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The system often just freezes up without any warning, it doesn't gradually start getting slower or something like that, and every time I look the avarage system load is below 20% (usually not even 10%).
When looking at dmesg, there's one thing that always seems to come back though. The message composite sync not supported. These freezes are getiing indredibly annoying as I always lose all my work I haven't saved yet, and the last time it froze up happened while I was saving something (I don't think I need to tell you that that file was gone).
Can annyone give me any pointers (and hopefully solutions as well), to where this problem lies? If you've found something that might be the cause, but you don't know how to fix it, just put it in the comments, please. That way I can do a bit of research myself maybe.

Dmesg: http://pastebin.com/ZeiULvSK
... And I thought there was a kernel.log file in /var/log, but apparently I was wrong.

More recent dmesg: http://pastebin.com/CXETguti
This is the output taken right after closing VVVVVV (a game).
I found out 2 things today that both point to the same thing... The dmesg is full of Nouveau errors, and games lag like hell, and some don't start at all. The conclusion is that it refuses to use the NVidia drivers.
Help on getting them to work would be nice as well. More info on that: https://askubuntu.com/a/83995/18953

When adding nomodeset to my kernel line in GRUB I'm stuck with a small screen resolution, limited amount of colours (gradients look like crap), the screen becomes laggy, but the errors don't crop up anymore in dmesg. I've experienced no freezes with this parameter added, but I haven't worked longer than 10 minutes with nomodeset because making mindmaps on a small resolution is annoying.
My graphic card is an NVidia Quadro NVS 110M.

robin@robin-Latitude-D620:~$ lspci | grep -i vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M/GeForce Go 7300] (rev a1)
robin@robin-Latitude-D620:~$ sudo lshw -class display
[sudo] password for robin: 
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: G72M [Quadro NVS 110M/GeForce Go 7300]
       vendor: nVidia Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:ed000000-edffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:ee000000-eeffffff memory:ef000000-ef01ffff

What I did to install the NVidia drivers
Installed nvidia-current with Jockey, removed it again (had to try 2 times, first time failed), added a PPA for a newer version, installed nvidia-current again (this time with the terminal), rebooted.

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RobinJ
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  • Follow this question to solve problems with loading the proper nvidia driver. –  Dec 05 '11 at 17:19
  • This sounds like a hardware issue, to be honest. I've recently had a spate of lockups and hard-crashes (black screen with reboot), segfaults, etc, to the point where my machine now just refuses to boot Ubuntu. It will get past grub or the SYSLINUX bootstrap on the LiveUSB (tried Oneiric AND Natty), but after that I just get a blinking text cursor and nothing further... Windows still boots and runs. It's most infuriating. Suspect I will be shelling out for some new hardware... –  Dec 05 '11 at 17:25
  • Can you ssh into the machine after it froze? – cweiske Dec 05 '11 at 20:01
  • @BrunoPereira The questin you referenced to tells me to run sudo dkms remove nvidia from the terminal, but this doesn't work. Error! Invalid number of parameters passed. Usage: remove -m <module> -v <module-version> --all or: remove -m <module> -v <module-version> -k <kernel-version> – RobinJ Dec 06 '11 at 08:32
  • @fossfreedom Done. The problem with the NVidia drivers is that I installed a newer version (http://askubuntu.com/questions/83140/x-plays-a-gambling-game/83995#83995) because the old ones screwed up X. I thought the problem was fixed, but this seems the only reason the problem was solved was because it didn't load the NVidia drivers anymore, and in stead just used the Nouveau drivers. – RobinJ Dec 06 '11 at 14:37
  • 10.10, and I upgraded to the latest driver as the ones in the repositories were crap, so this is not an option. – RobinJ Dec 06 '11 at 17:19
  • ok - comments are quite long - tidy them? In your question, take me through the steps you did to install the nvidia drivers - also - there is an old trick here to blacklist the nouveau driver to force the use of the nvidia driver. Have you tried this? N.B. the question is about optimus - but if you google you will find almost the identical answer for blacklisting nouveau for all nvidia cards. http://askubuntu.com/a/59045/14356 –  Dec 06 '11 at 21:58
  • @fossfreedom #tidying comments: How? As far as I know I can't remove or edit someone else's comments (and I don't really see the use of it either). #trick for blacklisting nouveau: I'll try. – RobinJ Dec 08 '11 at 15:21
  • @fossfreedom Done that, I think... – RobinJ Dec 08 '11 at 15:59
  • Strange, but the problem seems to have disappeared (along with my laptop's avarage temperature shooting up). I hope the problem doesn't return from the moment the bounty ends, that happened to me a few times >.< – RobinJ Dec 09 '11 at 22:24
  • Why the *** was this migrated? It's about Ubuntu isn't it?? – RobinJ Dec 17 '11 at 21:24

2 Answers2

2

Maverick was particularly prone to graphics freezes with the standard Open-Source nouveau drivers.

You can uplift you X-System using the X-Updates PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

You can then install the latest NVIDIA drivers.

As you have noted, the Open-Source drivers still seems to take precedent over the NVIDIA drivers.

One-way to force the use of the NVIDIA drivers is to black-list the open-source drivers:

To do this:

  • Run gedit as root: gksu gedit (either run this in a terminal or in the run dialogue (ALT+F2)).

  • Then open the following file: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf .

    • To this file add the following line:

    blacklist nouveau

  • Now open the following file: /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf

  • Add these lines to the file

:

   blacklist nouveau  
   blacklist lbm-nouveau
   blacklist nvidia-173  
   blacklist nvidia-96  
   alias nvidia nvidia-current

Now install the nvidia-current driver:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

One happy side-effect of using the nvidia drivers rather than the old maverick open-source drivers is that the temperature/battery usage is greatly reduced.

source

alternative force usage of nvidia driver

The following will actually remove the nouveau driver before reinstalling the nvidia driver (again).

sudo apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

Now make sure you have the headers installed before reinstalling the nvidia driver

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-current

Now rename your xorg.conf before recreating the file:

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
gksudo nvidia-xconfig

If nvidia-xconfig still gives you an issue run,

gksudo nvidia-settings

reversing

if you get black-screens then do the following to reverse:

First, boot with recovery and choose terminal with networking

Then rename the xorg.conf file

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup2

The reinstall the opensource driver:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

You may or may not also have to remove the "blacklist" lines added at the top of this answer.

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fossfreedom
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  • Thanks, I'll try it out :p Erm, does it matter that I still had the NVidia drivers installed when I did this? And do I need to reinstall them now? I already had the drivers from that PPA. – RobinJ Dec 10 '11 at 14:42
  • Version: 290.10-0ubuntu1~maverick~xup1 – RobinJ Dec 10 '11 at 15:07
  • Erm... I did what you said to force it to use the NVidia drivers, but it doesn't seem to have worked. When I run nvidia-settings it says You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run 'nvidia-xconfig' as root), and restart the X server. And Nouveau is still spamming my dmesg. Also, the nvidia-xconfig command doesn't exist. – RobinJ Dec 10 '11 at 20:05
  • Erm... I think my laptop is playing games with me, seriously xD I removed the package, and reinstalled the NVidia drivers. All it did was screw something up so desktop effects didn't work anymore. It's still using the Nouveau drivers, judging by the fact that it isn't using the NVidia drivers, and by the output of dmesg and lsmod. I don't really understand how it manages to use drivers that I've just removed, but the fact remains that it is managing it :\ – RobinJ Dec 10 '11 at 22:53
  • Nopes, none of those. The bounty is running to an end, so I'm going to award it to you, even though the problem isn't fixed yet. You're answer was very informative, and I think in a normal case (somehow mine doesn't seem to be normal) it would have worked. So you deserve it :) – RobinJ Dec 11 '11 at 17:50
  • It froze again just now -.- http://pastebin.com/XZtPpwpJ – RobinJ Dec 14 '11 at 14:31
  • No, the system froze before I rebooted of course. – RobinJ Dec 14 '11 at 14:51
  • Yes, I use Compiz to get my work done more easily (for instance by having a webpage with info I need on the background and having a transparent word processor window over it). Is there no way to make Compiz behave? ANd is it referring to Compiz in general or to a specific plugin for Compiz? – RobinJ Dec 14 '11 at 17:31
  • It froze again just now. The strange thing is that my music kept playing as if nothing had happened. – RobinJ Dec 15 '11 at 13:48
  • It just froze again, but I was prepared. I SSH'ed into the machien without any problems. killall compiz didn't seem to have any effects. killall deadbeef stopped my music. sudo reboot gave me a glimpse of my wallpaper, a terminal, and the plymouth screen before it rebooted. I thought killall compiz would do the trick :\ Anyway, the volume control buttons on my laptop's keyboard didn't to anything. Neither did CTRL+ALT+F1 and some other key combinations. – RobinJ Dec 15 '11 at 14:08
  • :( that means compiz is not the issue - it is still the graphics driver that is in the frame for being the key freeze culprit. You are back to the initial issue as to why nouveau is still running even though you have removed the driver... Somehow you need to get nvidia to run. I can't remember - have you tried to say driver "nvidia" in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (sudo X -configure) ? N.B. backup your existing xorg.conf file before generating. –  Dec 15 '11 at 15:22
  • No, I haven't done any manual editing in xorg.conf. – RobinJ Dec 16 '11 at 11:55
  • My system froze for a few seconds just now (but unfroze again after that). dmesg show some more messages about Nouveau: http://pastebin.com/b5c1S6MS – RobinJ Dec 16 '11 at 12:07
  • hmmm - the only other thing in that trace is "ramzswap: Invalid ioctl " ... this indicates something wrong with your swap file... –  Dec 16 '11 at 12:12
  • Or swap partition? But what can be wrong with that? Doesn't it get cleared every time you shutdown? – RobinJ Dec 16 '11 at 14:14
  • yes - it was just an observation... I've found what looks like a useful link for how to configure your x-org.conf file. Scroll down to the section "configure x to use the nvidia driver" - can you give this a go? It might be worth also reading the stuff above. Maybe it will trigger some thoughts on what you may or may not have tried in the past... http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers –  Dec 16 '11 at 14:24
  • Message is too long... Great >.< pastebin.com/vfi1Be2n Those swap errors start appearing more frequent it seems :\ – RobinJ Dec 16 '11 at 17:05
  • I unmounted all swap partition (sudo swapoff -a), and it froze after a while all the same. The strange thing is that it seems to occur with certain applications... I've noticed that when I'm using LibreOffice Writer, a freeze is almost guaranteed within 5 minutes. When using GIMP, it takes a bit longer (about 15 minutes, I think) but it will freeze. – RobinJ Dec 16 '11 at 17:05
  • xorg.conf didn't exist. But I still had a backup of the file, with the driver "nvidia" part in it. I renamed it to xorg.conf, rebooted... and was stuck with a frozen system at the boot screen. – RobinJ Dec 16 '11 at 17:06
  • ... Now I'm really getting sick of this... I had 4 freezes in a row yesterday evening. I ended up holding the power button to shut it down and going to bed, as I couldn't get my work done anyway. – RobinJ Dec 17 '11 at 12:47
  • I know this isnt an answer - and for whatever reason you can't use the nvidia drivers... I dont know enough about elementary OS as to why this is an issue. Pointing out the obvious - you have a supported O/S for just 3 more months. Perhaps you should look at dual-booting with something newer - xubuntu 11.10 etc. that should support nvidia correctly. I havent seen any info when the elementary team plan to move beyond 10.10... –  Dec 17 '11 at 12:54
  • Hmm.. Ok. But this also occurs with Ubuntu 11.10, I've just tried from the LiveCD... There's only one distro I haven't experienced any freezes with in fact, and that was Bodhi Linux. But Bodhi had its own problems :\ – RobinJ Dec 17 '11 at 21:25
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Well, I upgraded to Xubuntu 11.10 and installed the nvidia-173 drivers. My laptop gets slightly hotter than usual (only slightly because I keep my CPU at 1Ghz with cpufrequtils), but at least I haven't experienced any freezes yet. Also, there seem to be no issues with the NVidia drivers for a change (appart from the fact that Plymouth only shows up in the last 2 seconds of the boot process, but at least it does show up this time).

RobinJ
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