When NVIDIA stops working and doesn't stand to its name.

[edbarx]

In Wheezy, I found that when NVIDIA stops working for some reason, in my case, for emulated hardware failure, there is a very simple workaround which restored X to function. This is by renaming or moving the:

Code: Select all

 /etc/X11/xorg.conf

OR

Code: Select all

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

The CLI commands must be issued as root as follows:

a) Kill the X server:

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/your-display-manager stop

In my case, your-display-manager is lightdm. It might be kdm, gdm*, etc depending on which display manager you installed.

b) Move or rename the culprit:

Code: Select all

mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /home/your-user-name

Code: Select all

mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf /home/your-user-name

Or rename the file to disable it:

Code: Select all

mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/disabled_xorg.conf

c) Restart the x server:

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/your-display-manager start

In my case it worked until I discovered it was dust that was causing the video card to malfunction. After disconnecting the card, I removed the dust with a paintbrush while I held the contact area with my fingers not to allow static electricity to build up. I removed shoes and placed my bare foot on the ground to make a good earth connection.

If you do this procedure make sure to do it while your body is earthed, otherwise you may damage the card.

[edbarx]

Dust aggravated the problem as I later found it was failing video RAM causing the trouble. As the card needed replacement, I attempted the impossible: I tried to remove half the RAM chips expecting the GPU to automatically configure itself to use less RAM but got instead extremely corrupted video.