[clug] PC graphics trashed

[Bryan Kilgallin]

OK, George:

I have booted to the recovery mode of an old Ubuntu version.

> What brand and model graphics card does your computer use?

I am searching the Web via my laptop, for commands....
I find {
Open up "Terminal", and type: |lspci | grep VGA
|}
https://askubuntu.com/questions/72766/how-do-i-find-out-the-model-of-my-graphics-card#72774
Unfortunately there is a mismatch between my US keyboard and the 
software's expected UK! So shift-\ produces `~' instead of `|'.
But I found a "pipe" command, and am trying that.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this!
I seem to have managed to get that character thus.
{Some keyboard drivers map the broken bar key to the vertical bar, and 
the vertical bar key, shared with the grave accent (`), generates the 
broken bar when pressed in combination with AltGr 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key>.}
OK, the answer to your question seems as follows.
"01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G86 [GeForce 8400 
GS] (rev a1)"

>
> if you do a "ls -al /etc/X11", I wonder if you see a configuration file?

I see the following.
{
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   269 Nov  5 18:44 xorg.conf.failsafe
}
and...
{
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   630 Aug  1 21:28 Xwrapper.config
}

> If I am using a Nvidia card and using Nvidia's proprietary drivers, 
> then there often is a configuration file, and at times I delete this 
> file and then reboot,

Please advise how to recognise that.

> or run nvidia-xconfig to create a new nvidia configuration file.

I could not find "nvidia-xconfig". The closest I could find was 
"nouveau", "NVIDIA video driver".

>
> X11 does not appear to require a configuration file if you are using 
> Intel video supported in the Intel CPU.

I recall three boot options: PCI; onboard; and PCI-E. None of which 
choices seemed to work!

>
> It is also quite possible that the problem you are experiencing has 
> nothing to do with X11 configuration, like a faulty video card, or 
> your monitor lead not connected correctly, but in most of my problems 
> with X11, it has been because of my changing the X11 configuration or 
> installing other X11 software.

I replaced the dead backup 2032 battery. And I took out and replaced the 
graphics card in its motherboard slot.

-- 
members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/