Switching Kernel Modules to nvidia-open [ABANDONED] | Arch Linux Community | Page 1

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:35 AM

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How would I compare the installed drivers of two different ssds on the same machine
more context:
I have two ssds for my laptop, I recently acquired a larger one which I'm daily driving, it's performance has been a lot less than my original ssd because of the different drivers they have installed
my original ssd used arch install which I believe provided more drivers than my current daily drive
I wanna compare the original drive to the new drive so I can boost my performance to that of my original ssd

lmk if anything needs clarifying

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:36 AM

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maiden dirge How would I compare the installed drivers of two different ssds on the same mach...

dont have a lot of info. just sounds weird. but you can check drivers in use using lspci -k

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:37 AM

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ah, I missed a key point

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:37 AM

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the drivers are usually integrated in the kernel however, which is why i dont see why they would be different between Archinstall and non-Archinstall

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:37 AM

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I'm mostly looking for Nvidia drivers

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on my other install the archinstall script kinda grabbed them for me, and the performance on that ssd is much better than the performance on my current one

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despite having the same hardware

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:38 AM

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nvidia drivers shouldnt affect SSD speed..

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:38 AM

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no

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my games performed better when I was using the original ssd because I had different drivers to the ones on my current ssd

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this has nothing to do with the ssds themselves

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it's about game performance and nvidia drivers

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:40 AM

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that could certainly be Nvidia however, yes. not sure why ssds were mentioned in the first place

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anyways. use the lspci command and check driver in use for the GPU. would also preferably want to know which GPU you have

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:41 AM

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I still feel like we're not entirely on the same page but yeah specs would be helpful

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cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:42 AM

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maiden dirge I still feel like we're not entirely on the same page but yeah specs would be he...

from what ive understood, youre questioning GPU performance differences due to different drivers. correct?

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:43 AM

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basically kinda yes

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:43 AM

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right. its just this got very confusing when you mentioned SSD and drivers

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:43 AM

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I have a laptop and two ssds, I have arch installed on both ssds
but on the original ssd my games perform way way better than the current one and I assume it's a driver thing but I'm not sure

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that's the problem I wanna solve, optimising performance

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sorry for any confusion I am horrible at using the correct terminology for stuff

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:45 AM

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cinder agate dont have a lot of info. just sounds weird. but you can check drivers in use usi...

no worries. you can start by running this and looking for your GPU entry. want to know which driver its using ^

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:45 AM

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awesome

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01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD107M [GeForce RTX 4060 Max-Q / Mobile] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation AD107 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel```

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this is the only stuff that mentioned nvidia

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why intel is mentioned at the bottom I have no idea, my cpu is AMD

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:47 AM

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hm.. it does seems to use nvidia and nvidia_drm as expected.. output of pacman -Qs nvidia?

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:47 AM

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    The GBM EGL external platform library
local/egl-wayland 4:1.1.21-1
    EGLStream-based Wayland external platform
local/egl-wayland2 1.0.1-1
    EGLStream-based Wayland external platform (2)
local/egl-x11 1.0.5-1
    NVIDIA XLib and XCB EGL Platform Library
local/libvdpau 1.5-4
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/linux-firmware-nvidia 20260221-1
    Firmware files for Linux - Firmware for NVIDIA GPUs and SoCs
local/nvidia-open 590.48.01-15
    NVIDIA open kernel modules
local/nvidia-prime 1.0-5
    NVIDIA Prime Render Offload configuration and utilities
local/nvidia-utils 590.48.01-4
    NVIDIA drivers utilities```

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:49 AM

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this is a laptop right?

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:49 AM

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yeah

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ROG Zephyrus G14

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:49 AM

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could i also have the output of lspci | grep vga|3d?

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:50 AM

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bash: 3d: command not found

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:50 AM

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ah.. my bad

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:51 AM

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Game Performance Optimization

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:51 AM

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try lspci | grep -E 'vga|3d'

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:51 AM

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no output

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:52 AM

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welp. manually run lspci without anything else. looking for any entry that contains VGA or 3D near the beginning similar to the GPU

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:53 AM

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65:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Phoenix1 (rev c1)

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just my gpus

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discrete and integrated respectively

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 10:56 AM

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as im suspecting. you have integrated graphics. if using steam, right click a game, hit properties and input prime-run %command%. the issue is offloading from the integrated graphics to the GPU

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try the game with prime-run and see if that resolves the performance issues

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 10:57 AM

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alright

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it seems better???

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maybe??

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I need to get a game with a build in benchmarking setting, hang on

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:02 AM

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maiden dirge it seems better???

usually the system uses igpu for dealing with desktop and such. prime-run is essentially just a way to force an application to use the Nvidia dgpu

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:04 AM

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I'm aware, I just don't believe that this will fix it

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it feels like a bandaid fix, regardless of if it actually is or not

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system monitor for KDE says that my game is runniing usiing GPU 3, which is also running all the other processes

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:10 AM

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maiden dirge system monitor for KDE says that my game is runniing usiing GPU 3, which is also...

while the game is running, run nvidia-smi in a terminal and see what it reports to be using the GPU

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:10 AM

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NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

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weird

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[caf@penelope ~]$ sudo pacman -Qs nvidia-open
[sudo] password for caf:
local/nvidia-open 590.48.01-15
    NVIDIA open kernel modules```

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yeah the game is performing the same as it was before using prime-run, just took a second

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should I be using the nvidia-open-dkms drivers or???

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:14 AM

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lsmod | grep nvidia?

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:14 AM

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video                  81920  5 nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight,asus_wmi,amdgpu,asus_nb_wmi,nouveau
wmi                    32768  7 video,nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight,asus_armoury,asus_wmi,wmi_bmof,mxm_wmi,nouveau```

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I closed the game

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:15 AM

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maiden dirge should I be using the nvidia-open-dkms drivers or???

shouldnt matter as you seem to use the notmal kernel which nvidia-open is built for

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wait.. im blind

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how did i not notice nouveau being loaded? were gonna have to blacklist it

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:17 AM

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I didn't see that either

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hypothetically what command would I need to run to check what drivers are being used on the original ssd

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:19 AM

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run VISUAL=nano sudoedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
in said file, write:

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

and then save. then finally try a reboot

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:20 AM

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can I ask why I can't just remove nouveau?

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:21 AM

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maiden dirge can I ask why I can't just remove nouveau?

its in the kernel itself. hence we can only really stop it from loading in the first place

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:21 AM

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ah

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:22 AM

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once the reboot is done, try lspci -k again and show the nvidia output

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:22 AM

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cinder agate run `VISUAL=nano sudoedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf` in said file, ...

done

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:22 AM

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cinder agate once the reboot is done, try `lspci -k` again and show the nvidia output

alr

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    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation AD107 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel```

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:23 AM

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maiden dirge ```01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD107M [GeForce RTX 406...

hm..

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:23 AM

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kernel driver in use is still nouveau

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:24 AM

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cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf?

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:25 AM

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blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0```

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:26 AM

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one moment while i consult the wiki

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.aw nvidia

little yewBOT Mar 10, 2026, 11:26 AM

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cinder agate .aw nvidia

Nvidia

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Nvidia

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:26 AM

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np

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on my other ssd the kernel driver in use is nvidia

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nouveau is still present but not active

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:29 AM

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hold on. try running sudo mkinitcpio -P and rebooting again

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:30 AM

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kk

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:30 AM

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afterwards, rerun lspci -k as per usual

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:31 AM

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okay so I was using dkms on my other drive, I checked

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    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation AD107 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel```

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same as before

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:32 AM

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this geniuenly has me stumped..

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:32 AM

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I can only say that storage is managed by the kernel and doesn't change anything with SSDs but you can read further about it
@maiden dirge

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:32 AM

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what?

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:32 AM

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There is no driver for storage , it just works

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.aw ssd

little yewBOT Mar 10, 2026, 11:33 AM

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odd thorn .aw ssd

SSD

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SSD

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:33 AM

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that's not at all what we're talking about

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:33 AM

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odd thorn I can only say that storage is managed by the kernel and doesn't change anything...

xy problem

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:33 AM

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Ik. But still giving good information

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Performance can be tuned btw

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You may like

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.aw gamemode

little yewBOT Mar 10, 2026, 11:33 AM

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odd thorn .aw gamemode

Gamemode

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamemode

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:33 AM

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that's the goal of this thread so I'd hope so

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gonna switch to the dkms drivers and hope that helps somehow

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:34 AM

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Wiki has a page for improving performance

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:34 AM

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I've looked at it

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:34 AM

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odd thorn .aw gamemode

their previous SSD had the Nvidia driver. their current system seems stuck on nouveau. which would explain the performance drop

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:34 AM

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But as jorgen said, this is a GPU thing

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:34 AM

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yeah I know

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:34 AM

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Not a SSD thing

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:35 AM

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I never said it was an ssd thing

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well I did but I corrected

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:35 AM

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Still, it is good to read about SSDs and what you can do with them for best performance/life

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Wiki talks about some practices and tweaks

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:36 AM

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I guess yeah but that's generally unrelated to the topic at hand, which is restoring my other system's performance to my current system

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:37 AM

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You may like to check that info later after solving the GPU part

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:37 AM

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it's on the same hardware the only difference is the ssds are set up differently

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:37 AM

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for now im clueless why its refusing to let go of nouveau. so in the meantime, ill rename the post to reflect the issue at hand

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:37 AM

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sure

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:37 AM

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maiden dirge it's on the same hardware the only difference is the ssds are set up differently

Tldr: GPU misconfiguration

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:37 AM

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dGPU loads nouveau despite nouveau being blacklisted

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:38 AM

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odd thorn Tldr: GPU misconfiguration

driver misconfiguration*

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:38 AM

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Kernel loads nouveau despite nouveau being blacklisted

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couldnt even get my wording right

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:39 AM

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I don't know how exactly Archinstall does it's driver shit but it's not set up the same way on this install which is directly causing the issue

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:39 AM

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cinder agate couldnt even get my wording right

you're fine dw, you're trying your best and I couldn't ask any more of you

odd thorn Mar 10, 2026, 11:40 AM

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Hope you can setup it right. Nvidia can be painful sometimes

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:40 AM

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honestly I'm half tempted to reinstall arch from scratch in an attempt to correct this, but I hope I don't have to

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thanks

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gonna look for similar tickets for the moment

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https://discord.com/channels/399812551963049995/1264947936861884427

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this looks promising

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:50 AM

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maiden dirge this looks promising

uh.. not so sure. that ended with a reinstall apparently

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:50 AM

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do you think it could be loading nouveau at boot?

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stupid question nvm

cinder agate Mar 10, 2026, 11:51 AM

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maiden dirge do you think it could be loading nouveau at boot?

thats the issue. whats confusing is that nvidia-utils should by default blacklist nouveau. we then tried manually doing that via the conf file, but even then nothing was yielded

maiden dirge Mar 10, 2026, 11:51 AM

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yeah

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I really wish I knew where in the install I went wrong so I could correct it

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it's late where I am so I'm probably gonna sleep, thanks for your help so far, I hope I can fix this without reinstalling

maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 5:03 AM

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maiden dirge ```01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD107M [GeForce RTX 406...

okay update on this

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    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 180d
    Kernel driver in use: nouveau
    Kernel modules: nouveau```

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it now ONLY says nouveau

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not good

maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 5:21 AM

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switching kernel modules to nvidia-open

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maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 6:05 AM

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yo @cinder agate you around?

maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 7:31 AM

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Switching Kernel Modules to nvidia-open-dkms

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ughhhh I have no idea what im doing

maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 7:36 AM

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maiden dirge ```01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD107M [GeForce RTX 406...

I literally just want to add nvidia-open-dkms to the Kernel Modules line here what the fuckkkkkkkkk

maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 2:06 PM

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Switching Kernel Modules to nvidia-open

maiden dirge Mar 11, 2026, 3:02 PM

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UNSOLVED
sorry if you looked here for help

#Switching Kernel Modules to nvidia-open [ABANDONED]