[mythtv-users] Zotac ION / no video using DVI/HDMI and nvidia driver

[Nick F]

Thanks for all the ideas....

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Paul Gallaway <pgallaway at gmail.com> wrote:

> I can think of a few scenarios that your hardware checks may not have
> covered. Have you tried taking it back to your monitor to see if it
> /still/ works there?


yup - plugged the HDMI into the monitor - and desktop was there in all its
1080p glory


> Have you tried a different input on the TV
> (assuming it has more than one HDMI input)?


yes - I have two HDMI inputs - it's the same result on both.  And same
result if I connect the DVI out to either HDMI port.  Interestingly enough
the TV is picking up that there is a signal and shows on the OSD -
1080x1020p 60HZ.  And if I try another resolution in xorg (from the EDID) it
will reflect that resolution on the OSD - just blank screens in all cases
which suggests the card and TV are definitely speaking to each other.


> Does your Mac Mini still
> work on the TV (I think you did this to look up the modeline but it
> wasn't explicitly clear)?


Yes - mac mini (its the older Core Duo model) connected to the TV with the
DVI connected to the HDMI input.  Works fine, and drives the TV at 1080p.
 So the TV is clearly capable of accepting a digital signal from a computer.
 Before I install the nvidia drivers and are running with just the VESA
drivers - the nvidia card works just fine on the TV as well.

Have you tried VGA/component (assuming the
> Ion boards and your TV have either of those)?


Yes- VGA works...it didn't drive at 1080p initially because the nvidia card
wasn't reading the EDID.  But taking the EDIDs that I was picking up from
the HDMI connection and putting them in xorg.conf meant that VGA works fine.
 But I really need HDMI audio working since that was one of my primary
reasons for picking up an ION.


> Have you done anything
> in particular to enable HDMI audio?


Initially all I needed to do on Ubuntu 9.04 was go into alsamixer, unmute
one of the digital outs, and everything 'just worked'


> If there's something special to do
> focus on getting just the video working and leave audio out for now.


Agreed.  I reinstalled 9.04 from scratch and left everything bog-standard
except for the nvidia drivers.  I also tried 8.10 - but same result.


>
> From the driver side: Are you able to get to a TTY/shell locally and
> bring it up on the TV (ctrl+alt+F1 to switch to TTY login and
> ctrl+alt+F7 to get back to GDM/KDM/X on most systems) or are you able
> to ssh into the box?


Yes - I can get back to a TTY shell with ctrl-alt-F1.  I can also ssh in
just fine.


> Is the nvidia module actually installed and is
> the module loading correctly (lsmod | grep nvidia)? Since it was
> working on your monitor seems like it should be loading the driver.
> I've seen X fall back to the default driver when my proprietary ATI
> driver wasn't correctly installed on one of my systems so maybe this
> is happening and perhaps the vesa driver is not be smart enough to
> detect your TV to run the supplied modeline. That's just speculation.


Yes - I'm definitely running the nvidia driver - output of lsmod:
vidia               9550692  26
agpgart                42696  1 nvidia

RG Newbury wrote:

> You might check in the BIOS for the Zotac to see whether there are any
> video output choices. It certainly sounds like the board turns on VGA output
> by default, but not HDMI.

I have fiddled with the BIOS options - but everything just works fine on my
computer monitor connected using HDMI.

Thanks guys - I've tried every xorg.conf option I can think of, but fear
that the unique combination of this board and my TV weren't destined for
each other!
Best,
Nick
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