Need a Video Card Recommendation

Issues related to hardware problems
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mikeah
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Joined: 2012/09/28 21:37:52

Need a Video Card Recommendation

Post by mikeah » 2012/10/21 18:02:57

I need a video card recommendation for a current 3G PCIe card that I can buy on AMAZON today that absolutely positively just plain works in Linux without any extra consideration. Price is not a big object.

I have two machines that are currently running CentOS 6.3, which is the only distro that I have with a current kernal that will load - thanks to the thoughtful inclusion of the "INSTALL WITH BASIC VIDEO CARD" driver option.

The problem is that NVIDIA 550ti (both new) cards have an issue with the new kernals. I run hundreds of RHEL and CentOS machines at work and have never had an issue loading the OS. Until the latest round of kernals, I never had a problem loading ANY version or distro of Linux on any machine.

Machine #1 is running a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 wiith 16 Gig RAM. This board had an issue with the network card and is running a cheap 10/100 cardwhich works fine. The issue was the chip set that Gigibyte chose for it's network card. The board and Video card ran Ubuntu 10.04 perfectly but simply would not install 12.04. It runs CentOS 6.2 and CentOS 6.3 with the basic video card perfectly (except for the boards NIC), I'm still running the cheap NIC.

Machine #2 is brand spanking new, an MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) Military Class II AM3+ with 32 Gig of RAM and works perfectly except for the MSI NVidia GE 550 card.

I tried the driver from the NVidia website and it worked - until the very first kernal update and then I had a non functioning machine. I then tried the one from the Elrepo repository - but it had dependancy issues that I could not resolve and on the next boot I had a non functioning machine. I have rebuilt each machine several times. I don't want to play any more. If I can buy my way out of this with a SUPPORTED 3G PCIe Video card - that's my solution.

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TrevorH
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Re: Need a Video Card Recommendation

Post by TrevorH » 2012/10/21 19:27:03

Why don't you tell us about the dependency issues that you got with the ELRepo driver? Many of the ELRepo guys frequent these forums so you may well find a solution from here.

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AlanBartlett
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Need a Video Card Recommendation

Post by AlanBartlett » 2012/10/21 21:07:30

[quote]
I then tried the one from the Elrepo repository - but it had dependancy issues that I could not resolve and on the next boot I had a non functioning machine. I have rebuilt each machine several times. I don't want to play any more. If I can buy my way out of this with a SUPPORTED 3G PCIe Video card - that's my solution.
[/quote]
There are both a [url=http://elrepo.org/bugs/main_page.php]bug tracker[/url] and a [url=http://lists.elrepo.org/mailman/listinfo/elrepo]mailing list[/url] yet you chose not to use them . . . :roll:

Your choice. :-x

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TrevorH
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Re: Need a Video Card Recommendation

Post by TrevorH » 2012/10/21 21:18:58

The Gigabyte web site says the LAN card on that 990FXA-UD3 motherboard is an RTL8111E which I suspect would be supported by a kmod driver from ELRepo again. The stock Realtek driver is known to have some problems.

mikeah
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Joined: 2012/09/28 21:37:52

Re: Need a Video Card Recommendation

Post by mikeah » 2012/10/22 16:27:53

The problem with having a non functioning machine is that little details like dependency issues across the screen cease to exist when you have NO DISPLAY AT ALL on the next boot. Perhaps I should not have rebooted after the update, but I stupidly assumed that it might just work. It sits at the screen with that bar on the bottom. In the last go around I loaded 6.3 instead of 6.2.

The question was "Is there a decent PCIe video card that has NO issues at all with Linux, that doesn't require any machinations or extraordinary measures to work?" I know the ones built into Dells and HP's work because I install on these day after day, as well as on VM's. But these machines don't have to run 3GL.

They pay me to troubleshoot at work. At home I want to play games, write novels and enjoys the fruits of leisure time in my old age so time consuming issues that I can solve with money, will be solved with cash. I then use the experience to build a more compatible box next time.

I have data so valuable to me that it's spread across 4 drives, across 2 machines, a small network drive, DVD backup, and a thumb drive (for the MOST critical) so these are working units.

So "Is there a decent PCIe video card that has NO issues at all with Linux, that doesn't require any machinations or extraordinary measures to work?" For me, play time is over.

patb
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Joined: 2012/10/31 13:47:55

Re: Need a Video Card Recommendation

Post by patb » 2012/10/31 14:18:33

I currently have five different live distributions not including the RHEL variations that provide garbgage video when starting. I have solved this with the RHEL variations (Scientific, Centos, PUIAS) by loading the proprietary script and everytime a new kernel is loaded in grub I add a 3 to the kernel line and boot. This brings me up in text mode without X, logging on as root I do ./N (tab) and run the install script, there are half a dozen or so messages most are take the default and then reboot and you have an X window. I load the Nvidia script into /root no not the root directory but /root before starting this.
What I have found in experimenting and reading different forums/blogs is that nouveau is not ready to handle the newer Nvidia cards BUT the different distros have started adding nouveau (DSPMOD if you can get to a tty screen and look for nouveau) without providing a mechanism to allow the user to say if they cant see the screen and then revert to nv or the proprietary driver. I have a 240 and 550ti that has this problem. I also have a 9600 and 9800 (Frys currently has a 9800 GT with 1 gig) that do not have the same problem so it seems that nouveau does support the older nvidia cards better than the newer cards. I have hot had this problem yet with AMD/ATI cards although I suspect that it will eventually arrive. Yes I have one machine with a 4850 that doesnt have the problem on any of the live distros or the RHEL variations.

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