How to fix ubuntu 10.04 LTS (lucid) blank Screen at startup

This seems to be happening with nVidia graphic cards to fix this problem try to use the following solution i hope this would help

Solution1

I have a HP Pavilion SLimline s7727c

with lspci giving me

VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 [GeForce 6150 LE] (rev a2)

I was getting a blank screen (out of sync) on booting from the live cd.

I worked around the problem as follows:

* At install screen press F6 and select nomodeset and install Ubuntu as usual.
* On first boot after install, press e on getting the GRUB bootloader.
* Using arrow keys navigate to and delete quiet and splash and type the word nomodeset in their place
* Press Ctrl and X to boot
* You should now be able to login to your Ubuntu as usual

For those of you who do not know what to do next, in the taskbar click on System->Administration->Hardware drivers, and select and activate the nvidia current driver if you have an nvidia card like I do. The driver will be downloaded and activated automatically, and you will be prompted for a reboot.

Solution 2

Yes, I think you may be right about it being a graphics card problem. I think you may have the same problem that I did on my beat-up old Toshiba Satellite A10.

So, here is what should work:

At the very first screen, the one with just the rectangle (it's meant to be a keyboard) and a human figure, press any key -- spacebar will do.

Then choose your language.

Then make sure you have "Try Ubuntu without any changes" selected, and then press F6

Add this to the end of the command line:

i915.modeset=0 xforcevesa

Then press enter and it should boot successfully.

Solution 3

1. Boot from the Ubuntu 9.10 CD
2. Mount the internal HD and look for /etc/X11/xorg.conf -- its missing!
3. Copy a new "known good" xorg.conf file to the HD (I had to use sudo cp ... otherwise I got permission problems)
4. System boots fine.

Thanks to ubuntuforum user for this solution

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81 Responses

  1. Rafael says:

    Excelent post!
    I’m having the same issue. When I get back home I’m going to try that.

    Greetings and thanks!

  2. ruffneckc says:

    I have this issue with my Dell 700m laptop and Lucid but it’s running an older Intel Extreme Graphics 855 GM chip. I will try this when I get home though – Thanks for posting.

  3. Antonis says:

    Hello

    I have the same problem and I must say it is very very annoying!!

    I already tried what you suggested but with no luck! The problem remains and I don’t know what to do! Any other suggestions or ideas?

    Thank you!

  4. pazuzuthewise says:

    The same problem on Acer Aspire 5530G, with Ati Radeon 3470.
    Problem persists also in Kubuntu and Xubuntu.
    By installing the fglrx driver (from ubuntu repo), the splash screen can be seen and it’s functional, despite it’s graphics being still corrupted (but the corruption is lesser).
    Also, before installing fglrx, the pc couldn’t reboot – after that it did.

  5. Tom says:

    I got a window message entitled
    Installation failed:
    The installer encountered an unrecoverable error. A desktop session will new be run so that you may investigate the problem or try installing again.
    Ok button

    I pressed the Ok button and it then proceeded to boot up into the Live CD environment as desired.

    There was no language selection available and no messages with alternatives – a very poorly planned Live CD IMHO.

  6. DonMega says:

    YES!!! the second solution works perfect if you have that issue when installing from live CD! Works even with Intel chipset graphic cards!! So post it for Intel cards as well!! THANKS YOUR THE BOMB!!

  7. DonMega says:

    In ADDICTION Put CD in drive reboot follow second solution immediately don’t wait for it to complete load or you’ll be stuck again….. 😉

  8. Heylouiz says:

    The first solution work for me!
    I have a nvidia card (9600gt)
    Keep doing a good job with this helpfull blog.

    Thanks from Brazil and sorry for any fault in my english 😛

  9. Clint says:

    I have a Compaq Presario M2000 which had the blank screen problem. Solution 2 fixed that problem and worked perfectly.

    Many thanks.

  10. Lynx says:

    Hi. This not working for my laptop HP Pavilion dv6 with core i7 and NVidia. Can you explain what is i915.modeset? May be I need other value.

  11. Walton says:

    I am having the same problem on an HP laptop with nvidia cards.

    The above solutions don’t work – it won’t even boot off the live cd.

    After 5 years, I have had enough of this. This is the end of my relationship with Ubuntu.

    I am downloading OpenSUSE now.

  12. Ruben says:

    Hey,

    This seems to be a big issue, but nobody really cares in filing bug reports to get the attention it needs.

    BUG REPORT:
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/572868

    If this is, in fact, the bug you’re encountering, otherwise file a new bugreport

  13. Rob says:

    Using nomodeset worked perfectly with the live cd- now how to go about fixing the problem after the install and booting from hard disk with no grub screen?

  14. ringonian says:

    i upgraded from synaptic in karmic so i have no cd. i’m not sure what what the 2nd solution would do for me. i did boot into failsafe mode and i did notice my xorg.config was missing (3rd solution), so i copied the xorg.conf-dist-upgrade and the xorg.conf-backup to xorg.conf without any luck. but this was after i played around with the failsafe mode settings; generating a new configuration and possibly overwriting my original backup xorg.conf file. i did try solution 1 by pressing e at the grub menu ctrl-x doesn’t do anything. i’m gonna search around and see if there other solutions.

  15. ringonian says:

    ok, so i forgot to mention i’m using an intel 955 video card which interesting enough uses the i915 driver. so it’s not exclusive to nVidia. I finally got it fixed from this link: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/539533

    before you try it, make sure you actually using the i915 driver by typing “lsmod | grep i915

    then rename the intel_drv.so as described in the link. bootup was pretty slow and plymouth did flash for a few seconds but it finally booted up to the login screen.

  16. fossil says:

    i can’t get my video card work fine!!! help please, when i install the nvidia driver from “hardware drivers” it installs fine, but when i restart the computer the screen crashes! and i get a message “failed to load module nvidia”

  17. Rob says:

    Update: Solutions 1 & 2 worked like a charm after realizing that holding shift brings up Grub menu. Enjoying a fast, clean Lucid install!

  18. Mike says:

    Thought I would mention, this article sort of helped me, clued me in. I’m a windows guy, thought I would try ubuntu on my alienware M17X laptop. It has some form of discreet Nvidia graphics. I ended up going into the BIOS and disabling the Hybrid Graphics AND the integrated graphics. Then in the ubuntu installer, I hit F6 like Solution 2 says, BUT I did the checkbox for nomodeset, and I typed in xforcevesa. That has gotten me to a desktop.

  19. oswaldo says:

    Hi
    I have a Dell Inspiron 1520 with nVidia video card and I solved de problem with the first solution Here

    Tanks for the tip

  20. Bruce Wagner says:

    I had so many problems following these instructions… But finally… I found out what worked.

    Here is my experience: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9317844&postcount=88

  21. jan says:

    thanks for this. your second solution worked for my case. i could not get to install lucid on an asus k501 with an nvidia g102m card because the screen just hangs. forcing it as vesa at least allows installation and setting up to get the nvidia driver.

  22. Aaron says:

    Great advice! Solution 1 worked for me.

    IMPORTANT: If you only have one OS installed, GRUB will not show by default. After the POST check, press and hold shift before continuing with solution 1 (thanks Rob).

  23. Ken says:

    Thanks much for the advice. Solution 1 worked for me too.

  24. Tenkely says:

    I too am running 10.04 on a Toshiba Satellite A10. Solution 2 worked for me, but should I do something now that it is installed and running, like enable drivers or something? Or am I not able to use the manufacturers driver at all?

  25. Omar Lekphet says:

    The First Step really works.

  26. Bragaadeesh says:

    Well,

    Ubuntu 10.04 LTS version has a big hole and it would be nicer if a quick-fix upgrade is released sooner instead of the nasty fixes which works for some and not for the others.
    I have spent the past two three days hoping the work arounds listed here works only in vain in the process crashing my existing OS.

  27. Ivy says:

    Thanks!

    I had the same problem and got it solved with Fix #2. It seems there’s some kind of problem with Toshiba Satellite video cards (I have a Toshiba Satellite A50)

  28. ketan says:

    hey bro,

    i am having the same problem after i upgraded to lucid 10.04. i am running x86_64 on nvidia 8400 graphics card. the problem with me is that there is no display at all. no bios, no grub, no ubuntu desktop, nor windows. i ve tried running live cd. totally helpless.

    however i can login to command line via cntrl+alt+f3.
    i ve tried above but no use. can you pl help me. its been a month i ve not logged into my machine and thats really driving me crazy.

  29. Mark says:

    You BISCUIT!! Option 2 on an ASUS A6000 did the trick.

    I must admit also adding – noapic irqpoll noirqdebug to the command line – Thanks for help – Cheers

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