[TriLUG] Ubuntu, Nvidia and the Freeze or Black Screen

[Matt Pusateri]

I'd be curious if you booted it off a usb key with a live image with persistent storage with another distro say Fedora, if you would experience the same problem.  While it wouldn't be that scientific, b/c the driver, kernel, distro is all changing.  It would be interesting to see if the problem is related to ubuntu or ubuntu and that version of the drivers, etc.


Matt P.

On Apr 8, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Brian Blater wrote:

> I've been trying to figure this out for awhile now and I'm getting no where.
> 
> I've got a Lenovo desktop that has an Nvidia GeForce 8600GTS card in
> it running two IBM 19" flatpanel monitors. I'm actually running Ubuntu
> Studio 10.10 with the 2.6.38-8-lowlatency kernel.
> 
> The problem I'm having is that when running the default nouveau driver
> I am getting random freezing of X windows, usually when in Firefox but
> it has also happened in other apps like synaptics etc. It happens
> often enough the system is basically unusable for much of anything. It
> appears that it is just X windows that has frozen as the mouse still
> moves, but I can't get to another screen with ctrl+alt+F#. I haven't
> tried SSH to the box because of the network setup I'm on right now,
> but I'm pretty sure I could SSH to the box no problem.
> 
> So, I try to install the Nvidia proprietary drivers. I've tried the
> one from the repositories and the one from Nvidia's web site and no
> matter what after I install the driver and reboot, I get the Ubuntu
> 10.10 splash screen and then blackness. I can't ctrl+alt+F# to another
> screen, I can't ctrl+alt+del. It is basically a hard shut down to
> bring it back.
> 
> I've google all kinds of suggestions and so far I've come up empty
> handed. I'd just stay with the nouveau driver if I could get the
> stability working. I just want to get this working so I can get off my
> old 10.04 workstation and move on to doing things.
> 
> You all have any ideas?
> 
> I'm to the point of buying a new card if that will be more reliable,
> but I've got this 8600GTS and an 8800GTX just sitting here, so why not
> use them.
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> Brian
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