Black Screen on boot after Nvidia Driver Installation

@linesma I appreciate your help, and I don’t mean to be making this difficult. This is a lot of new tools and circumstances for me, and I would be sinking without help of this forum. In general, is there some best practices for making these posts that will increase the quality in the future?

@ricklinux @manuel Sorry, it seems I neglected to post the results of that command. Here’s the results.

System:    Kernel: 5.4.72-1-lts x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux-lts root=UUID=d23990b1-6eb1-4936-95ef-4ef36fa3f55f rw quiet loglevel=3 
           nowatchdog 
           Console: tty 4 DM: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: EndeavourOS 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 7580 v: N/A serial: <superuser/root required> Chassis: type: 10 
           serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: Dell model: 04K0W3 v: A00 serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: Dell v: 1.6.0 date: 03/24/2019 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 40.1 Wh condition: 40.1/42.0 Wh (96%) volts: 12.6/11.4 model: SMP DELL Y3F7Y6B type: Li-ion 
           serial: 19118 status: Full 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-8565U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Kaby Lake family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) 
           stepping: B (11) microcode: D6 L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 31999 
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 400/4600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 801 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3ea0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX250] vendor: Dell driver: N/A alternate: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1d13 
           Device-3: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-6:4 chip ID: 0c45:671f 
           Display: server: X.org 1.20.9 driver: nvidia tty: 240x67 
           Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           alternate: snd_sof_pci bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9dc8 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.72-1-lts 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Dell driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 
           bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 6c:2b:59:70:7c:d0 
           Device-2: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 8086:2526 
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: 36:8d:83:cb:a1:e2 
           Device-3: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 Bluetooth Adapter type: USB driver: btusb bus ID: 1-10:5 chip ID: 8087:0025 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 535.67 GiB used: 7.02 GiB (1.3%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: PC SN520 NVMe WDC 512GB size: 476.94 GiB block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B 
           speed: 15.8 Gb/s lanes: 2 serial: 184353447702 rev: 20200012 scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Glide size: 58.73 GiB block size: physical: 512 B 
           logical: 512 B serial: 4C530000091008117410 rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 476.64 GiB size: 468.16 GiB (98.22%) used: 7.02 GiB (1.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Swap:      Alert: No Swap data was found. 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Info:      Processes: 148 Uptime: 5m Memory: 7.50 GiB used: 217.2 MiB (2.8%) Init: systemd v: 246 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 
           Packages: pacman: 799 lib: 230 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: tty 4 inxi: 3.1.08 

This is the output of journalctl | grep -i "oct 27" | grep -i nvidia

Oct 27 07:14:29 skyedev systemd-udevd[290]: Error running install command '/bin/false' for module nvidia: retcode 1
Oct 27 07:14:29 skyedev systemd-udevd[290]: Error running install command '/bin/false' for module nvidia: retcode 1

Naturally, my logs have a lot of information, so I imagine its best to grep for whats useful. What other information can I provide?

Hello @GeekTea
Thank you for providing the some information.

Could you post the output of the following.

nvidia-installer-check 

Edit: What desktop is curently installed?

@GeekTea
This process will take a little time so bare with us. We need to go through certain steps and without certain information it makes it difficult. Providing exactly what is asked for will make it easier. If there is anything you don’t understand please ask. Sometimes myself or others require additional assistance also.

Edit: You have hybrid graphics Intel i915 (HD 620) and Nvidia MX250 which takes the 450.xx series drivers. Looks like you have the lts kernels installed. Do you have both kernels installed or just the lts?

> nvidia-installer-check
Your graphics card (id: 1d13) is supported by the nvidia-dkms driver.
To install a driver for this card, you can use nvidia-installer-dkms.

I had run nvidia-installer-dkms at an earlier point in the process, which returned no errors at the time.

I have both kernels installed. I believe had accidentally installed the lts kernel as part of this process, but all my steps after this has been aimed to the lts kernal, i.e. running commands like sudo pacman -S linux-lts-headers. I imagine the LTS kernel is fine?

As for your question about the desktop, I’m unsure. After Xorg boots, it should start up i3-wm. My monitor is usually the dell laptop monitor, but normal use I use HDMI to mirror to my Acer 1920x1080 60Hz monitor. I have no particular reason to use lightdm, its just what got installed with EOS.

I really do appreciate the help. I’m learning, so that’s awesome.

Okay so I’m assuming you installed the online version and it is I3 that you installed only? Correct?

That is correct. I installed EOS with general tools, I3, and nvidia tools. The first thing I’ve done since then is try to install Nvidia drivers (no customization since I didn’t want to wipe the drive and redo it if the nvidia step failed).

Okay so i assume when you boot up into the regular kernel you get a black screen and this also happens when you boot to the lts kernel?

What i would like to do is boot into the regular kernel and if you get the black screen can you switch to the TTY and log in as root?

Edit: If you are able to do that i would like to run the nvidia installer in test mode. Then post the total output of what it shows.

nvidia-installer-dkms -t

Alright, I’m in the regular kernel and logged in as root

Please run

nvidia-installer-dkms -t

Post the output

2020-10-27 08:50:13 [INFO]: e[92mEndeavourOS Nvidia Installer v3.3.8e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:13 [INFO]: e[92mAll logs will be stored in /tmp/nvidia-installer.loge[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:13 [INFO]: e[92mRunning the installer in testing mode...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:13 [INFO]: e[92mUpdating Nvidia graphics cards database...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:13 [INFO]: e[92mnvidia-installer-update-db --tmpdbe[0m
Fetching NVIDIA graphics card ids from nvidia.com ...
Adding NVIDIA graphics card ids to a temporary local database.
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mInstalling nvidia-dkms driver...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mRemoving conflicting packages...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mpacman -Rs --noconfirm --noprogressbar --nodeps nvidia-ltse[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mDownloading and installing driver packages, please wait as this may take a few minutes...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mpacman -Sqy --noconfirm --noprogressbar nvidia-dkms libvdpau nvidia-settings lib32-nvidia-utils lib32-libvdpaue[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mUnpatching /usr/share/applications/nvidia-settings.desktop...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92m/usr/bin/sed -i s|Exec=optirun -b none /usr/bin/nvidia-settings -c :8|Exec=/usr/bin/nvidia-settings| /usr/share/applications/nvidia-settings.desktope[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mCreating /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf file...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:50:15 [INFO]: e[92mInstallation finished. Nothing has been modified as testing mode was ON.e[0m

Note: I couldn’t run this as root. I had to log out to my user account at run it

Okay now try

sudo nvidia-installer-dkms

See if it finishes and then

sudo systemctl reboot

Ran it, and reboot. No dice, same black screen. Heres the log from sudo nvidia-installer-dkms &> log

INFO:root:e[92mRemoving /tmp/nvidia-installer_r.log file...e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mEndeavourOS Nvidia Installer v3.3.8e[0m
2020-10-27 08:53:48 [INFO]: e[92mEndeavourOS Nvidia Installer v3.3.8e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mAll logs will be stored in /tmp/nvidia-installer_r.loge[0m
2020-10-27 08:53:48 [INFO]: e[92mAll logs will be stored in /tmp/nvidia-installer_r.loge[0m
INFO:root:e[92mUpdating Nvidia graphics cards database...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:53:48 [INFO]: e[92mUpdating Nvidia graphics cards database...e[0m
Fetching NVIDIA graphics card ids from nvidia.com ...
Database is already up-to-date.
INFO:root:e[92mInstalling nvidia-dkms driver...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:53:50 [INFO]: e[92mInstalling nvidia-dkms driver...e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mRemoving conflicting packages...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:53:50 [INFO]: e[92mRemoving conflicting packages...e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mDownloading and installing driver packages, please wait as this may take a few minutes...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:53:56 [INFO]: e[92mDownloading and installing driver packages, please wait as this may take a few minutes...e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mUnpatching /usr/share/applications/nvidia-settings.desktop...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:56:11 [INFO]: e[92mUnpatching /usr/share/applications/nvidia-settings.desktop...e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mCreating /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf file...e[0m
2020-10-27 08:56:11 [INFO]: e[92mCreating /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf file...e[0m
INFO:root:e[92mInstallation finished. You need to reboot now!e[0m
2020-10-27 08:56:11 [INFO]: e[92mInstallation finished. You need to reboot now!e[0m

That’s fine. It looks like it installed properly. So now if you installed inxi and if not install it first.

sudo pacman -S --needed inxi

Then run

inxi -Gxxc0

> inxi -Gxxc0
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3ea0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX250] vendor: Dell driver: nvidia v: 455.28 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1d13 
           Device-3: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-6:4 chip ID: 0c45:671f 
           Display: server: X.org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting,nvidia tty: 240x67 
           Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display 

edit:
When I run inxi -G --display, I get…
Message: No advanced graphics data found on this system.

Okay so now the Nvidia is installed properly. It shows nvidia 455.28 driver version. So now i am going to ask for some more assistance from @manuel or @joekamprad as it is installed properly. I’m not as familiar with the i3 window manager.

You can try this

sudo systemctl enable lightdm

sudo systemctl start lightdm

Tell me what happens.

Ran those commands, after running systemctl start I get taken to that black screen with the blinking cursor. So, I doubt this is an i3 issue, it look like a failure for lightdm to start.

sudo systemctl status lightdm
● lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2020-10-27 09:09:41 PDT; 12s ago
       Docs: man:lightdm(1)
    Process: 1072 ExecStart=/usr/bin/lightdm (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 1072 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Oct 27 09:09:41 skyedev systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Oct 27 09:09:41 skyedev systemd[1]: Stopped Light Display Manager.
Oct 27 09:09:41 skyedev systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Oct 27 09:09:41 skyedev systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Oct 27 09:09:41 skyedev systemd[1]: Failed to start Light Display Manager.

And thank you for your help! @ricklinux

Follow what @joekamprad tells you to do now as he is the expert on the I3 and Nvidia. We have it installed now.

I do not read all the thread…
So may already done or someone ask already…
if yes it is optimus hybrid system intel+nvidia and nvidia chip is supported by latest nvidia driver, then:

  • simple have both drivers installed (nvidia and xf86-video-intel)
  • choose optimus-manager if you want this and install it (if you want to switch)
  • make sure you have checked bios/efi/firmware settings to be setup as you want it it could have settings to run only nvidia or only intel or disable/enable gpu management at all.
  • it can be that you need to remove :
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

It is installed now correctly with nvidia-installer-dkms. Has Intel i915 (HD620) and Nvidia MX250 but boots to black screen on i3.