Black Screen

Greetings. I'm attempting to run/install Zorin on an ex-WinXP machine but once it loads from CD I have the mouse cursor but the entire screen is black. This is true of Zorin8 and 9. The machine is a 2GHz P4 w/512 RAM and an nVidia FX5500 graphics card. I suspect it's a graphics driver issue. It runs XP fine.
FYI, I'm a long time Windows "expert", having worked in IT, but am a newbie on Linux.
I'm open to suggestions regarding how to overcome this roadblock.
Thanks

Hi, When you boot up with the DVD in the drive, as soon as you see the blue screen with the keyboard = Accessibility icon, press the spacebar on your keyboard - Language screen opens and set to English - then press F3 to check your keyboard language/locale is correct then press F6 and select 'acpi=off' then press enter twice - once to select the F6 option the second press to boot into live mode.

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi, When you boot up with the DVD in the drive, as soon as you see the blue screen with the keyboard = Accessibility icon, press the spacebar on your keyboard - Language screen opens and set to English - then press F3 to check your keyboard language/locale is correct then press F6 and select 'acpi=off' then press enter twice - once to select the F6 option the second press to boot into live mode.

Okay. I can try the no ACPI. It's running ACPI in WinXP fine. Will no ACPI have a negative impact on HD performance?

No it shouldnt do - we need those graphics!

Swarfendor437 wrote:No it shouldnt do - we need those graphics!

Well, ACPI off did the trick eliminating the black screen. I first tried it running off of DVD but it was so slow it was unusable for even trying anything out. Each click took 1+ minute to respond. I went ahead and installed it and it's still too slow to be usable. Graphics performance is horrid. Also, the only resolution choice is 1024 x 768. Now that it's running can perhaps a better nVidia graphics driver be installed or is this machine a Zorin-lite refugee?

Well it could really do with 1 Gb RAM - this is just my opinion. If you go to Software Updater you should find an 'Additional Drivers' tab - let it run and see what drivers it comes back with (if any)

Swarfendor437 wrote:Well it could really do with 1 Gb RAM - this is just my opinion. If you go to Software Updater you should find an 'Additional Drivers' tab - let it run and see what drivers it comes back with (if any)

I'm sure it could benefit from more RAM. Presently all slots are full (only two) so I'd have to get some larger sticks.
I did run the driver updater and sure enough it listed an nVidia graphics driver. I installed it, rebooted and now I'm back to the black screen with mouse pointer.

RebusCom wrote:

Swarfendor437 wrote:Well it could really do with 1 Gb RAM - this is just my opinion. If you go to Software Updater you should find an 'Additional Drivers' tab - let it run and see what drivers it comes back with (if any)

I'm sure it could benefit from more RAM. Presently all slots are full (only two) so I'd have to get some larger sticks.
I did run the driver updater and sure enough it listed an nVidia graphics driver. I installed it, rebooted and now I'm back to the black screen with mouse pointer.

Booting in recovery mode and selecting failsafe graphics results in an error message that input devices cannot be detected, so I'm then left with no keyboard or mouse control.

Hi, please remind me - was this a complete replacement for XP or dual-boot? Did you try pressing F6 at live boot time to select 'nomodeset'? Try rebooting with the Live DVD once more and see what happens with that setting - if you are still having issues after that I would highly recommend LXLE 12.04.4 revisited 32-bit until Zorin 9 Lite comes out?

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi, please remind me - was this a complete replacement for XP or dual-boot? Did you try pressing F6 at live boot time to select 'nomodeset'? Try rebooting with the Live DVD once more and see what happens with that setting - if you are still having issues after that I would highly recommend LXLE 12.04.4 revisited 32-bit until Zorin 9 Lite comes out?

It's presently a dual boot via grub, on separate partitions. I've discovered that if I boot with "no effects" selected instead of default, I don't get the black screen. It's also more responsive without the animations. Graphics now shows as nVidia.
Thanks.

Hi, can this be marked as [RESOLVED] rather than [SOLVED]?