Linux Format forums

Re: Linux's own BSOD. We need to get it out into the open!

davecs — Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:22 pm

Author: davecs

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:22 pm

Just an update, since I have had the Asus board, I have not been able to get X to lockup. With my old setup, it could happen at any time, but it happened a lot when browsing the web, and also when playing a non-3D game such as Frozen Bubble with 3D running. Also if I was playing Emilia-Pinball, the screen went black!

The real clincher was watching video with 3D running. That did it every time, within about 4 minutes.

I have tried all these things since I got the new mobo, and I haven't crashed it yet. So maybe both software and hardware are involved in this problem.

Re: Linux's own BSOD. We need to get it out into the open!

davecs — Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:06 pm

Author: davecs

Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:06 pm

My Shuttle decided to bow out last week, and I have put together the parts in an old case, only buying motherboard, power supply and fan. The mobo I chose is an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe. This may seem an odd choice, as it first came out at the back end of 2003, but given the continuing production of Semprons, and the availability of Athlon MPs which can be seriously overclocked, it's about as good a Socket A board as you can get.

Since then, I've not had the lockup (though it's early days to be fair). I'm using the same graphics card and I'm overclocking the same processor. The AGP speed in the BIOS is on auto, the video card is an FX5200.

So maybe it's a shortcut / fault in certain boards in the AGP control area.

I still think that those that understand how these things work need to take it more seriously, though! Can they not add a hack that enables you to recover cleanly from the freeze? If it's a security problem, it could be turned off in the kernel compilation, so that distros would install the secure version, but the other would be available for use on home computers where the 3D drivers were more likely to be in use.

Re: Linux's own BSOD. We need to get it out into the open!

PsypherPunk — Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:39 am

Author: PsypherPunk

Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:39 am

i've had this problem ever since i upgraded my motherboard.

Initially i got round it by running my Athlon XP 3000 at 2000; the problem never happened then. More recently i've found that switching the AGP from 8X to 4x stops the problem occuring too.

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

towy71 — Sat May 21, 2005 7:35 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Sat May 21, 2005 7:35 pm

My nvidia card works flawlessly under Debian but I do have a nvidia mobo too, having said that Mandrivel from LXF will only boot to a terminal screen no matter what I do so I just can't be arsed to fiddle anymore, Debian for me
Dick

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

davecs — Fri May 20, 2005 10:18 am

Author: davecs

Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 10:18 am

The weight of opinion is that there is a bug in X, which is difficult to trace because it cannot be reliably duplicated. It seems to affect only certain computers and may relate to certain hardware only. Also the lockup is very rare when running 2D drivers like "nv", but happens more often when running accelerated 3D (nividia and ati for example).

When this happens, it seems that X takes over about 99% of your memory and nothing else can run.

What annoys me is that no-one wants to acknowledge there is a problem. The Linuxquestions.org site has topics, gentoo forums, nvidia forums, etc. I have had this intermittent problem with XFree and xorg, with 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, with Mandrake, Gentoo and PCLOS.

Yet I have never seen any acknowledgement from those "in charge" of X, or any of the video drivers. Or LXF mag, or any other.

We cannot make the problem go away by pretending it doesn't exist.

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

smita034 — Thu May 19, 2005 9:47 am

Author: smita034

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 9:47 am

lol, weird, I wonder what causes that then

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

davecs — Wed May 18, 2005 3:44 pm

Author: davecs

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 3:44 pm

smita034 wrote:

I aint had a single problem with the lateist masked nvidia one on gentoo (1.0.7174-r4 i belive ...

I have!

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

smita034 — Wed May 18, 2005 11:27 am

Author: smita034

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 11:27 am

I aint had a single problem with the lateist masked nvidia one on gentoo (1.0.7174-r4 i belive) and I hammer the drivers playing Command and Conquer - Zero Hour and CS:S in Wine-X, aint had it hang up once. Weird.

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

doctorflange — Tue May 17, 2005 6:10 pm

Author: doctorflange

Posted: Tue May 17, 2005 6:10 pm

I've never had any trouble with the stock nvidia 3D drivers in either *buntu or mandr*

Re: RE: Re: RE: Linux

davecs — Tue May 17, 2005 12:23 pm

Author: davecs

Posted: Tue May 17, 2005 12:23 pm

davecs wrote:

I've put back "nvidia" in my xorg.conf and am running in 3D at present. Just to see how long it lasts!

Last night during a game of Frozen Bubble! As FB goes full screen and does not use the mouse, I could not know whether the mouse would have been moving or not.

Re: RE: Linux

doctorflange — Tue May 17, 2005 11:34 am

Author: doctorflange

Posted: Tue May 17, 2005 11:34 am

davecs wrote:

Oh and if you have an analogue connection to your monitor, it shifts the picture over, about 6-7%, so you have to adjust it, which is annoying if you need to change back and forth.

Ah, I thought that was just me. Ye olde nvidia squint. Plus, it's nice to be able to run the flurry screensaver to annoy my mac-using flatmate. He gets more annoyed when I run systempreferences

RE: Re: RE: Linux

davecs — Sat May 14, 2005 11:59 pm

Author: davecs

Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 11:59 pm

Unfortunately, Nvidia 6629 won't install on my PCLinuxOS system, only 7174 will. There is a fix in the full version of the above post, but that doesn't work for me either!

I've put back "nvidia" in my xorg.conf and am running in 3D at present. Just to see how long it lasts!

RE: Re: RE: Linux

systemx — Sat May 14, 2005 4:10 pm

Author: systemx

Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 4:10 pm

The current state of nvidia is pretty unstable and it is my experience that anything over 1.0-6629 can and will cause lockups on most systems...

As for ATI, I have no idea because I don't use it

If yr already using that nvidia version, maybe you should apply there patch set: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=553970&postcount=1

It fixes most, if not all the known bugs in that release...

RE: Re: RE: Linux

Rhakios — Sat May 14, 2005 12:53 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:53 pm

Why? You should have been able to switch to another terminal and shutdown gracefully. That is the purpose of alt+sysrq+r, to free the keyboard from a locked X session and allow you to switch to a terminal where you can do things in a more controlled manner.

RE: Re: RE: Linux

towy71 — Sat May 14, 2005 12:43 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:43 pm

I don't like you fingers99

I had to try it and then had to Alt+SysRq+B grrrr