Ubuntu
xserver-xorg-video-nv package

Graphics corrupt and freeze on boot

Bug #45797 reported by xtknight
6
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xserver-xorg-video-nv (Ubuntu)
New
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

With Dapper Drake 6.06 (x86_64) and an eVGA GeForce 7800GT (256-P2-N515-AX) graphics card, the GNOME startup splash screen gets corrupted after logging into the GDM. The login screen is fine, but it's when I log in that the corruption happens and then my system completely freezes. I had to go in to Recovery Mode and manually edit xorg.conf myself to use the vesa driver to get the GNOME window manager to start. I can't remember if it was attempting to use the 'nv' or 'nvidia' module before. It must have been 'nv' because 'nvidia' can't be redistributed with the stock install?

It's interesting to note this also happens on SUSE 10.1 (x86_64), and that was with the 'nv' driver. However, after using the 'vesa' driver in the X server configuration, GNOME starts fine on both SUSE and Dapper. GNOME is also fine after installing the 'nvidia' hardware accelerated graphics module, and OpenGL works correctly. This only seems to occur with the Dapper Live CD, or booting after an installation of Dapper. Safe graphics mode on the Live CD also works fine.

System specifications:
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (nForce 4 SLI chipset)
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester
(1) eVGA GeForce 7800GT (256-P2-N515-AX) on PCI Express x16 port
Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 (amd64 arch)

Revision history for this message
xtknight (xt-knight) wrote :

I forgot to add that when I say 'completely freeze', I mean that CTRL+ALT+Backspace does not work, nor CTRL+ALT+Del, nor any of the virtual terminals. And for clarification this happens when I use the Dapper Live DVD (except for safe graphics mode), or after an installation of Dapper with the Install CD. Both of these instances occurred when using the amd64-generic kernel. I have not tried the i386 one.

Revision history for this message
Alexandre Payment (alp) wrote :

I experience the exact same thing with the same video card.
Documentation for the nv driver from xorg said that 7XXX card is suppose to be supported.

Revision history for this message
Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton) wrote :

Please try with Feisty.

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-nv:
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
xtknight (xt-knight) wrote :

The same thing happens with Feisty Daily (04/08/07) i386. Safe graphics mode does work. I wanted to get logs from /var/log, so what I did was use safe graphics mode, and then kill gdm/switch the driver to nv. I then symlinked /var/log to a real drive I could access after the crash. Here are the logs I gathered for what happens when 'nv' starts, which aren't too revealing from what I can see. I also put the xorg.conf in there that was used.

Revision history for this message
Alexandre Payment (alp) wrote :

I just try with feisty final release and the same freeze still occur.

Revision history for this message
Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe) wrote :

Setting back to unconfirmed because xtknight has replied.

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-nv:
status: Needs Info → Unconfirmed
Revision history for this message
Alexandre Payment (alp) wrote :

We can see in the user.log of the crash logs that xtknight provide the following error:

Apr 8 18:40:35 ubuntu gconfd (ubuntu-4079): GConf server is not in use, shutting down.
Apr 8 18:40:35 ubuntu gconfd (ubuntu-4079): Error releasing lockfile: Failed to link '/tmp/gconfd-ubuntu/lock/1t1176057635ut150693u999p4079r1612646182k3219021672' to '/tmp/gconfd-ubuntu/lock/ior': No such file or directory
Apr 8 18:40:35 ubuntu gconfd (ubuntu-4079): Exiting

Can it be the reason why it freeze/crash just after the logging with gdm?

Revision history for this message
Alexandre Payment (alp) wrote :

Here is a thread in ubuntu forums about this problem.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=409936

Revision history for this message
Alexandre Payment (alp) wrote :

Novell assign driver fbdev for the exact card model I have.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=249802
# EVGA Corporation:GeForce 7800 GT
10de 0092 3842 c517

lcpci -vnn
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation G70 [GeForce 7800 GT] [10de:0092] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Unknown device [3842:c517]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 24
        Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at d9000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        I/O ports at 9000 [size=128]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at da000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [68] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
        Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint IRQ 0

I suppose they have a good reason.

Revision history for this message
Alexandre Payment (alp) wrote :

I flash my eVGA video card bios with a more recent revision found on http://www.mvktech.net and now nv drivers work perfectly.

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,26/func,selectfolder/cat,51/

Revision history for this message
xtknight (xt-knight) wrote :

Alexandre: Thanks for the observation, although I don't want to void the warranty on my card by using an unofficial BIOS update.

Is there any progress being made on the issue? Could this card be set to fbdev, please?

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