Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!

May 16, 2009 | In Linux | No Comments

more /var/log/Xorg.0.log showed:

) NVIDIA(0): enabled.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!
(EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting ***
(II) UnloadModule: “nvidia”
(II) UnloadModule: “wfb”
(II) UnloadModule: “fb”
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Googled “(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!” and found :

http://http.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-8174/README/32bit_html/chapter-05.html

My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:

(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!

The X driver will abort with this error message if the NVIDIA kernel module fails to load. If you receive this error, you should check the output of dmesg for kernel error messages and/or attempt to load the kernel module explicitly with modprobe nvidia. If unresolved symbols are reported, then the kernel module was most likely built against a Linux kernel source tree (or kernel headers) for a kernel revision or configuration that doesn’t match the running kernel.

modprobe nvidia

threw errors on my box. My nvidia module was not loading due to an obsolete file I had put in /etc/modprobe.d/ many Ubuntu versions ago. Moved out the old files and the module loads fine!