broken". Following your advice I was conservative with answers, however I was not presented with the driver question you mentioned.

Another question. Now I can set the display resolution to 1024 x 768, 800 x 600 or 640 x 480 but am only offered a refresh rate of 61 Hz. Although this is acceptable I would like a higher refresh rate. Is there a simple way to accomplish this. The vidio card is a MSI with Nvidia 7600GS chipset.

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Gabriel Bauman (gabrielbauman) said :
#5

If the monitor is an LCD flat panel, refresh rates tend to be lower. Since LCDs don't flicker like CRTs, low refresh rates don't matter too much.

Since I don't know what answers you used during the reconfiguration, I can't really give you an exact reason for your low refresh rate. It could be one of two things:

 1. You answered the questions too conservatively, and your settings have limited your refresh rate;

or,

 2, Your card has limited video RAM and can't support a higher rate.

If you want, try doing the whole procedure again. If you're asked questions about "Amount of Video Ram", leave the field blank.

If you want to try this with even more detail, you could do 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' without the -phigh option. This will give you a whole lot of extra questions; if you aren't sure about how to answer them, use the default answers.

Since we know it was a monitor resolution problem, not a video driver problem, you should choose the 'nvidia' driver, not the 'nv' driver I recommended in the original fix.

Again, good luck!