Bug#696554: System freezes and lockups

[Mar Mel <marmel6942@yahoo.com>]

I have indeed been having similar intermittent freeze issues with the non-free
driver and have filed bug #696360.

Troubleshooting hardware issues is a routine part of my life in IT and your
suggestion regarding heat is the first thing I checked to make sure that the
linux driver was not somehow causing my card to overheat. The highest temp I can
achive using my current software loadout is 53°C. Under Windows, the card
regularly hits 65-70° when stressed.

Strangely, I am never doing anything to stress the GPU when these crashes occur.
I have no 3D-intensive software installed and the CPU & GPU % demands on modern
hardware are relatively minimal these days.

I can boot into Windows and run FurMark for hours without any issue on this
hardware. It's been rock-stable for years under windows (my gaming paritition)
and I use MSI Afterburner (formerly RivaTuner) to monitor fan speeds and temp.
Here's my current temps:

$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +34.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +98.0°C)
Core 0:         +30.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +98.0°C)
Core 1:         +32.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +98.0°C)
Core 2:         +32.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +98.0°C)
Core 3:         +32.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +98.0°C)

adt7473-i2c-1-2e
Adapter: nouveau-0000:01:00.0-3
in1:          +3.00 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +2.99 V)
+3.3V:        +3.30 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +4.39 V)
fan1:         668 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan2:           0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan3:           0 RPM  (min =  164 RPM)  ALARM
temp1:        +36.2°C  (low  = +65.0°C, high = +85.0°C)  ALARM
                       (crit = +97.0°C, hyst = +97.0°C)
Board Temp:   +34.2°C  (low  = +20.0°C, high = +60.0°C)
                       (crit = +100.0°C, hyst = +100.0°C)
temp3:        +36.2°C  (low  = +80.0°C, high = +105.0°C)  ALARM
                       (crit = +107.0°C, hyst = +103.0°C)

Thanks