Why does my screen turn black after installing ATI on Ubuntu 10.04?

Question

I'm having a problem installing the drivers for my video card. I've just finished installing the driver, rebooted the OS, and the monitor starts up in energy saving mode and doesn't boot Ubuntu.

What I can do?

Answer 1

Try booting into (recovery mode), which should give you a command line. Then:

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then, under the line that says Section "Device", add Driver "vesa", and comment out any other Driver line with #, like this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
    #Driver          "ati"
    Driver          "vesa"
EndSection

Type Ctrl+X, then y to save, then reboot by typing ctrl+alt+delete.

This will result in low-quality video, but at least it should give you a working graphical interface to start with.

Answer 2

Enable "Onboard" in your BIOS for Video Card.

Connect the monitor's VGA port to the motherboard's VGA port via VGA cable.

Restart PC.

Once you get into Ubuntu, download the drivers for the corresponding ATI/ AMD graphics card.

Once the driver's have been downloaded, restart PC, enter BIOS again, enable "PCI-E" for Video Card (as opposed to "Onboard"), connect the DVI or HDMI cable to monitor and graphics card (whichever port it has), and then it should work.

The problem may very likely be that Ubuntu does not sense the monitor because it simply lacks the driver for the graphics card. Ubuntu boots, then the monitor sleeps. It's as though there is no monitor there.

If you're stuck with black screen at the moment, try CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart and then hit the appropriate function key for your PC to enter BIOS.

Answer 3

It appears your action of upgrading your graphics driver has caused your graphics adapter to set a default resolution far too high for your monitor to handle - hence it going into power saving mode.

Ubuntu has probably booted in the background, but your monitor can't use the signal it is being supplied by your graphics card... Ubuntu is extremely resilient.

Linux offers ways around this (like Windows does, also) by allowing you to force a resolution for the system to use.

Because you already have Ubuntu installed you can temporarily add boot options through GRUB2 (the Ubuntu bootloader).

Resource: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

1. Boot your computer and press F2 (this should display the GRUB screen - as shown in the URL above)
2. Press e to be able to edit the boot options for your selected boot option (Ubuntu)
3. Type this: vga=791 at the end of the boot string displayed
4. Press return to boot your Ubuntu using the additional boot parameter.
5. Ubuntu will boot into a 16-Bit 1024x768 resolution which should allow you to recover your display settings and set a new default resolution that your monitor can work with.