Avoiding 6.3 and Nvidia Woe

joncr · Post by **joncr** » 2012/07/10 18:53:27

Having finally registered after lurking here for a long time, I want to pass on something to Nvidia card users who are trying to install 6.3:

Certain Nvidia cards i(like mine, a 550ti) in combination with 3.2 and 3.3 series kernels, will crash the system when an attempt is made to load the Nouveau driver. This manifests itself, typically, by turning your monitor screen black, putting it into sleep mode, and, more than likely, freezing up and requiring cycling the power to reboot. Not very useful.

This appears to be a kernel issue, and it happens with LiveCD's and install DVD's, too.

This did not happen to me with 6.2, but it did happen with the 6.3 install DVD. I will guess that RH backported whatever triggers this.

In any case, here is what I do to work around this:

Press as soon as the boot menu is displayed, very early on as the DVD boots.

Add "nouveau.noaccel=1 nomodeset" to the end of the kernel boot options, and continue the boot.

You'll get a usable video display and you can complete the install. (Choosing "basic video driver" at the boot menu might work for you, as well.)

Now, you should be good through Anaconda's firstboot, but you are more than likely to need to use the same kernel options until you can get the proprietary Nvidia driver installed. If memory servers, the kmod-nvidia package from el repo takes care of blacklisting nouveau.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » 2012/07/10 19:49:26

The change might be older than kernel-3.*. Fedora 15 (kernel 2.6.38-something) on HP workstation with Quadro card had similar choke events. Same Quadro cards on non-HP setups were fine. Even if it is a kernel/nouveau issue, the hardware can play a role too.

pschaff · Post by **pschaff** » 2012/07/15 14:39:03

Added a note to the [url=http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS6.3]CentOS 6.3 Release Notes[/url]. Thanks.

keithpeter · Post by **keithpeter** » 2012/07/21 18:58:15

Hello All

Glad I found this page.

I'm using a stock CentOS 6.3 install (from the live CD) with the 2.6.32-279.el6.i686 kernel and GeForce GT 520 nvidia card on a recycled HP xw6200 desktop pc.

The live cd boots fine as does the resulting desktop installation.

Enabling the elrepo repository and installing the nvidia kernel module and driver results in an interupted boot and an error message about the nouveau kernel module being resident, and no nvidia cards found.

I'm dual booting this machine with Ubuntu, so I made a 40_custom menu entry with the kernel line...

[code]linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-279.el6.i686 root=/dev/sda5 nouveau.noaccel=1 nomodeset[/code]

... and I can get a desktop with the nvidia drivers working.

Do I conclude that the nouveau module is not being blacklisted correctly?

I can post a photo of the error message when booting without the kernel line above if that would help.

pschaff · Post by **pschaff** » 2012/07/22 00:53:26

Welcome to the CentOS fora. Please see the recommended reading for new users linked in my signature.

After reading those links you should realize why you should not hijack threads as you have done. Please start a new Topic for your issue to get the attention you need, providing a link to this one if required for context.

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