NVIDIA GTX 760 driver won’t load on Ubuntu 24.04 – DKMS build fails, stuck on low-res

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hi all,

I’m having serious trouble getting my NVIDIA GTX 760 working on Ubuntu 24.04. I’ve been trying for hours and I’m stuck. Here’s the situation:

Hardware:

  • NVIDIA GTX 760 (GK104)

  • Integrated GPU: none

  • Ubuntu 24.04, kernel 6.14.0-29-generic (default)

  • Attempted mainline kernel 6.8.12-060812-generic

What I’ve tried:

  1. Disabled Nouveau via /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf.

  2. Installed NVIDIA driver 470.256.02 via apt.

  3. Installed mainline kernel 6.8.12 (thought maybe older kernel would compile driver).

  4. Tried dkms build and dkms autoinstall for NVIDIA 470.256.02.

  5. Ran sudo nvidia-xconfig to generate /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

  6. Checked modules via lsmod and dkms status. Nouveau is blacklisted, DKMS shows added.

Current behavior:

  • Booting into kernel 6.8.12-060812 sometimes hangs at Loading initial ramdisk...

  • Booting into kernel 6.14.0-29 gives low-resolution graphics, nvidia-smi fails:

    NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver.
OpenGL renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.2, 256 bits)

  • prime-select nvidia fails: no integrated GPU detected.

  • glxinfo shows llvmpipe (software renderer).

  • Attempted sudo modprobe nvidia returns “Module not found”.

Installed packages:

nvidia-driver-470, nvidia-utils-470, nvidia-dkms-470, xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-470, nvidia-settings

Questions:

  1. Why is the DKMS module failing to build?

  2. How can I get NVIDIA 470 working on Ubuntu 24.04 reliably?

  3. Is the mainline kernel necessary, or can I fix it on the default 6.14 kernel?

  4. How do I avoid being stuck in low-resolution mode or hung boots?

Any help or guidance would be massively appreciated. I’m happy to provide logs (/var/log/Xorg.0.log, dmesg, dkms build logs) if needed.

Thanks!