Booting with NVIDIA drivers results in a black screen.

[lnyzora]

"I'm encountering a black screen when booting with NVIDIA drivers on a system equipped with a 1070 Ti GPU and an older ASUS Gene Z Gen3 motherboard. The issue occurs both when selecting NVIDIA drivers during boot and after installing them post-setup followed by a reboot. The motherboard lacks Secure Boot but operates in UEFI mode.

On another machine, using the same USB stick and with Secure Boot and TPM enabled, everything works flawlessly — which suggests the problem isn't with the installer itself.

I’ve tried editing GRUB boot parameters, but it didn’t resolve the issue. The system runs perfectly fine without NVIDIA drivers. I’ve experienced the same black screen on KDE and GNOME versions of another distro when installing NVIDIA via RPM Fusion.

According to NVIDIA’s documentation, version 570 is compatible with the 1070 Ti, and I believe that’s the version included in the live USB. However, it still results in a failure during runtime.

One possible explanation could be a kernel-NVIDIA driver mismatch, but if that were the case, wouldn't the same issue occur on the other (working) PC?

Would you recommend focusing on trying different NVIDIA driver versions, or should I look deeper into post-installation configurations?"

[zenzen]

Hi, welcome to Zorin OS!

Is that other computer running the same version of Zorin OS? What is the make and model?

You should try using a different driver. I don't know much about this topic in general but Nvidia is a known troublemaker.

There are other threads that you can search through for some ideas that may work out in your case:

Zorin and nvidia drivers

This is certainly not the first time i have had issues with drivers. I've been playing video games for so long now without having any issues. I've been playing Factorio for the past month or so and its been working fine, 60 fps at no stutters. I know for a fact it has been using my graphics card, which is a RTX 3060. When i started Factorio an hour ago, it was crashing and asked me to report it. I clicked no and tried to remove mangohud from the steam launch option, i was then able to launch t…

[lnyzora]

Yes, I tested the same USB drive on two different PCs. Zorin OS 17.3 Core (r1). On the second PC, it boots and works fine with an RTX 3080 + Z490 setup.

In my research, some people mentioned a kernel-driver incompatibility. The fact that the NVIDIA website lists version 570 as the appropriate driver for the 1070 Ti — and that some older posts mention getting it to work with earlier versions — has confused me.

If the problem is the driver, I’m not sure which version works best for the 1070 Ti. I believe Zorin 17.3 uses the 6.8 kernel.

If the issue is the kernel, is it possible to downgrade to an earlier version? Or could I edit the live CD to boot with a different driver version, like 535 instead of 570?

[Storm]

I had a Nvidia 1070 before I switched to AMD and my experience is that driver 545 is the last that worked properly with that card. After 545 it was a headache after another.

[lnyzora]

First of all, thank you for your responses. Considering that you mentioned using the 545 driver version and assuming this was in 2023, I’m guessing the kernel version at that time was from the 5.x series?

Is there any way to integrate the 545 driver into the live CD, or alternatively, downgrade the kernel version? Constantly performing fresh installs has started to wear out my hard drive."

[Ponce-De-Leon]

Welcome to the Forum!

You could install the 545 or maybe 535 Nvidia Driver without downgrading the Kernel. It runs with the 6.8 Kernel.

First uninstall the current Driver:

sudo apt purge nvidia*

Then install the Driver You want use with:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-[Version-Number] nvidia-dkms-[Version-Number]

Replace [Version-Number] with the Driver Version, You want use. Here an Example for the 535 Driver:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-535 nvidia-dkms-535

Repeat these Steps to try different Driver Versions. And there is another Point: Because You are using a Nvidia Graphics, it would be good to run Your System in X11/Xorg if not already doing. You can check that it Settings>About.

[lnyzora]

After extensive testing, I found that the problem lies in the NVIDIA driver needing to run before GRUB, which causes issues on semi-UEFI motherboards. For example, during tests with Fedora 42: if I don’t use LUKS encryption, I can install and run the NVIDIA driver without any problems. However, if I enable LUKS encryption, the system crashes at the stage after UEFI but before boot, where the graphical interface prompts for the LUKS password.

When I try to boot Zorin Live CD with NVIDIA support, it seems to attempt an NVIDIA boot that interacts with UEFI, but since my older motherboard lacks full UEFI support, it fails to get past this point.

As a temporary workaround, I have disabled graphical interfaces for all screens before login. The system works fine with the latest 575 driver version. I’m not sure if there’s a way to get NVIDIA drivers to work properly even on the LUKS password screen.

Both Windows 11 and Linux generally run with UEFI support on my motherboard, but the UEFI support comes from an older BIOS update. (ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z/GEN3)

[Aravisian]

Have you tested using the nomodeset grub parameter, yet?

[HOW TO] add a grub parameter

There may be times that a user must add a specialized grub parameter in order to overcome an issue. The purpose of this guide is not to provide parameters, as that would be a case by case basis. It is to provide a guide on how to add one. To add a parameter, in a terminal (TTY, Recovery Prompt or Terminal Emulator) run: sudo nano /etc/default/grub Arrow key down to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and place your parameter within the quotation tags. For example if you are adding th…

[lnyzora]

Yes, I also changed the initramfs setup, but it didn't help.
For now, I’m booting the system with Plymouth completely removed. It shows the plain text LUKS passphrase screen, then a few seconds later that screen reloads with a smaller font — I assume that's when some graphics drivers are being loaded.
After that, I type my password and the login screen appears within a few seconds.

It does work, but the overall boot process feels noticeably slower compared to using the Nouveau driver.

[lnyzora]

Hey everyone,
I recently moved my PC to a different room and noticed that my USB Wi-Fi adapter wasn’t working properly there. While troubleshooting, I booted the system using a Zorin Live CD and decided to try launching with NVIDIA drivers for a one-time test.

Surprisingly, the system booted perfectly and didn’t get stuck on a black screen like it usually did after login.

The big difference? I was using a different monitor in the new room — an LG 144Hz monitor, not my usual Zowie XL2411.

This made me realize that the black screen problem was related to my Zowie monitor’s compatibility with the NVIDIA driver.

I had tried both DisplayPort and HDMI connections on the Zowie before and didn’t think the monitor was the issue, but now it’s clear that the problem is deeper and connected to the monitor hardware and how it handles NVIDIA’s video output signals.