Dell Vosto 1700 and NVidia

[Van Snyder]

I have an old Dell Vostro 1700 running Debian Trixie. It has an NVidia
G86M (GeForce 8400M) graphics chip. I installed the NVidia 340 driver
(which is difficult to find).

I attached a HP 14" monitor to the VGA socket.

When I booted, it came up with side-by-side displays. I could move
windows from one to the other.

When I closed the cover and re-opened it, instead of waking up, it re-
started X, but this time with displays mirrored.

I ran nvidia-settings to move the HP monitor. It complained about not
being able to set a mode. I've tried many times since without success.

I tried running the KDE Display Settings, but that put it into a
restart-X loop.

Any ideas?

Van Snyder

[Marco Moock]

Post by Van Snyder
I installed the NVidia 340 driver

Is there a special reason to use it instead of nouveau?

[Marco Moock]

How do I switch to try nouveau instead?

Completely uninstall it.

Then reboot.
If you have problem with nouveau, tell about them and maybe they can be
fixed.

[Hans]

Try to use a configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Yes, I know, the modern drivers do not need it any more, but when you want to
force some settings, this can help.

I attach mine at this message, which was running fine so far and has all the
settings inside, you might want to use.

This file was used also with a NVidia card GF8400M.

Please note, that when you need to run with the proprietrary driver (which is
downloadable as package from debian/oldstable, you need to run an old kernel.
Otherwise the kernel module will not build.

The 340xx legacy driver is the correct one for this graphic chip.

My experiences with the nouveau driver from the kernel ended with unstability
and bad peformance.

If everything crashes, you can still run the vesa driver, but try first 340xx.

Oh yes, in the xorg.conf I send with, the driver must be named "nvidia", it is
already set.

You also need the dependend libgl-nvidia for this driver. Check the old repos
from debian.

Something else? Well, you can place the "xorg.conf" below /etc/X11/ or below /
usr/share/X11/ .

Hint: To test the xorg.conf uninstall all login-managers, like sddm, lightdm,
kdm or gdm. I suggest, just move /usr/bin/kdm, /usr/bin/gdm, /usr/bin/lightdm
and similar to another direcory, for example /root.

Then boot and test with the command "startx". If X is starting, you are good,
if not, you can see, what happens and if it starts, but hangs, you can stop X
using either CTL+C or CTR+ALT+BACKSPACE.

Hope this helps!

Good luck,

Hans

Post by Van Snyder
I have an old Dell Vostro 1700 running Debian Trixie. It has an NVidia
G86M (GeForce 8400M) graphics chip. I installed the NVidia 340 driver
(which is difficult to find).
I attached a HP 14" monitor to the VGA socket.
When I booted, it came up with side-by-side displays. I could move
windows from one to the other.
When I closed the cover and re-opened it, instead of waking up, it re-
started X, but this time with displays mirrored.
I ran nvidia-settings to move the HP monitor. It complained about not
being able to set a mode. I've tried many times since without success.
I tried running the KDE Display Settings, but that put it into a
restart-X loop.
Any ideas?
Van Snyder