The video card in question has died... The machine wouldn't boot at all with the video card in the machine. So I think the bug report should be retired, not so much resolved as unresolvable. I can't collect any more data on the symptoms and I can't swear the problem wasn't an early indication of hardware failure.
Thanks to all who had suggestions. I did manage to try the NVidia 430 driver before it died. It didn't work, but it had different symptoms. X wouldn't come up, but I could ctrl-alt-f1 to get to a command line and switch back to nouveau, instead of having to boot to command line. It was replaced with an even older card (GeForce 9500 GT), which also didn't work with the NVidia drivers, and had an unreliable fan, so I had to put an extra fan in the case until I got around to applying a crowbar to the notoriously tight wallet and get a brand new Radeon RX580. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to nvidia-graphics-drivers-390 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1846899 Title: X won't start at boot with either nvidia driver on GeForce GT 730 (bionic) Status in nvidia-graphics-drivers-390 package in Ubuntu: New Status in xorg-server package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: The video card is a GeForce GT 730, which worked well with Ubuntu 16.04. After changing to Xubuntu 18.04, I can only run the Nouveau driver and the lack of acceleration is quite noticeable. When I try to enable the "tested" NVidia driver (390), the system never presents a log-in prompt, I just get a colorful display of large blinking gibberish. I have to go to the boot options, go directly to root prompt, and remove the NVidia driver. This make the system usable again, but I'm back to the Nouveau driver. I get similar symptoms with version 340.107 of the NVidia driver. It's a little hard to collect debug information when I can't get to a prompt to look at log files... Suggestions are welcome. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04 Package: xorg 1:7.7+19ubuntu7.1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-29.31~18.04.1-generic 5.0.21 Uname: Linux 5.0.0-29-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.7 Architecture: amd64 CompositorRunning: None Date: Sat Oct 5 13:56:41 2019 DistUpgraded: Fresh install DistroCodename: bionic DistroVariant: ubuntu ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes GraphicsCard: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 730] [10de:0f02] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. GF108 [GeForce GT 730] [19da:8199] InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-04-13 (175 days ago) InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 18.04.2 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20190210) MachineType: System manufacturer System Product Name ProcEnviron: LANGUAGE=en_US PATH=(custom, no user) LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.0.0-29-generic root=UUID=d19b5e72-689e-4877-93dd-0d4bf5f7cc98 ro drm.debug=0xe plymouth:debug SourcePackage: xorg UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) dmi.bios.date: 09/07/2018 dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc. dmi.bios.version: 4024 dmi.board.asset.tag: Default string dmi.board.name: PRIME X470-PRO dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. dmi.board.version: Rev X.0x dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Default string dmi.chassis.type: 3 dmi.chassis.vendor: Default string dmi.chassis.version: Default string dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr4024:bd09/07/2018:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnPRIMEX470-PRO:rvrRevX.0x:cvnDefaultstring:ct3:cvrDefaultstring: dmi.product.family: To be filled by O.E.M. dmi.product.name: System Product Name dmi.product.sku: SKU dmi.product.version: System Version dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer version.compiz: compiz N/A version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.97-1ubuntu1~18.04.1 version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 19.0.8-0ubuntu0~18.04.2 version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 19.0.8-0ubuntu0~18.04.2 version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core N/A version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati N/A version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel N/A version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau N/A xserver.bootTime: Sat Oct 5 13:56:03 2019 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-390/+bug/1846899/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
