[TriLUG] FC1, nvidia, switch to console causes fatal system lock

[Timothy A. Chagnon]

I upgraded my RH9 to FC1 about a month ago and since then I've been
having this intermittent problem.  I've put off posting here because
every time I think to, there's a new kernel released, or new nvidia
drivers, but none of the updates have seemed to help.

I'm running kernel version 2.4.22-1.2166.nptl and nvidia's non-free
driver version 5336 (the newest one).  I'm actually doing an update for
the 2174.nptl kernel now, but based on history it won't make a
difference.

Here's the problem.  After having my computer running a couple days or
more, if I try to switch to a console, logout, or shutdown the computer
the screen goes black and stays black.  It seems to get signal, because
my monitor doesn't complain, but the whole system seems to lock up.  I
can't do anything except a hard reset.  I've tried ssh'ing in and I get
a conn. time out. Same with http.  When I start up again, there is
nothing in any of the /var/log/* files about a kernel panic or
anything.  There'll be normal system messages from before I tried to do
a console switch, then the startup messages.  Also the strange thing is,
it only seems to happen after a few days of up time.  Right now, I'm at
about 9hours uptime and it works fine, so it's kind of difficult to
figure out if I've fixed it or not.

The last thing I did last night was set CC=gcc32 before building the
nvidia driver again.  I'll have to wait a day or two to find out if this
worked.  Also I noticed this line in /var/log/messages when the nvidia
module gets loaded and whenever I do a console switch (and it works). 
This line only happens when switching _to_ X mode though.

Feb 22 11:35:59 futeki modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module
char-major-10-134

I don't know what this means exactly or if it applies.  Also I've got
one in messages around a cups restart that says char-major-188. 

This whole thing obviously has something to do with gdm, the kernel,
nvidia drivers, or X.  If anyone can think of any useful places to look
for information in my system that would be helpful.  I've looked around
a lot online and can't find anyone with this exact problem.

Thanks,
-Tim

-- 
Timothy A. Chagnon <tchagnon at nc.rr.com>