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I am trying to configure a copy of Fedora 34 running as a VMWare 6.7 client, on a Dell R710 blade. I have installed an NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 graphics card into a riser board and would like to use this as my primary monitor. Unfortunately, whenever I boot the system, the monitor ends up showing a load of ‘noise’ at the top of the screen, with no useful info.

I have tried numerous ways of solving the problem, including installing NVIDIA native drivers and manually installing various other drivers, including RPM Fusion. In the end though, I have done a fresh install from the Fedora Live distribution disk, in the hope that this will take me back to basics.

Note that the screen does seem to work and even displays useful info during the boot-up - e.g. the prompt field for the disk password and the Fedora "broken-infinity” symbol during the subsequent boot. On some occasions it even displays my user name logon prompt for a fraction of a second. Based on this, I'm guessing the issue arises when Gnome takes over.

Note also that lspci displays the graphics card as expected (it's configured as a passthru device from VMWare).

The following subset of outputs from inxi -Fxz may be of use:

System: Kernel: 5.11.11-300.fc34.x86_64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 2.35.1-41.fc34 Console: tty pts/0 Distro: Fedora release 34 (Thirty Four) Machine: Type: Vmware System: VMware product: VMware7,1 v: N/A serial: Mobo: Intel model: 440BX Desktop Reference Platform serial: UEFI: VMware v: VMW71.00V.13989454.B64.1906190538 date: 06/19/2019

CPU: Info: 10x Single Core model: Intel Xeon X5650 bits: 64 type: SMP arch: Nehalem rev: 2 cache: L2: 120 MiB flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 bogomips: 53200 Speed: 2660 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2660 2: 2660 3: 2660 4: 2660 5: 2660 6: 2660 7: 2660 8: 2660 9: 2660 10: 2660

Graphics: Device-1: VMware SVGA II Adapter driver: vmwgfx v: 2.18.0.0 bus-ID: 00:0f.0 Device-2: NVIDIA GK208B [GeForce GT 710] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: nouveau v: kernel bus-ID: 13:00.0 Display: server: X.org 1.20.10 driver: loaded: modesetting,vmware unloaded: fbdev,vesa tty: 120x24 Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display

Although I can still access the system via the VMWare remote console, or SSH command line, the NVIDIA monitor is essentially useless. Furthermore, if I go to the Fedora display settings dialog under Gnome then I only see a single display. My suspicion is that the screen size or refresh frequency of my NVIDIA are being set out of range, hence the apparent random noise on the display. So, one option would be to find some way of configuring the Gnome desktop via the command line.

Andy
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    That's not a supported configuration, use a GRID capable GPU – Chopper3 Apr 30 '21 at 14:52
  • That's a shame - it was working fine under Fedora 33 :-( Serves me right for upgrading - no fool like an old fool. Guess I'll have to root around for a supported graphics card. Note that I'm not interested in GPGPU, just plain old graphics. Out of interest, where did you find the supported/unsupported list? It might be helpful for me to start there ;-) – Andy Apr 30 '21 at 18:02
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    Note also, as far as I am aware, the GPU doesn't;t need to be grid capable. VMWare just passes it through to the client OS as if it was connected locally to that virtual machine. Happy to be put right on that. – Andy Apr 30 '21 at 18:04
  • Yes, PCI-passthru (unlike hardware sharing features like GRID) does not strictly depend on NVIDIA allowing you to use your hardware that way.. its still unsupported in the sense that NVIDIA "accidentally" broke it before. – anx May 09 '21 at 01:58
  • OK, I guess that leaves me with two options: use a non-nvidia graphics card, or try and get it working with Nouveau or Wayland drivers. Wish me luck... – Andy May 09 '21 at 09:39

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