Bug#689748: More info
Hello again,
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I haven't been able to continue testing
for the last few weeks. I recently did an upgrade where about 500 packages
were updated, including xserver-xorg-video-nouveau and the kernel. Something
has been fixed as the problem is now not repeatable and much more infrequent.
Still when the problem occurs it is the same as before: the whole system
freezes and only a hard power-off (keeping the off button pressed for 5-10
seconds) has any effect. This has happened with the mouse hovering over the
panel, when starting iceweasel (with many saved tags) and just moving the mouse
around. The tabs in iceweasel had pronounced "random dots" symptoms.
The one symptom that is still visible in all the windows is the "random dots".
They used to be much more extensive, now they only occur in the top 1/6th (or
so) of the blue part of the top of the frame (I use the kde2 theme), above the
"File Edit View Boomkarks Settings Help" (in the konsole window), but the dots
occur in all the window frames, not just konsoles.
I have also seen horizontal lines of varying lengths that do not get erased
when "clear"ing the konsole. They don't move with the konsole window and
disappear randomly.
This probably points to some code that is writing into the video memory or
some code that is writing beyond where it should and thus causes the freezes.
Now, to answer the specific questions:
The memory in this machine (A Dell Inspirion 8600) is 2GB.
Additional info:
Desktop Effect->System Settings->General claims that
OpenGL compositing (the default) has crashed KWin in the past.
This was most likely due to a driver bug.
Moving that window caused a lock up. This could have been random.
Re-enabling this option comes back with a long list of effects that could not
be re-enabled, but the system didn't freeze.
In /etc/X11/xorg.conf the option "SWCursor" is uncommented. If it is
commented (the default) the cursor is a bunch of random/corrupted dots.
If anyone can suggest other specific tests that might point to the culprit,
I'd be happy to run them.
Thanks!
Reply to: