Nvidia drivers do not boot in fresh Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with eGPU that works well with default Nouveau driver

GPU Unix Graphics Linux
#1

After installing NVIDIA graphics drivers, cannot boot into desktop environment, on a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, on an Intel NUC10FNH, with Akitio Node eGPU enclosure and Geforce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card.

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-10710U CPU @ 1.10GHz × 12
Graphics: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics (CML GT2) / NV132

I’ve tried nearly all driver versions listed by ubuntu-drivers devices from 418 to 455, and they all hang the boot on a black screen with flashing cursor after a disk check (although ssh works). I’ve tried every documented install method from the additional drivers GUI, to ubuntu-drivers autoinstall, to direct install of a specific version with ppa and apt. Using the default builtin nouveau driver works flawlessly on the eGPU monitor, however I need to install CUDA and use nvidia-smi.

Here are some debug logs I collected, after following this thread:
nvidia-bug-report-part1.txt (2.2 MB) nvidia-bug-report-part2.txt (2.0 MB)

As far as I can tell, there’s no special blacklisting of nvidia happening anywhere. There’s no nvidia-specific files in /etc/modprobe.d/. Running sudo prime-select query over ssh shows nvidia when boot is hanging. I originally had secure boot enabled when first attempting the graphics driver install through the GUI, but disabled it after the first failed restart.

Thanks!

1 Like
No matter which drivers I install, I cannot boot my ubuntu 20.04 LTS beyond a black screen
#2

Here are some additional debug files collected through ssh (could not upload more than 3 files in OP, also could not upload files larger than 4.4MB, so I split the debug report above in two):
grep_nvidia_in_lib_udev_rules_d.txt (2.0 KB) lib_modprobe_d_nvidia_graphics-drivers_conf.txt (81 Bytes) lib_modprobe_d_nvidia_kms_conf.txt (109 Bytes)

#3

lshw.txt (1.1 KB) nvidia-smi.txt (1.5 KB)

#4

Can we get the output of journalctl?

#5

It’s fairly noisy, so instead of splitting into 14 files, here’s a dropbox link:

Could the following boot error be relevant?

Initramfs unpacking failed: Decoding failed

Thanks!

1 Like
#6

Any insight? Are there any other resources about nvidia boot behaviour in ubuntu 20?

1 Like
#7

I believe I ran in to the same issue when using a NUC with a Razer Core X/2080Ti on Ubuntu 20.04. The issue for me was that Xorg was unloading the nvidia driver because I had not set the AllowExternalGpus option in my xorg config file.

Check if you’re running into that issue by looking at the Xorg.0.log (or something similar) within the /var/log directory. If its the lack of that flag you’ll probably see a message somewhere in there about it.