# Nvidia Driver hardlocks

## ChrisRX

Whenever I enable the nvidia driver my computer seems to hardlock at random times (At least I think I mean hardlock, everything freezes including numlock except the mouse)

It seems to be random intervals and seems to happen most often when i load a new page in firefox.  It has also happened when typing in my password in gdm, chatting on amsn.  I have tried the two of the most recent drivers and Ive also tried kernels 2.6.15-r1 and 2.6.16-r1.  I am using the ~x86 xorg.

I have no problems using ubuntu dapper (the testing release with the most recent version of xorg) I don't have any problems and have been using XGL quite happily.

Has anyone got any idea?  I have a Nvidia 6600 which is kind of going to waste at the moment.

----------

## ChrisRX

*bump*  Surely I can't be the only one?

----------

## bigmauler

What verson of the nvidia kernel are you using? You should be using the latest with the ~x86 or if you have an AMD64 the ~AMD64 for your kernel.

What version of Xorg are you using?

--edit--

by version of Xorg I mean are you using modular or not? I am going to assume not.

But your nvidia kernel versions are what are going to be most importaint.

----------

## ChrisRX

My xorg is xorg-x11-7.0-r1.  I'm not sure if thats modular or not though.  It seemed to be a load of packages when I emerged it so I think it might.

The two bvidia kernel versions I used were nvidia-kernel-1.0.8756 and nvidia-kernel-1.0.8178-r3.  As I said I don't have a problem with the drivers on ubuntu

----------

## Corona688

The nvidia drivers have ALWAYS given me hardlock problems, on every distro, for the last 4 years.  I gave up on nvidia, you can't run a server like that...

----------

## ChrisRX

Ok well I'm not running a server and I've never had hardlocking problems.  I just want to know why my card runs fine under ubuntu but not under gentoo

----------

## Matteo Azzali

Are you sure you followed the guidelines for creating a fine xorg.conf ?

If I remember well, that issue manifests itself when using software cursors,

these are good-working settings, try to modify for your card:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Section "Device"
> 
>          Identifier "Videocard0"
> ...

 

P.S.: if you tell us which card are you using we can understand better,

is PCI-EX or AGP? is 128 or 256 Mb?

Also, are you sure it's the nvidia driver? To me it seems the system could be broken,

but you said "from when I started to use nvidia driver"... what were you using before?

----------

## Matteo Azzali

 *Corona688 wrote:*   

> The nvidia drivers have ALWAYS given me hardlock problems, on every distro, for the last 4 years.  I gave up on nvidia, you can't run a server like that...

 

Good luck for your petition(s) then.... and remember to ask ati for some X1300-X1600-X1800-X1900 linux driver....

----------

## ChrisRX

 *Matteo Azzali wrote:*   

> Are you sure you followed the guidelines for creating a fine xorg.conf ?
> 
> If I remember well, that issue manifests itself when using software cursors,
> 
> these are good-working settings, try to modify for your card:
> ...

 

I've never heard of these guidelines for a better xorg before.  I'll test in a minute.

My card is an AGP nVidia 6600 le 256mb.  When I don't use the nvidia driver I use the generic nv driver and it stays stable.

----------

## ChrisRX

Nope.  Computer froze within a minute of Xorg loading up.  I think at the time gaim was logging in at the time but otherwise it was an unprovoced crash

----------

## Matteo Azzali

 *ChrisRX wrote:*   

> Nope.  Computer froze within a minute of Xorg loading up.  I think at the time gaim was logging in at the time but otherwise it was an unprovoced crash

 

Are you using a well configured X.org? Do you have

VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" in your make.conf?

Do you have set nvidia opengl with "eselect opengl set nvidia"?

Did you reemerged (emerge -1 ) "nvidia-kernel" and "nvidia-glx" after

every kernel update?

Since the crashes are also in the gdm it doesn't seems the DE, however did you tried using KDM/KDE?

Still lacking information, what you were using before? Since the drivers are the same of Ubuntu, the issue 

should be somewhere else....

----------

## ChrisRX

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. Yes

4. No

I'll try running just with startx to see what happens

----------

## Gergan Penkov

It seems that this is your problem https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-334436.html, since I switched to the new 8xxx series I don't have such problems.

----------

## urantiana

Same problem here, mouse click doesn't work (but it moves), my keyboard only accepts "ctrl+alt+backspace" (restarting x). My applications still working but my mouse and keyboard "don't". 

It seems to happen most often when I use Firefox, too.

I have a nvidia geforce2 GTS with nvidia-kernel-1.0.7174-r2 (it doesn't support superior versions), modular xorg-x11-7.0-r1, using kde 3.5.2. 

Can someone help me?

----------

## ChrisRX

 *Gergan Penkov wrote:*   

> It seems that this is your problem https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-334436.html, since I switched to the new 8xxx series I don't have such problems.

 

Hi, which post do you mean.  Theres quite a few in that thread  :Razz: 

----------

## Gergan Penkov

 *urantiana wrote:*   

> Same problem here, mouse click doesn't work (but it moves), my keyboard only accepts "ctrl+alt+backspace" (restarting x). My applications still working but my mouse and keyboard "don't". 
> 
> It seems to happen most often when I use Firefox, too.
> 
> I have a nvidia geforce2 GTS with nvidia-kernel-1.0.7174-r2 (it doesn't support superior versions), modular xorg-x11-7.0-r1, using kde 3.5.2. 
> ...

 

Well this was what I meant, these drivers with this problem was sth very usual, it was possible for me to work around this with disabling composite I think.

----------

## urantiana

I have hardlocks only when XGL is enabled.  :Sad: 

And I don't have composite enable.

My logs say nothing about this error, I really don't know how to fix this.  :Sad: 

----------

## ChrisRX

Ok I thought everything was working fine, I didn't have any crashes at all last night,even had XGL/Compiz set up, but now when I rebooted my computer today I get more hardlocks.  Except now the mouse cursor turns into a watch cursor and doesn't even move

----------

## antst

 *Corona688 wrote:*   

> The nvidia drivers have ALWAYS given me hardlock problems, on every distro, for the last 4 years.  I gave up on nvidia, you can't run a server like that...

 

Do you really need nvidia drivers for the server?  :Smile: 

----------

## ChrisRX

I tried running nvidia-settings before the computer locked again and it was showing a core temperature of 39 degrees C.   Is this too high?

----------

## ChrisRX

*Bump*

----------

## ChrisRX

*Double Bump* Soory to keep bumping, but I'm eager to some blender work  :Very Happy: 

----------

## Gergan Penkov

Well I really could not help, and I know how you feel, but if you read the whole two threads about these lockups you'll understand that no one knows the solution  :Sad: 

As I said I used to run without composite enabled and it was fairly stable, now I have the 8xxx drivers and I don't have any problems, but there is no general solution, as there were ati-users, who have had the same problems.

there were different solutions running with noapic changing the agp aperture size and so on, but they worked for some and not for all of us...

----------

## ChrisRX

It seems that the instability is linked to my wireless network card.  When I disable the network, the X server runs fine, but when I have the wireless card enabled and use the nvidia driver it causes instability.  Any idea whay this might be?  Possibly some form of incompatibilty between the two drivers or some form of noise the wireless signal causes on the graphics card?

The card uses the rt2500 module by the way

----------

