Nvidia drivers locking up Linux

firaX · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2003 4:53 pm Post subject:

heh well i got a different yet similar problem.
My xserver starts just fine but randomly seems to lock my machine (latest nvidia drivers, KDE 3.1.2).
I have a feeling this happens when using KONQUEROR visiting _SOME_ websites. THe screen completely freezes, only the mouse still moving + i can STILL ssh into my box, but killing X etc. doesnt help. Killing almost _EVERY_ process manually gets me back into kdm, but my framebuffer gets all messed up (going to tty1 for example results in FOUR split screen framebuffered command line screens, like n64 multiplayer :p )
Really weird, so rebooting is my only choice after this happens.
I m almost scared to use konqueror now heh, this really only happens with konqueror, i ve been using Firebird and Galeon for a while and have never had this happen with them, problem is i really prefer konqueror as its much faster in kde :-/

paranode · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 679 Location: Texas

firaX · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2003 9:58 pm Post subject:

i got it set to "true" because some sites recommended this.
What exactly does renderacc. do?

nixAddict · n00b Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Buffalo, NY

zhenlin · Veteran Joined: 09 Nov 2002 Posts: 1361

2D rendering acceleration has been the bane of NVidia users for quite some time. My local terminal (i.e. the monitor, keyboard, mouse directly attached to the computer) tended to lock up whenever I used mozilla. But it seems the problem has now caused even the kernel to lockup...

firaX · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2003 8:22 am Post subject:

well since it has been suggested to DISABLE "Renderaccel" in XF config , i guess thats the first thing to try

xplosive · n00b Joined: 13 Jun 2003 Posts: 18 Location: Vienna

Well, I thought this thread should handle problems with the NVidia-Driver and not some Mozilla-Firebird-Konqueror-Galeon related problems... Anyway I tried to unmerge X and Gnome and what I got is that X starts, but as soon as I activate Gnome and gdm in my rc.config my machine boots, tells me as allways it failed to start the NVidia-Driver, even if the splash screen used to be displayed before and then locks as soon as gdm tries to start... One more thing: In X (with xdm I presume) it lets me log in graphically and work, but as before as soon as I try to log out, reboot or shut down... practically when X should be shut down the computer locks up in a just unique way nothing works, nothing!
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Bart B · n00b Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 20 Location: Netherlands

I have a similar problem on my computer at the moment.

I thought it was time for a fresh new start, and I've installed the base-system and X. Now, I can't get XFree to work! My screen just hang (before nvidia logo), and all my consoles are down! (I'm not using frame buffered consoles). I can now reach my computer with SSH, and shut down nicely.

My log's don't show exactly what's wrong!

I've asked about my problem (including full config and log) at the following thread
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=389487#389487

[edit] I understand that the problem is to be found in the NVIDIA driver... This post is ment to add 1 more who has the same problem, including a logfile of XFree (could be useful).
If you look at the LOG-file... you can see that everything is OK, except that, in the end, a signal 11 is received, after which it stops (I didn't use CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE to get that)
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firaX · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2003 12:25 pm Post subject:

Well if you had read the thread exactly you would have noticed that the mozilla/konqueror problem is directly related to the nvidia drivers, as in all cases the screen just freezes, for some of us X wont even start, for some it randomly freezes , yet it seems to be the same problem.

nixAddict · n00b Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Buffalo, NY

Option "RenderAccel" "off"/"false"/"0" failed to work for me.

However Option "NoRenderAccel" "1" is working perfectly.

Thanks everyone, and good luck with your resolving your issue.

firaX · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2003 3:41 pm Post subject:

so did you remove the "renderaccel" "false" line completely from your XF config or did you leave it in and add the Norenderaccel option as well
cause now i have either of them , hope thats ok?

nixAddict · n00b Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Buffalo, NY

firaX · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2003 3:59 pm Post subject:

just noticed putting all two options at the same time makes "norenderaccel" stay unused.
I just checked my xf log file , while it does accept "NoRenderAccel" "1" (on , true whatever , either works) it still says (further down the log file) "Using NVIDIA 2D Acceleration" or something like that.
Does that mean Renderaccel is STILL being used, or is it something else?

nixAddict · n00b Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Buffalo, NY

Shienarier · Apprentice Joined: 16 Jun 2003 Posts: 278

This may not be very usefull since i didn't know what was wrong. But now it works.
I removed the kernel and glx packages, reinstalled them and ran 'opengl-update nvidia'.
Then i looked in XF86Config and let the "Standard VGA" part still use 'nv', while i changed the grafic card to use 'nvidia'. Now it works.

nbg · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 77

I tried again, this time with vanilla sources, just to ensure that none of the kernel patches were borking anything. X still locked.

:cry:

At this point, I'm not sure what to do. I have NEVER had the Nvidia drivers so utterly horrible fail on me like this. I've tried nearly everthing I can think of to get it to work, at no avail. I could use the nv drivers, but I give up decent 2D acceleration, 3D acceleration, antialiased fonts, etc.

I'll try loading Mandrake to see wether it's something with Gentoo or not. If that still doesn't work, it lookes like I'll have to give up on Linux for the time being.

nbg · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 04 Oct 2002 Posts: 77

I fixed it!

The BIOS update did break things. I reverted back to my old BIOS, and X worked without a hitch.

Piecing the events together, something b0rked my X server config when I tried to tweak my Geforce a little under Linux, and it locked up X exactly the same way. So I decided to reinstall another day, and concentrate on getting my Windows gaming partition up and running. S3 suspend didn't work on my motherboard, so I tried flashing my BIOS to the latest version in hopes of fixing it (it didn't). At the time, it didn't seem to break anything, so I left it be.

Anyway, to make a long story short, anyone with an Epox 8RDA or 8RDA+ should be using the BIOS update releases on January 17, 2003. Anything later than that breaks the Linux Nvidia drivers.

JWU42 · n00b Joined: 17 Aug 2002 Posts: 70 Location: Cornfields...

Thank god I found this thread...

I am having the same problem wih X locking up and looking like a garbled mess after running startx. I have an 8rda+ and will try the bios flash suggested and advise.

UPDATE: Don't flash to an old bios. Fried my bios chip and stuck with the C1 post error. This is a known issue on the amdmb.com forums. Too bad I didn't scan thru there before flashing it back.

sindre · Guru Joined: 01 Nov 2002 Posts: 315 Location: Norway

My X also looks like a garbled mess in any resolution above 1280x960 (except maybe 1280x1024). I can't use either 1400x1050 or 1600x1200. It works with the nv driver, and I know I didn't have this issue some time ago.
I can't revert to old drivers because I use 2.5.x kernel and need to for nptl.

searcher · Apprentice Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 175 Location: NL

To get back a bit on the thread, the RenderAccel option is used by your video card for both 2d and 3d acceleration, to give it a bit of an extra edge. BUT it has some serious stability issues, which is why it is disabled by default. This means you can leave out the renderaccel option out of XF86config all together. If anyone would actually take the time to read the README you will find it in there, as with a few other options.

As for the poster which has the problem with the 4 screens when returning to framebuffer after closing X: This is due to the fact that you have the framebuffer and X running at different bpp's. In my case i had the X server running @32 bit and my framebuffer at @16 bit, which caused the framebuffer to fsck itself once i dropped from X.

One last thing: if you can't get the nvidia card to work in X but you can with all the weird BIOS flashing, if you haven't already tried so, you should make sure that you enable an option in your BIOS which gives the PCI VGA graphics card an interrupt. I know this sounds stupid if you have an agp card, but for me this is also needed to get it working.

Good luck on getting it to run (once you can play UT it'll all be worth it

)
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shazbotus · n00b Joined: 28 Jun 2003 Posts: 24 Location: Duke Univ.

I am still compiling Gnome, but has anybody checked out my thread. I posted a link to a bug fix I found on bugzilla. It seems that many people have the problem with starting X and then system hangs or goes black. Here is my thread... click here

mundi · n00b Joined: 27 Jun 2003 Posts: 60

hi everybody !

i' have got a dell inspiron 8200 with a nvidia 440 go 64MB graphics card.

i followed your thread because i have been expiriencing one of the problems you are talking about here for a long time.
it is the one where the xfree freezes the comp before displaying the splash image. this has been a problem since a certain nvidia driver release (which number i do not remember any more).
i allways had do start the systems several times till i could enter X (which lead to not shuting down the system as long as possible - not exactly what i have a notebook for :-)

)
i experienced this problem under redhat 8, redhat 9 and the currrent gentoo release.
yesterday i downloaded the newest version Nvidia-linux-x86-1.0-4396 and installed it under gentoo - it works perfectly. (i had do install it manually because the new nvidia installation process does not work under gentoo).
so i installed it under rh8 and rh9 -> it works (which does not matter any more, because for me redhat is history)

i hope this helps - regards mundi

Pluvius · Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 1:29 am Post subject:

I too upgraded to the latest ebuild of nvidia kernel and glx, along with many other upgrades, but I've had no problems with nvidia, X or any other application.

I do know that during the world upgrade many configuration files were altered or their locations were changed. There was a warning to ensure you run "etc-update" afterwards and ensure that you keep the new config files (customizing where necessary).

Could it be that you did not keep the newer config files?

Athlon_Jedi · n00b Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 45 Location: Tifton, GA

ok when it came time to install the nvidia drivers for my card trying to emerge them borked every time, however when i used lynx to get the shell script installer from nvidas site it installed without complaint and as soon as i setup my xfree86.conf with the appropreate changes and adding:

Option "NvAGP" "2" (adds nvidia native agp support thus 3d support)

where it goes everything was groovy, and upon doing startx , i was presented with ugly tvm @ 1200x1024 resilution.

btw in your xfree86.conf you have to list your reslution that you want to be default first to get it after x starts.

so i would give that a try
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