Pop Feed Daily

Home / news

How to use NVIDIA GTX 970 GPU? [duplicate]

Chloe Ramirez |

I have NVIDIA GTX 970 GPU, which is pretty new chip and it is not recognized by nouveau driver shipped with Ubuntu 14.10, hence I am stuck on 1024x768 resolution on Full HD monitor - not so good. There is no proprietary driver in Additional Drivers setting, so I decided to download and install driver directly from NVIDIA web site.

I tried to install NVIDIA driver exactly like I did ten years ago on Slackware:

$ sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-343.36.run

but it says, that it must be run without X Server running. Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or combination with any other F? key) takes me to the black screen and only thing I can do then is to return back to X by Alt+F7.

My next step was to tune GRUB to boot into pure text mode. I edited /etc/default/grub to have:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"

After

$ sudo update-grub

and reboot, system hangs during boot on some video mode stuff.

My question is: how to run a pure VGA text mode? No famebuffer, no fancy splash, just pure ASCII 80x24 text? I need it only once, just to install NVIDIA driver and have 1920x1080 screen resolution.

PS

I also tried to install NVIDIA driver from Ubuntu repository:

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-331

No success, it made my system unusable with graphics totally messed up.

1

5 Answers

Nvidia 343.22 added support for GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980. It's not available in the official repositories.

This repository is meant to be used only for testing, not on daily basis, please make sure to read the following link to understand the risk.

and follow the instruction on the above link as this PPA clearly states that no installation instructions shall be given for this PPA outside of their website!

Source

4

I had the same problem as you and, I found out the only way to fix this problem was to install the third-party driver and then config blacklist option. Then you can remove the third-party driver and install the official driver from Nvidia. I recommend the beta since it has better support, but if you want you can use, the 343 instead of 346 beta. Both worked fine for me.

This worked fine for my MSI Gaming GTX 970 4G. The NVIDIA .run file can be found in at:

  • for 343.36 --
  • for 346.22 --

Installation Guide

  1. This is only for getting the system running ready for the .run installation so it doesn't go to a black screen when you try to enter tty, also known as CLI mode.

    Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open the terminal and run the following commands:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-343
sudo reboot

  2. Remove or disable the ppa:Xorg-edgers/ppa repository from /etc/apt/sources.list

  3. Install build essential compiler, dmks, gcc and leafpad for editing and gksu for graphical applications. 

    sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential dmks gcc gksu leafpad

  4. Configure blacklist for the NVIDIA.run driver

    Command for leafpad:

    gksu leafpad /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

    The required listing at the bottom of the blacklist.conf file:

    blacklist amd76x_edac
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv

  5. Go into tty or console terminal shell:

    Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and login using your credentials.

    Command to remove nvidia: (if needed, recommended when updating or else you have 2 NVIDIA drivers resulting in a system black screen or sometimes a hardware fail.)

    sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*

    Do not reboot after this step.

  6. Command to stop lightdm: (required) 

    sudo service lightdm stop

    Command to get to your Downloads folder: (or wherever you put it. I recommend at your home folder, then the following command is unnecessary.) 

    cd ~/Downloads

  7. Command for changing the permissions of the NVIDIA installer so that the installer will run: 

    chmod u+x [Nvidia installer here].run

  8. Enter run level 3 by typing: (Graphical driver install might need this. You need it in Fedora and most Linux distros.)

    sudo init 3

  9. Install your Nvidia-driver*.run file. 

    sudo ./[Nvidia installer here].run or sudo sh [Nvidia installer here].run

    Accept the license and all other programs and code that it will install, especially 32-bit lib and start installation.

  10. Restart lightdm

    sudo service lightdm start

    to test if all still works.

  11. Reboot

    sudo reboot

Now, check in System -> Preferences -> NVIDIA X Server Settings.

I tried this myself on 4 computers, and it also works with Fedora, but some commands must be changed. It worked fine for me and my friends.

8

Using the .run file will crash your system. Just install the package 

sudo apt-get install nvidia-331

The "Additional Drivers" menu can't recognise a lot of hardware so that means nothing. The Ctrl+Alt+F1 should have been working. It is a separate problem for you to solve after you deal with drivers.

1

I tried sudo-apt get install nvidia-331 (and nvidia-current) on my Asus laptop with the 970M, but those drivers do not yet recognize this GPU. So it left my system running in low-res mode, even after removing the packages. I plan to try running the installer:

Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get into console mode.

sudo service lightdm stop

Then run the package.

0

I was getting a blank screen in a laptop with a 970m, Ubuntu 14.10.

I had installed the nvidia .run driver file and to get rid off a blank screen hang on boot I had to add nomodeset to kernel boot options. I just downloaded the driver from nvidia and installed it from a text terminal with:

sudo service lightdm stop (kill x server)
cd ~/Downloads
chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run
sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-346.35.run

You Might Also Like