Centos7 and Nvidia 302 driver black screen

[Ron Wheeler]

I am a longtime Linux system admin with several servers running Centos 5 
and 6.
I am moving to Centos7 and am not a happy camper for many reasons but it 
is getting better as the bugs get fixed.

One current issue is one of a server that I am upgrading from Centos 6 
to Centos 7 with a clean install(reformat disk and install from CD, 
apply updates.
I have blacklisted the nouveau driver which does not seem to support 
NVIDIA GeForce 6150.

The NVIDIA driver seems to be the correct one for the hardware
  NVIDIA GLX Module  304.125  Mon Dec  1 20:22:48 PST 2014


[  3340.557] Build Date: 10 April 2015  11:44:42AM
[  3340.557] Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.15.0-33.el7_1
[  3340.557] Current version of pixman: 0.32.4

It seems to be happy with the hardware and detects the monitor OK with 
the right resolution.
[  3341.127] (II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (C61) 
at PCI:0:13:0
[  3341.127] (II) NVIDIA(0):     (GPU-0)
[  3341.127] (--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 524288 kBytes
[  3341.127] (--) NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 05.61.32.25.00
[  3341.128] (--) NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on 
this GPU
[  3341.128] (--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on GeForce 6150SE 
nForce 430 at PCI:0:13:0
[  3341.128] (--) NVIDIA(0):     ViewSonic VA2026w (CRT-0) (connected)
[  3341.128] (--) NVIDIA(0): ViewSonic VA2026w (CRT-0): 350.0 MHz 
maximum pixel clock
[  3341.128] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the 
EDID for display
[  3341.128] (**) NVIDIA(0):     device ViewSonic VA2026w (CRT-0) (Using 
EDID frequencies
[  3341.128] (**) NVIDIA(0):     has been enabled on all display devices.)
[  3341.128] (II) NVIDIA(0): Validated MetaModes:
[  3341.128] (II) NVIDIA(0):     "CRT-0:nvidia-auto-select"
[  3341.128] (II) NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be 1680 x 
1050


At the end it complains about speakers other front and back devices 
which is expected since there is nothing attached to any of the audio ports.

The GNOME Desktop is installed.

When the system boots, the screen flashes in some rectangular blocks  
and then goes black with a mouse cursor (sometimes)
ALT-F2 and CTL-ALT-F1 work but nothing else happens in X11 mode.
As a Linux console is still works as normal - can login and do Linux 
commands.

The gdm logs despite their bizarre naming convention (:0.log)? seen to 
indicate that it did not have any problems although it is hard to know 
what is normal from the messages output

Near the beginning of the log it says
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(==) Using config directory: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
(==) ServerLayout "Default Layout"
(**) |-->Screen "Default Screen" (0)
(**) |   |-->Monitor "Monitor0"
(**) |   |-->Device "Videocard0"
(**) |-->Input Device "Keyboard0"
(**) |-->Input Device "Mouse0"
(==) Automatically adding devices
(==) Automatically enabling devices
(==) Automatically adding GPU devices
(==) FontPath set to:
         catalogue:/etc/X11/fontpath.d,
         built-ins
(**) ModulePath set to 
"/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia,/usr/lib64/xo
rg/modules"
(WW) Hotplugging is on, devices using drivers 'kbd', 'mouse' or 
'vmmouse' will
be disabled.
(WW) Disabling Keyboard0
(WW) Disabling Mouse0
(II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card0)

later it says
(--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 at 
PCI:0:1
3:0
(--) NVIDIA(0):     ViewSonic VA2026w (CRT-0) (connected)
(--) NVIDIA(0): ViewSonic VA2026w (CRT-0): 350.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
(**) NVIDIA(0):     device ViewSonic VA2026w (CRT-0) (Using EDID frequencies
(**) NVIDIA(0):     has been enabled on all display devices.)

Which seems to indicate happiness with X11 and the connection to the 
screen but I would not know what to expect, of course.
Later it identifies the mouse correctly and complains that nothing is 
connected to the audio and other media ports which strikes me as normal.

The last thing that it says is
(II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "CRT-0:nvidia-auto-select"

Any suggestions about what else to look for?

Ron

-- 
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: rwheeler at artifact-software.com
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102