Re: X problem

[Bradley M Alexander <storm@tux.org>]

On Sun, Feb 01, 2004 at 08:50:50PM +0100, Bytor the Destroyer wrote:
> Hello
>         I have been having trouble with running X.  I am running kernel 2.6.0 and sarge.  I have Nvidia GForce2 MX graphic card.  When I type startx the screen flickers and then goes black. I used apt-get to install gnome and the X packages like xfree86 and the others that it recomended.  Thanks for the help in advance,

I've been having similar problems. X runs fine most of the time, but 2-3
times a week, it locks hard. While XFree is running, normally with the
screen blanked, X will run away, using 98-99% of the CPU. I have to ssh in
and kill XFree86, so any X apps I have running are killed as well.

I have seen this on an MSI GeForce4 MX, which I then swapped with a
GeForce2 MX, and have seen the same behavior exhibited.

[storm@defiant storm]$ dpkg -l | grep nvidia
ii  nvidia-glx     1.0.4496-10    NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x driver
ii  nvidia-glx-dev 1.0.4496-10    NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x driver development
ii  nvidia-kernel- 1.0.4496-10+10 NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 2.4.23
ii  nvidia-kernel- 1.0.4496-7     NVIDIA binary kernel module common files
ii  nvidia-kernel- 1.0.4496-10    NVIDIA binary kernel module source
[storm@defiant storm]$ dpkg -l | grep XFree 
ii  xfree86-common 4.3.0-0pre1v5  X Window System (XFree86) infrastructure
ii  xlibmesa-dev   4.2.1-15       XFree86 Mesa development libraries pseudopac
ii  xlibmesa-dri   4.3.0-0pre1v5  Mesa 3D graphics library modules [XFree86]
ii  xlibmesa-gl    4.3.0-0pre1v5  Mesa 3D graphics library [XFree86]
ii  xlibmesa-glu   4.3.0-0pre1v5  Mesa OpenGL utility library [XFree86]
ii  xprt           4.3.0-0pre1v5  X print server (XFree86 version)
ii  xserver-xfree8 4.3.0-0pre1v5  the XFree86 X server

This has been going on for about 6 months, through XFree 4.2.1 and 4.3, and
through the last three or four sets of nvidia drivers. This box is a 1GHz
Athlon-C. I have a pair of Pentium III boxes at work (one dual 800 and a
single 850) that don't seem to have the same problems.

Has anyone got a fix for this? Could this be an Athlon-specific problem?
I opened a support request with nVidia, but based on their generic response
email, I don't expect a whole lot of help out of them.
    
-- 
--Brad
========================================================================
Bradley M. Alexander                |
gTLD SysAdmin, Security Engineer    |   storm [at] tux.org
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