[Nouveau] GV98 adapter, experience with nouveau

[Yury Tarasievich]

I'm trying to put to work the nouveau driver on 
slackware 64 bits current, kernel 4.4.*.

I've thought the hardware to be some obscure OEM 
variant of GT610. However, kind soul on IRC 
pointed out that it's a G98 really, 'GeForce 
9300 GS or 8400 GS'.

Proprietary NVIDIA drivers:
* 340.96 installs okay, console works, but X 
doesn't start, with unspecified error occuring 
when trying to initialise hardware (-19);
* 304.131 works, with no undue surprises.

I've experienced a lot of problems with nouveau 
driver (as packaged for Slackware on Dec 16, 
2015; build date in logs: '19 November 2015 
12:46:02AM'):

1) Console does not initialise the output 
correctly if video mode is not restricted to 
640x480 by kernel command line with '... 
video=640x480'. Any other (bigger) resolution 
there, or no restriction, and the screen blanks; 
also, for either 800x600 or 1024x768 upper 
limits the monitor outputs the warning about 
unusable mode, 26.8KHz/43Hz for 800x600, and 
21.6KHz/27Hz for 1024x768.

The input works. I can log in and start X, which 
starts (!) and works, but produces no output either.

No such problem with NVIDIA drivers.

2) The working mode restriction 640x480 gives 
the console set to 68Hz vertical refresh (as 
monitor reports).

3) The X started from console (having 640x480 
restriction) allows only 640x480 mode in config. 
Any other mode produces working X with blank 
screen, excepting console started restrictred to 
800x600 or 1024x768, which retains the monitor's 
floating message about 'unusable mode'. Either 
way, input in X works.

4) The X in 640x480 has actual vertical refresh 
of 68Hz, which xrandr reports as 75Hz. Attempt 
to change vert. refresh rate to 60Hz produces 
screen 'stroboscoping'. Any other resolution set 
via xrandr produces blank screen.

Any advice? NVIDIA driver files removed, full 
dmesg and xorg available. Cut of dmesg with 
nouveau lines is in postscriptum.

-Yury

PS [    7.137052] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: NVIDIA 
G98 (298500a2)
[    7.256163] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: bios: 
version 70.18.36.00.00
[    7.258447] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: disp: conn 
02:0261: func 08 lookup failed, -2
[    7.279208] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: bios: 
M0203T not found
[    7.279327] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: bios: 
M0203E not matched!
[    7.279442] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: fb: 1024 
MiB DDR2
[    7.328218] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: VRAM: 
1024 MiB
[    7.328332] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: GART: 
1048576 MiB
[    7.328448] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: TMDS 
table version 2.0
[    7.328563] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
version 4.0
[    7.328677] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
outp 00: 02000300 00000028
[    7.328793] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
outp 01: 01000302 00020030
[    7.328908] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
outp 02: 04011310 00000028
[    7.329035] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
outp 03: 02022322 00c20090
[    7.329150] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
conn 00: 00001030
[    7.329264] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
conn 01: 00000100
[    7.329378] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: DCB 
conn 02: 00002261
[    7.339193] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: MM: 
using M2MF for buffer copies
[    7.408036] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: DRM: 
allocated 640x480 fb: 0x50000, bo ffff8800bf77c000
[    7.408442] fbcon: nouveaufb (fb0) is primary 
device
[    7.410533] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: devinit: 
unable to compute acceptable pll values
[    7.410535] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: devinit: 
failed pll calculation
[    7.470351] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: fb0: 
nouveaufb frame buffer device
[    7.477047] [drm] Initialized nouveau 1.3.1 
20120801 for 0000:02:00.0 on minor 0