nVidia Computer

[Leonard Chatagnier]

--- Karl Larsen <k5di at zianet.com> wrote:

> 
>         I have computer about 6 month's old that I
> must replace because 
> it uses a lot of nVidia hardware. Here is the output
> from lspci filtered 
> for just the nVidia hardware shown.
> 
> snip

>         Of course the one that is critical is at
> 00:50.0 and is a 
> "GeForce 6100 VGA controller".
> 
>         Since I got this computer I have used Fedora
> and now Ubuntu 
> Linux computers and quite a number of so-called
> nVidia Linux drivers. 
> The one thing that has been the same on all these
> Linux systems has been 
> a more or less frequent full computer failure at ANY
> TIME. This has got 
> to stop. I use this computer for business and it
> seems to fail while 
> writing a business letter at a time with maximum
> work loss. I have NEVER 
> been able to recover from this crash. It is known by
> a cross hatch 
> pattern on the screen, and failure of both the mouse
> and keyboard. The 
> only way out is a hard power-down. Thank god for
> ext3 :-)
> 
>         My question to you all right now, those of
> you that have a 
> successful nVidia computer that never crashes.
> 
> 1. Did you ever have crashes?
> 2. From lspci what video controller do you have?
> 3. Which nVidia driver are you using? There are two
> main ones. Ubuntu 
> comes with the "nv" and there are 2 other high
> efficiency drivers.
> 4. Do you have as many nVidia hardware devices as I
> have?
> 5. Any advice on how to save this nVidia computer?
> 
> Karl
>
Karl, I have a Gateway GT 5656 AMD64 X2 and LG 22 "
lcd monitor with nVidia MB.  It seldom crashes and
never in the manor you describe. Ever so often a
firefox browser screen will lock up requiring a kill
of firefox and restart with nothing lost. I may have
had one or two hard crashes early on reguiring a hard
reboot after installing gutsy x86_64 version but not
recently. I did put in a cheap nVidia G71 GeForce 7300
GS card to use the proprietary driver which works ok.
The NIC is a Marvel brand.

2. VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G71
[GeForce 7300 GS] (rev a1)

3. I'm using the regular nv driver. Haven't gotten
around to the proprietary driver yet.
i A xserver-xorg-video-nv                             
    - X.Org X server -- NV display driver

4. Not quite as much as you. My sudo lspci:
[sudo] password for lchata:
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory
Controller (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC
Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory
Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB
Controller (rev a3)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB
Controller (rev a3)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI
bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High
Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE
(rev a2)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA
Controller (rev a2)
00:08.1 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA
Controller (rev a2)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI
Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI
Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI
Express bridge (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology
Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8
[Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:06.0 Communication controller: Conexant Unknown
device 2f40
01:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments
TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation
G71 [GeForce 7300 GS] (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group
Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)

5.Not knowledgeable enough to recommend how to salvage
but if using the onboard video you might try a cheap
card as I did. My onboard graphics is nvidia 6150s as
I recall and have never used it. I also suspect you
are using the 32 bit i386 version instead of the
X86_64.
However, if you want more info on my machine just
email me and I'll be happy to supply the info.
Good luck & HTH,

Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net