Bdtyktl

In a routine reboot event this morning, my Ubuntu machine can no longer show display and it was totally random (did not do anything).

Version

4.15.0-43-generic #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 6 14:45:28 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

With no display, I tried to teamviewer into the PC and all it shows is a black window. I then tty into it and managed to gain access.

Found a similar issue here but its not much help.

Some other observations:

• Even BIOS screen won't show


• NVIDIA drivers working correctly


• 
  sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3 will not return anything

GDM Service Output

● gdm.service - GNOME Display Manager

   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)

   Active: active (running) since Tue 2019-01-08 11:15:05 +08; 15min ago

  Process: 6323 ExecReload=/bin/kill -SIGHUP $MAINPID (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

  Process: 6320 ExecReload=/usr/share/gdm/generate-config (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

 Main PID: 1114 (gdm3)

    Tasks: 3 (limit: 4915)

   CGroup: /system.slice/gdm.service

           └─1114 /usr/sbin/gdm3



Jan 08 11:15:05 rex systemd[1]: Starting GNOME Display Manager...

Jan 08 11:15:05 rex systemd[1]: Started GNOME Display Manager.

Jan 08 11:15:05 rex gdm-autologin][1164]: gkr-pam: no password is available for user

Jan 08 11:15:05 rex gdm-autologin][1164]: pam_unix(gdm-autologin:session): session opened for user rex by (uid=0)

Jan 08 11:24:06 rex systemd[1]: Reloading GNOME Display Manager.

Jan 08 11:24:06 rex systemd[1]: Reloaded GNOME Display Manager.

Can confirm that nvidia driver is working correctly,

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| NVIDIA-SMI 396.54                 Driver Version: 396.54                    |

|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |

| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |

|===============================+======================+======================|

|   0  GeForce GTX 105...  Off  | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |

|  0%   39C    P8    N/A /  75W |    293MiB /  4038MiB |      0%      Default |

+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

|   1  GeForce GTX 105...  Off  | 00000000:02:00.0 Off |                  N/A |

|  0%   35C    P8    N/A /  75W |     12MiB /  4040MiB |      0%      Default |

+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+



+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |

|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |

|=============================================================================|

|    0      1295      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                             9MiB |

|    0      1735      G   /opt/teamviewer/tv_bin/TeamViewer              1MiB |

|    0      5329      C   ...rex/torch/install/bin/luajit   271MiB |

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I worked through a lot of issues. Problem is almost surely special kernel flags needed with Nvidia.

kernel 4.18.0.11.12 trouble: Video black screen

Nearly 7 days of research and trial and errors with no success, I nailed the possible causes down to hardware layer.

Eventually I had to replace the power cord and the computer is able to boot and showing display again. It would appeared that the fuse in the power cord is fried.

Let's observe for a few more days and see if the same problem comes back.

An odd problem indeed.