Mark, I had a problem like that with a (now decommissioned) SL5.3 box with a GeForce FX5000 series card. I seem to recall that after installing the nVidia 190.53 drivers, the issue disappeared. Under 190.42, the machine would randomly lock up then reboot--it was really frustrating. I never really found a cause since updating the drivers made the issue go away.
Good luck! -Mike -----Original Message----- From: owner-scientific-linux-us...@listserv.fnal.gov [mailto:owner-scientific-linux-us...@listserv.fnal.gov] On Behalf Of Mark Stodola Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 4:55 PM To: SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-USERS@listserv.fnal.gov Subject: Nvidia woes... Hey everyone, I currently have deployed a number of SL 5.2 i386 machines. Due to the circumstances, I'm not in a position to upgrade them to the latest 5.x with ease. Lately I've been having trouble with systems locking up hard that are running an nvidia card using the 190.42 or 195.36.15 proprietary drivers. Dual monitors connected via DVI, twinview. I've tried a GeForce 9600GT as well as a Quadro NVS 290 with varying success. The Quadro seems to have lasted about a month before locking, while the 9600GT is much more often, daily/weekly. I'm running the stock 5.2 kernel (2.6.18-92.1.6.el5) and Xorg (xorg-x11-server 1.1.1-48.41.el5_2.1). The systems are generally idle when it happens. I'm having no luck capturing log data or kdump data. The strange part is, having identical hardware in several locations, only some experience the issue. Hardware: Intel DG43NB motherboards (bios revision doesn't seem to matter at this point, running 98,99,104, or 105) ^- hardware revision is the same for all of them: AAE34877-402 Areca ARC-1200 SATA RAID card (latest firmware, 1.48), running 2 320G seagates Additional PCI-e NIC, Intel PRO/1000, running e1000e v0.4.1.12-NAPI Single stick, 1GB DDR2 (800) memory PS/2 Keyboard/mouse I'm curious if anyone else has run into similar problems such as this, and if they have found a solution. I'm looking at trying the 185.18.31 drivers, which seem to be "certified" for linux by a few software vendors, according to nvidia's website. What driver versions and/or card make/models are people using successfully? Any help or pointers are greatly appreciated. As I said, not all of them are misbehaving, and I have several with the same config minus the video card running fine on SL5.2 and Windows XP Pro (SP3). Getting desperate, Mark -- Mr. Mark V. Stodola Digital Systems Engineer National Electrostatics Corp. P.O. Box 620310 Middleton, WI 53562-0310 USA Phone: (608) 831-7600 Fax: (608) 831-9591