X problems with nvidia drivers under linux

I'm having a problem where X freezes when using nvidia's 5328 or 4363
drivers under linux Mandake. The symptoms are that my keyboard is not
responsive but my mouse cursor still moves. Even though I can't switch
to a virtual console, I am able to ssh in and find that X is using 90%
of cpu time. If I restart X everything works fine until the next crash.
I haven't found anything suspicious in /var/log/XFree86.0.log, and I
don't know of other logs I should check.

I've seen several posts claiming this is bug in the nvidia drivers (and
I don't experience it with the open source "nv" drivers). Does anyone
know of any workarounds? What about downgrading to older drivers or
changing kernel versions? I'm running 2.4.22-10mdk.

Thank you.

Jeff

Jeff Vaughan wrote:
I'm having a problem where X freezes when using nvidia's 5328 or 4363
drivers under linux Mandake. The symptoms are that my keyboard is not
responsive but my mouse cursor still moves. Even though I can't switch
to a virtual console, I am able to ssh in and find that X is using 90%
of cpu time. If I restart X everything works fine until the next crash.
I haven't found anything suspicious in /var/log/XFree86.0.log, and I
don't know of other logs I should check.

I've seen several posts claiming this is bug in the nvidia drivers (and
I don't experience it with the open source "nv" drivers). Does anyone
know of any workarounds? What about downgrading to older drivers or
changing kernel versions? I'm running 2.4.22-10mdk.

Don't use the nVidia driver, or keep ssh:ing and killa X (killall -9 X).

Downgrading driver can solve the problem, but it's not sure. Some of the older
drivers can introduce other bugs.

You can try to add the following to your grub as option for the kernel:
acpi=off noapic pci=noacpi pci=biosirq

This will solve some problems that people may have with some VIA chipsets (I
must say that using VIA chipset has worked best for me, while using nforce2 I
have had major problems with the nVidia driver when loggin off from a X
session or turning off X).


//Aho

J.O. Aho wrote:
Jeff Vaughan wrote:

I'm having a problem where X freezes when using nvidia's 5328 or 4363
drivers under linux Mandake. The symptoms are that my keyboard is not
responsive but my mouse cursor still moves. Even though I can't
switch to a virtual console, I am able to ssh in and find that X is
using 90% of cpu time. If I restart X everything works fine until
the next crash. I haven't found anything suspicious in
/var/log/XFree86.0.log, and I don't know of other logs I should check.

I've seen several posts claiming this is bug in the nvidia drivers
(and I don't experience it with the open source "nv" drivers). Does
anyone know of any workarounds? What about downgrading to older
drivers or changing kernel versions? I'm running 2.4.22-10mdk.


Don't use the nVidia driver, or keep ssh:ing and killa X (killall -9 X).

Downgrading driver can solve the problem, but it's not sure. Some of the
older drivers can introduce other bugs.

Any guess on which version to downgrade to? I couldn't find it by
googling. Worse comes to worse, I'll just guess and check


You can try to add the following to your grub as option for the kernel:
acpi=off noapic pci=noacpi pci=biosirq

I did this already and it fixed problems where I was getting a much
harder crash

Jeff

Jeff Vaughan wrote:

Downgrading driver can solve the problem, but it's not sure. Some of
the older drivers can introduce other bugs.

Any guess on which version to downgrade to? I couldn't find it by
googling. Worse comes to worse, I'll just guess and check

This is like lottery, you don't know.

Another thing that many seems to forget, if you have a mainboard that uses the
KT133 chipset from VIA, you must set your BIOS to use AGPx2 (AGPx4 will cause
crashes).


//Aho

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 12:55:44 -0500, Jeff Vaughan wrote:

I'm having a problem where X freezes when using nvidia's 5328 or 4363
drivers under linux Mandake. The symptoms are that my keyboard is not
responsive but my mouse cursor still moves. Even though I can't switch
to a virtual console, I am able to ssh in and find that X is using 90%
of cpu time. If I restart X everything works fine until the next crash.
I haven't found anything suspicious in /var/log/XFree86.0.log, and I
don't know of other logs I should check.

I've seen several posts claiming this is bug in the nvidia drivers (and
I don't experience it with the open source "nv" drivers). Does anyone
know of any workarounds? What about downgrading to older drivers or
changing kernel versions? I'm running 2.4.22-10mdk.

Thank you.

Jeff

http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/linux-2.4/

try this patched driver. The latest driver has a rather large AGP problem
on newer VIA chipsets. Also set Force no ACPI in LILO. Should fix any
probs you are having.

--
Regards,

Psychobudgie
http://www.psychobudgie.com

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:22:51 -0500, Jeff Vaughan wrote:

Downgrading driver can solve the problem, but it's not sure. Some of the
older drivers can introduce other bugs.

Any guess on which version to downgrade to? I couldn't find it by
googling. Worse comes to worse, I'll just guess and check

Use the 4496 driver. Works fine.

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

Jeff Vaughan wrote:

I'm having a problem where X freezes when using nvidia's 5328 or 4363
drivers under linux Mandake. The symptoms are that my keyboard is not
responsive but my mouse cursor still moves. Even though I can't switch
to a virtual console, I am able to ssh in and find that X is using 90%
of cpu time. If I restart X everything works fine until the next crash.
I haven't found anything suspicious in /var/log/XFree86.0.log, and I
don't know of other logs I should check.

I've seen several posts claiming this is bug in the nvidia drivers (and
I don't experience it with the open source "nv" drivers). Does anyone
know of any workarounds? What about downgrading to older drivers or
changing kernel versions? I'm running 2.4.22-10mdk.

Thank you.

Jeff


In my point of view at present the best and stable drivers from NVidia are
NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4496.src.rpm and NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4496.src.rpm that still
are on NVIDIA web site (the should pay for all this pub).

In anycase, you will need to build them and install them for your current
kernel. You will need first to switch to pure command line (just to stop X)
and then to compile/install from there. Here is how:


# Become root from a terminal (konsole for exemple)
su

# Change the Runlevel to stop graphical environement
init 3

# Then Compile the NVIDIA drivers
rpm --rebuild NVIDIA_*.src.rpm

# Install them (if already compiled)
rpm -Uvh /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/i586/NVIDIA_*.rpm

# And finally, get back to X11/Gnome/KDE
init 5 ; exit




I don't know for you but I had the same X11/keyboard freeze from new
Mandrake kernel 2421-26 with old or new NVIDIA drivers. Old kernel
2.4.21-25 never freeze for me (kernel 2.4.21-25mdk is fo Mandrake 9.1). So
to stop those anoying issues and to secure my PC, I installed kernel 2.4.23
from kernel.org and now all problems (and other) are gone. Solid like a
rock (like an old Mandrake 8.2 or a tortured Debian 3) and a little bit
faster as glibc has also been tortured by gcc and few of it optimisation
parameters .

I hope that Mandrake will release a new mdk kernel that rock for everyone
(not easy). There're so much drivers added into the default kernel source
that it is certainly difficult for contributor to upload a new kernel in
contrib repository (without thinking about security issue, compatibility
issue, drivers maturity...).


With regards to all
AM Christophe

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 23:25:39 +0100, AM Christophe wrote:

In my point of view at present the best and stable drivers from NVidia are
NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-4496.src.rpm and NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-4496.src.rpm that still
are on NVIDIA web site (the should pay for all this pub).

In anycase, you will need to build them and install them for your current
kernel. You will need first to switch to pure command line (just to stop X)
and then to compile/install from there. Here is how:

This is very much the "hard" way to install the nVidia drivers. Why not
just run the installer script from the nVidia website? Much easier.

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

psychobudgie wrote:
On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 12:55:44 -0500, Jeff Vaughan wrote:


I'm having a problem where X freezes when using nvidia's 5328 or 4363
drivers under linux Mandake. The symptoms are that my keyboard is not
responsive but my mouse cursor still moves. Even though I can't switch
to a virtual console, I am able to ssh in and find that X is using 90%
of cpu time. If I restart X everything works fine until the next crash.
I haven't found anything suspicious in /var/log/XFree86.0.log, and I
don't know of other logs I should check.

I've seen several posts claiming this is bug in the nvidia drivers (and
I don't experience it with the open source "nv" drivers). Does anyone
know of any workarounds? What about downgrading to older drivers or
changing kernel versions? I'm running 2.4.22-10mdk.

Thank you.

Jeff


http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/linux-2.4/

try this patched driver. The latest driver has a rather large AGP problem
on newer VIA chipsets. Also set Force no ACPI in LILO. Should fix any
probs you are having.


Thanks to everyone for the help. I'm trying the patched drivers right
now and will give 4496 and 4363 a shot if problems persist. Hopefully X
will last the night

Jeff

Jeff Vaughan was moved enough, that he took time and energy to create the a news
post (which will probebly come back to haunt him in the future):

Any guess on which version to downgrade to? I couldn't find it by
googling. Worse comes to worse, I'll just guess and check

I read that the 5x series has a lot of bugs.
I use the 4x series at home and never had an issue.
There was a pdf file you could get from nvidia's site which gave a lot of
troubleshooting hints and ways to setup things likes how to make it use 2xAA
etc.... that may also help you.


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Robert MacLean

http://www.sadev.co.za
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