[mythtv-users] TBS 6904SE linux drivers freeze my Ubuntu 22.04 box

[UB40D]

On Mon, 19 Sept 2022 at 17:35, UB40D <ub40dd at googlemail.com> wrote:

>  Although having said that... I could take out the SSD from my known-good
> main linux box, put a blank one in, reinstall Ubuntu for the nth time in 2
> days and try this recompilation business there, and see if it freezes the
> machine in the same way...
>

OK gentlemen, I do seem to have a hardware/graphics problem on my hands.

I've taken out the boot drive of my main Linux box and replaced it with the
ssd of this "new" machine on which I had just installed Ubuntu 22.04.1
(which worked) and the TBS drivers from github as suggested by Stephen
(after which I got the black screen on boot again). Well, on my regular
machine, without the TBS card, that same ssd did boot properly into a
graphical desktop. The resolution was all messed up but that's probably
because that machine uses a separate graphics card so that it can output
HDMI, which I need for the KVM switch (long and irrelevant story), and this
SSD did not have the drivers for that separate card.

It so happens that both machines have exactly the same Intel motherboard.
So either the motherboard of the "new" pc is a bit faulty (as suggested by
the fact that I can't get it to enter bios setup with F2), or maybe even
the old motherboard would work if I gave it the graphics card that my main
machine has.
At the moment I am not terribly willing to cannibalise my known-good pc for
further experiments, and plugging the TBS into it is cumbersome because of
a variety of issues (the PCI slot is already occupied so I'd have to
dismantle the machine to a greater extent than I am comfortable to do now,
because I will need that PC operational for its main function).

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I should try and source either a
graphics card or a motherboard for the "new" PC that will host the TBS
card, and see if I can then get it to boot with the TBS drivers enabled,
and see the card.

I guess another cheap experiment I could do is to try the motherboard's own
Displayport output on my "main" Linux PC, and see if I get a black screen
there. If I do, then it's an incompatibility with that particular Intel
integrated graphics subsystem and hence a "class" problem as opposed to an
"instance" problem of one of my two otherwise identical motherboards being
faulty. Let me try this now...

Well, I did try and sure enough even the "main" PC did hang with a black
screen after the grub menu when the output was the integrated graphics
displayport rather than the PCI-E Nvidia HDMI. So that narrows things down
and validates Stinga's guess that it was a graphics issue.
At least it shows that that second Intel motherboard still has some life
into it and might possibly be revived with the addition of a graphics card.

Thanks very much to both of you. I'll put the main computer back together
for now. If I can't scavenge a graphics card (I'm not after games or 3d
stuff, just plain video) I'll buy one, as similar as possible to the
relatively basic nvidia in the known-good pc (a passively-cooled MSI Nvidia
Gforce 1030 of which I already bought 3 or 4 instances over the past few
years).

It is also perhaps possible that someone with greater patience and graphics
knowledge could fix the problem by tweaking the graphics drivers for the
integrated Intel graphics on the motherboard but I think buying a new
known-working graphics card is probably cheaper when factoring in the time
I'd have to put into that.
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