Monday, May 16, 2011

HOWTO : Blank screen when boot up Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop

I have a very old SONY laptop and the model is PCG-TR1. The following is the display card of the laptop :

lspci | grep VGA

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)

You can boot up the Live CD or DVD and install the system properly. It is no problem when the first boot up after the installation. However, it will be blank screen / black screen on the second and later boot up.

How to overcome this problem? Yes, I can and going to tell you.

Step 1 :

The screen will go blank and black in the second boot and later. Don't worry, just press the following key combination. Yes, just complete the following key combination.

Press ctrl+alt+F5, ctrl+alt+F7, ctrl+alt+F5, and then ctrl+alt+F7

Then, you will see the login screen again. You should press the key combination every time when you boot up your system.

However, the Unity 3D interface and special effect do not support but classic is working fine.

Step 2 (Optional) :

To use Unity 2D interface instead of Gnome classic interface.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-2d


Reboot your system.

Select "Unity 2D" at the bottom of the screen when login to the system after the next boot up.

Remarks :

Some laptops that equipped with other model of Intel integrated display cards may encounter other problems, such as blinking screen. Someone out there suggest to update the xorg packages may solve the problems.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade


That's all! See you.