Ubuntu
xorg package

Graphic card drivers removal?

Asked by hipokondriak

My radeon 6800se died in a spectacular way, with random breakups and R-E-A-L-L-Y S-L-O-W screen updates and eventual blank display.

I removed the AGP card and replaced with a Matrox card with unknown amount of ram but with an expansion card piggy-backed onto it (it ran Windoze XP sp3 at 1026x768 (and Higher) at 32bit/60hz happily).

Problem is that the PC with ubuntu 8.04 (updated) will only allow a 800x600 16bit display with very few colours (which gives me a headache).

How do i force ubuntu to "find" the new card and remove the drivers for the old Radeon card?

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Gord Allott (gordallott) said : 		#1

you might need to goto system -> administration -> hardware drivers to make sure you don't have any binary ati drivers installed (remove them if they are) and then you can open a terminal and type

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

after you have done that ubuntu should detect the new graphics card and write the appropriate settings files accordingly, so you can restart your 'xserver' by logging out or holding down ctrl+alt+backspace (this will log you out so make sure you have any documents saved)

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Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#2

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg -- is the key to the equation.

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hipokondriak (richard-guilcher) said : 		#3

just tried that, and my system still shows the drivers for the old card, and the terminal entry "sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg -- is the key" didn't do anything apart from booting me into the login screen.

maybe i'm missing the trick here guys?

Revision history for this message
Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#4

the reconfigure should have used the newly detected card. Did you remove the drivers using the System | Administration | Hardware? Were the original drivers installed using the restricted drivers or did you use Envy or manually install them?

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hipokondriak (richard-guilcher) said : 		#5

as a relative newbie to ubuntu et al, I just clicked on install non free proprietry drivers for the last card (radeon 6800se) and rebooted when prompted.

That card died and I removed it (no screen to see to remove drivers) and used a spare card which I believe is a NVidia card. The system prompted me to install the non free drivers again (which I did) and I can only get low res screen of 800x600 at 60hz and 16bit graphics. This card was taken from a working Windoze XP SP3 system and was running at 1280x768 at 60hz and 32 bit.

Ubuntu seems to not like me at the moment and I can see another REinstall coming my way.

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Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#6

You should be able to go back to System | Administration | Hardware and uncheck the ATI drivers... that should uninstall them. If not we can use Synaptic.

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hipokondriak (richard-guilcher) said : 		#7

Bought another graphics card - problem gone away...

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Gord Allott (gordallott) said : 		#8

please note, for further reference, the command you should of run was "sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg" not "sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg -- is the key"

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Charles Profitt (cprofitt) said : 		#9

Yes... I have to get better with that Gord... those --notations can appear to be an option.

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Alex (alex-us01) said : 		#10

I think my problem is similar.
I have a Lenovo / ThinkPad W500 and ATI FireGL 5700 graphics card.

In the Hardware section, it found a proprietary driver and I installed it.
After I restarted the system, screen is blank.

I did the things above but those things didn't work.

I also tried overriding xorg.conf with the xorg.conf.failsafe
and gave the command above and that didn't work, too .

It seems I need to remove the graphics driver that was just installed.
(I wish there was rollback like in windows.)

What should I do?

Revision history for this message
hipokondriak (richard-guilcher) said : 		#11

Hi dude, I have now given up on Linux et al as my main OS and gone
back to Widoze as my OS of choice.
I tinker with Linux on my second machine, but work pressure and
compatibility issues have pretty much forced my hand.
I'm not saying that Linux is no good, just not what I can use
practically all the time.
I am using Windoze 7 on three machines and it is as good as the hype,
only better in the flesh, so to speak.
Driver issues are my main problem and a lack of time to sit and try to
work it out on Linux. Windoze just works for me right now.

Richard

2009/10/21 Alex <email address hidden>:
> Your question #47222 on xorg in ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+question/47222
>
> Alex posted a new comment:
> I think my problem is similar.
> I have a Lenovo / ThinkPad W500 and ATI FireGL 5700 graphics card.
>
> In the Hardware section, it found a proprietary driver and I installed it.
> After I restarted the system, screen is blank.
>
> I did the things above but those things didn't work.
>
> I also tried overriding xorg.conf with the xorg.conf.failsafe
> and gave the command above and that didn't work, too .
>
> It seems I need to remove the graphics driver that was just installed.
> (I wish there was rollback like in windows.)
>
> What should I do?
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>