I have a Ubuntu 12.04 server box running with an nVidia 8800GT video card. I decided to replace it with a nVidia 520GT which uses a fraction of the power.

On booting after the video card swap I was greeted with a console that was out of sync (hazy) and unreadable. After trying numerous resolution changes and playing around with the grub bootup options I was not any closer to getting my console sorted out.

The answer was to add a nomodeset option to the linux boot options, which fixed the hazy console :)

Here are the steps I followed:

  1. Reboot your server
  2. Press esc repeatedly to enter the grub menu. (This combination may vary if you have a different bios)
  3. Select your primary boot image from the grub menu (usually the first option)
  4. Press the ‘e’ key to edit the configuration
  5. Add nomodeset to the end of the line begining with: linux /boot/vmlinuz….
  6. Press Ctrl+X to save and exit
  7. Boot from the primary image

If the above fixes your resolution issues, you then need to make the changes permanent. You can do that as follows:

  1. Edit your /etc/default/grub

  2. Add the nomodeset option to the following:

        GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

  3. Save and exit

  4. Update grub with: sudo update-grub

  5. Reboot

If all went well you should have a working console again!

The nomodeset option prevents the kernel from loading graphic drivers. Apparently there are incompatibilities with some older video cards that do not support this fully. Read more about it here.

Update: Unfortunately adding nomodeset breaks the ability to resume the server from suspend! Read more about it here. For now I’ve gone back to the hazy console login screen which does not really affect me because I ssh into this server. I hope this bug is fixed soon.