[SOLVED] Total system freeze when screen saver or when.....

Message

philip · Post by **philip** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:27 pm

For quite some time I have been suffering from total system freeze when my screen saver has been active for a while or sometimes when I initiate shut down of my system.

I have been looking extensively among similar problems in the Gentoo Forum and on the web. But I have not found anyone with an identical problem, though many seem to have closely related problems, see

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-559068.html

and

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-92 ... art-0.html

My problem occurs almost every time (but not all the time) when my screen saver has been active for a while. The other occurance is when I initiate a shut down of my system form the KDE log out menu (about 30-40% of the times when I shut down my system).

The symptom is that the screen freeze and the keyboard and mouse does not respond. The system appears totally frozen and I have to do a forced shut down with the power button. This circumstance makes it really hard (or impossible) to detect anything in log files (dmesg, /var/log/messages, xsession errors or any other log file).

Some relevant system info:

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# uname -a
Linux phils_pc 2.6.39-gentoo-r2 #8 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 8 20:59:02 CEST 2012 i686 AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

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# emerge --search nvidia-drivers
Searching...    
[ Results for search key : nvidia-drivers ]
[ Applications found : 1 ]

*  x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers
      Latest version available: 295.71
      Latest version installed: 295.71
      Size of files: 33,924 kB
      Homepage:      http://www.nvidia.com/
      Description:   NVIDIA X11 driver and GLX libraries
      License:       NVIDIA

Settings in /etc/make.conf

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VIDEO_CARDS="nouveau"

KDE version

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emerge --search kde-meta
Searching...                                                                                                     
[ Results for search key : kde-meta ]                                                                                    
[ Applications found : 1 ]

*  kde-base/kde-meta
      Latest version available: 4.8.5
      Latest version installed: 4.8.5

I have tried the following to solve the problem:

Recompiling media-libs/mesa

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      Latest version available: 8.0.3
      Latest version installed: 8.0.3

Remerging X11-drivers
(See: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-55 ... -275.html )

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# emerge $(qlist -I -C x11-drivers/)

Masked nvidia-drivers in /etc/portage/package.mask
Followed the Gentoo Nvidia howto for my old Geforce 4 card
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/nvidia-guide.xml

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>=x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-97.00

Nothing of this has solved my problem. Does anyone have a hint what to do next?

roravun · Post by **roravun** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:34 pm

That kernel is pretty "old". It is always a good idea to try your luck with the latest stable.

dalek · Post by **dalek** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 2:27 am

You may also want to try the nvidia drivers. It's odd but sometimes one rig works great with the 3rd party nvidia drivers but another rig works best with the Nvidia drivers. So, if one could be causing a problem, try the other.

That is not to say that the video drivers is causing the problems but it could be. I had a problem with mine freezing a good while back on a older rig. Turned out that downgrading the nvidia drivers fixed it. For some reason, my card did not like that version. The computer was actually seeing the keyboard keystrokes and the mouse moving but the video card was not showing it on the screen. I figured this out by going to a console, logging in and typing in the reboot command blindly. A few seconds after typing in the reboot command, the system rebooted and the BIOS screen was there. Weird.

I also agree that you should try a newer kernel. Each release has fixes and you may need one of those fixes.

While at it, double check the section for input devices and make sure you have the right ones. Could be that something has changed and you didn't realize it.

Hope that helps.

philip · Post by **philip** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 3:51 pm

dalek wrote:You may also want to try the nvidia drivers. It's odd but sometimes one rig works great with the 3rd party nvidia drivers but another rig works best with the Nvidia drivers. So, if one could be causing a problem, try the other.

Do you mean I have to set

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VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"

instead of

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VIDEO_CARDS="nouveau"

in /etc/make.conf

and remerge nvidia-drivers?

And yes I agree I have an old kernel :) I use to enjoy the stability of my system and I upgrade the kernel quite seldom. But some thime I guess it becomes inevitable to up grade.

philip · Post by **philip** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:34 pm

I have two "Device" sections in my XOrg config:

#cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/80-XorgconfigDevice.conf

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# Device configured by xorgconfig:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VideoRam    128000
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection

and

#cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-StandardGraphicsDevice.conf

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# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Standard VGA Device:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Standard VGA"
    VendorName  "Unknown"
    BoardName   "Unknown"
    Driver      "vga"
EndSection

Is this correctly configured? Can I have two "Device" sections?

philip · Post by **philip** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 4:55 pm

dalek, I post my Xorg configuration here. Does it look right?

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-Module.conf

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# **********************************************************************                                               
# Module section -- this  section  is used to specify
# which dynamically loadable modules to load.
# **********************************************************************
#
Section "Module"

    Load        "dbe"   # Double buffer extension

    SubSection  "extmod"
      Option    "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension
    EndSubSection

    Load        "type1"
    Load        "freetype"
    Load        "glx"

    Disable "dri" 
    Disable "dri2"

EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-ServerFlags.conf

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Section "ServerFlags"

# The following three Options were added by Ph
# on 2009-05-12 in connection with the upgrade
# of xorg-server to version 1.5
# See Xorg 1.5 Upgrade Guide and post on
# Gentoo forum

Option "AutoAddDevices" "on"
Option "AutoEnableDevices" "on"
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "on"

EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-Keyboard.conf

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Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "keyboard-all"
        Driver "evdev"
        Option "XkbLayout" "se"
        Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
        Option "XkbVariant" ",qwerty"
        Option "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-InputDevices.conf

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# **********************************************************************
# Core Pointer's InputDevice section
# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

    Identifier  "Mouse1"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option "Protocol"    "IMPS/2"
    Option "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"
    Option "ZAxisMapping"       "4 5"

EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-Monitor.conf

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# **********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "SyncMaster 181T"
# Added by Ph on 2010-10-25 to solve ugly fonts, especially Luxi Sans
    Option "DPI"     "96 x 96"
    HorizSync   31.5 - 82.0
    VertRefresh 50-90

EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-StandardGraphicsDevice.conf

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# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Standard VGA Device:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Standard VGA"
    VendorName  "Unknown"
    BoardName   "Unknown"
    Driver      "vga"
EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/80-XorgconfigDevice.conf

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# Device configured by xorgconfig:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VideoRam    128000
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-Screen.conf

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# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections
# **********************************************************************
Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600"
    Monitor     "SyncMaster 181T"
    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/95-ServerLayout.conf

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# **********************************************************************
# ServerLayout sections.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier  "Simple Layout"
    Screen "Screen 1"
    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"

EndSection

dalek · Post by **dalek** » Sun Sep 09, 2012 12:14 am

philip wrote:I have two "Device" sections in my XOrg config:

#cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/80-XorgconfigDevice.conf
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# Device configured by xorgconfig:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VideoRam    128000
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
and

#cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-StandardGraphicsDevice.conf
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# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Standard VGA Device:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Standard VGA"
    VendorName  "Unknown"
    BoardName   "Unknown"
    Driver      "vga"
EndSection
Is this correctly configured? Can I have two "Device" sections?

This could be a problem. In one section you tell it to use nvidia then in the other section you tell it to use vga. Unless you have two cards, I don't think that will work. You need to remove one or the other and keep the one you have installed.

If you do have two cards, I think you have to have a section that tells which card goes with what. I have never had two cards so not sure how that would work but read about it a couple times.

I don't see anything else but that doesn't mean someone else won't come along and see something else.

philip · Post by **philip** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 5:39 pm

I removed the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-StandardGraphicsDevice.conf

with config

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# ********************************************************************** 
# Graphics device section 
# ********************************************************************** 

# Standard VGA Device: 

Section "Device" 
    Identifier  "Standard VGA" 
    VendorName  "Unknown" 
    BoardName   "Unknown" 
    Driver      "vga" 
EndSection

and upgraded to kernel-3.38-gentoo.

So far so good.

philip · Post by **philip** » Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:22 pm

Unfortunately my hopes were shattered last night when my system experienced a total freeze again. The meassures above did not solve my problem.
The fact that the feezes occur at two distinct runtime states:

1. When the screen-saver has been active, somewhere beetween 20 minutes to several hours (the freeze occurs at any point in time between those extremes)

2. When I issue the system shut down command or a log out command from the KDE launch menu

should lead to some clues of what actually casuses the freezes. But my knowlegde of how the SW is build and interact is to limited to figure out what.

dalek · Post by **dalek** » Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:01 am

I would try a different version of kernel just for a test. It could also just be a bug in some software but no telling which one. Could also be a hardware issue too. I'm not sure what else to try.

Maybe someone else will have a better idea.

philip · Post by **philip** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:46 pm

I have discovered that nVidia does not seem to be able to load module dri2. Can this be part of my problem?

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# grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[ 20859.426] Current Operating System: Linux phils_pc 3.3.8-gentoo #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Sep 9 19:20:55 CEST 2012 i686
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[ 20859.428] (II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
[ 20860.602] (EE) NVIDIA: Failed to load module "dri2" (module does not exist, 0)

Can this be part of my problem?

ulenrich · Post by **ulenrich** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:21 pm

@philip
- take a LongTerm kernel 3.2 or 3.4
- your videoram looks weird (128 * 1024 (* 1024?)?)

philip · Post by **philip** » Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:15 pm

I read from

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# man xorg.conf

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VideoRam  mem
              This optional entry specifies the amount of video ram that is
              installed on the graphics board.  This is measured in kBytes.
              In most cases this is not required because  the  Xorg  server
              probes  the  graphics  board to determine this quantity.  The
              driver-specific documentation should indicate when  it  might
              be needed.

I also read from the "NVIDIA X Server Settings" application in KDE:

Graphics Card Information
....
RAM 512 MB
Memory Interface 128 bit
....

The correct setting in my config file should thus be 512MB * 1024 = 524288 Kbyte
(1024 Bytes = 1 KByte, 1024 KB= 1 MB)

In any case my setting is wrong. Thanks ulenrich.

philip · Post by **philip** » Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:25 pm

I have also ruled out any misconfiguration in the user specific settings. I created a test_user, logged in as test_user and let the screen saver be active for a while. The freeze came after approx an hour.

philip · Post by **philip** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:37 pm

I suspect my problem may be hw related. The reason for my suspision is that the freezes occur fairly random in time. Eventhough they almost always occur when the screen saver has been acitve for a while and thus seem to be consistent with a certain sw execution sequence, I recently have had a couple of freezes while just working away on the machine.

Today I installed a new graphics card; ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 2GB PhysX CUDA. I will soon find out if my problem persist or if it actually was a hardware problem.

dalek · Post by **dalek** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:25 pm

You may want to check your system memory too. It could be that when you get to a certain amount of ram being used, it hits some that is bad. I ran into this a week or so ago with my brother.

I guess computers are like chains. Only as strong as its weakest link.

philip · Post by **philip** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 4:46 pm

I confirm that my problem was due to an ageing graphics card and thus HW related. With my new graphics card I have not had a freeze for 24 hours, while the screen saver has been active all the time.

The ageing can probably have to causes; The first may be the HW components themselves and the second may be old versions of GPU SW support, like Open GL, not compatible with recent graphics drivers.

dalek · Post by **dalek** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:01 pm

I'm glad you got it fixed. I was out of ideas.