nvidia 6600gt drivers hanging XFREE86 cpu usage 99.9%

[Mitchell Laks <mlaks@verizon.net>]

Hi,

I am working on an open source medical imaging workstation using opengl and qt 
(and vtk and itk) libraries as well as medical imaging libraries such as 
dcmtk, and ctn.

I got a new nvidia 6600gt intermediate level video card (~$200) instead of 
~$500+ for the 6800 ultra. This was to replace the older nvidia 5950. The new 
nvidia cards do floating point textures which is a "good thing".

However, I have been plagued with persistent hanging of the X server.  

Suddenly, it may be while using konqueror or while using designer or many 
other applications, the cpu usage of the XFREE86 goes to 99.9 percent 
(according to top) and the keyboard and mouse freeze. You can only log in 
remotely by ssh and check the system with top.

there is a mysterious message in 
/var/log/kern.log 

May  4 21:26:44 DAMNED kernel: NVRM: Xid: 6, PE0000 0470 fffffab5 0000fca0 
ffff6400 ffd7e3f7
May  8 15:33:43 DAMNED kernel: NVRM: Xid: 6, PE0000 0470 ffffffff 0000fc0c 
ff556400 ffffffff
May  8 16:31:28 DAMNED kernel: NVRM: Xid: 6, PE0000 05c0 ff6abe81 0000fde4 
ff556400 00000000
May  8 16:48:51 DAMNED kernel: NVRM: Xid: 6, PE0000 05a0 ffffffff 0000fd6c 
ffee6400 ffffffff
May  8 19:29:06 DAMNED kernel: NVRM: Xid: 6, PE0000 05a0 ffffffff 0000fbc8 
ffee6400 ffe2dfd8

from each crash. it only crashes when you use it alot :).

Interesting to get out of the problem, while on remote we do this

kill -9  (the xfree86process#)

export DISPLAY=":0:0";startx;CTRL^C 

while connected via ssh.

Sometimes even that doesnt help and the process won't die. and I must reboot.

This is using the proprietary nvidia kernel device installer.

This is to inform others and ask for any advice...

Mitchell Laks