FC6 random crashing: suspect nvidia or 965 chipset issue

[johannlo]

Got a new FC6 install running on my new box

Core 2 duo E6600, Gigabyte 965P mobo, nvidia 7950GT, 3x SATA drives

Its 99% there BUT I have several issues -

RANDOM CRASHING - no idea what this is, and knoppix 5 won't recognise my cd drive so I can't boot into knoppix to take a look at the 'raw' log files. If I reboot and look at the (now filled up with more junk) logs I can't seem to spot anything - I'm checking /var/log/messages and xorg logs.

Its seriously random - I can't find any rhyme or reason though it MAY have something to do with ACPI as its crashed when I've left it alone idling for an hour. but acpi=off doesn't seem to fix....

SLOW HDDs - aargh, dunno why. I've read some stuff to indicate FC6 doesn't play nice with the controllers on the 965 chipset mobos?

I've managed to partially isolate the crashing problem, just ran a 12 hour rsync in CLI (via init 3 ) and it didn't crash. Hence I suspect a nvidia problem? (I've installed kmod-nvidia, glxgears screams and the 3D desktop is running nice and smooth)

Any help would be much appreciated - I really want to sell my old FC5 box but I can't cut it loose until I have a 100% stable linux setup sorted LOL

[nick.stumpos]

can you please attach the ouptut files of
cat /var/log/messages>message.txt
and
dmesg >dmesg.txt
maybe we will see something you missed

[multescugeorge@]

You may want to get the latest stable kernel from www.kernel.org and compile it by hand(or perhaps a rc kernel even), some issues may be fixed there.
All you do is download the kernel, un-pack it, now you can move to init3 to avoid the crashes.
then give the comands:

make xconfig (qt-devel required, you can also use: make menuconfig);make bzImage; make modules; make modules_install; make install
and also don't forget to download the sources to the nvidia driver and re-compile them to match your new kernel.
That should in theory ensure you have the latest stuff.

[johannlo]

cool I'll clear the logs and reboot, wait for a crash then attach logs

cheers mate

[johannlo]

OK I think the issue is SCIM - these cd rom errors (hde) pop up all the time in /var/log/messages and don't seem to hang stuff?

PLs find files attached

on the bright side I fixed the HDD issue (and it didn't even break fstab or grub either hehe), noprobe=hda did the trick and got FC6 to load the correct driver modules

[brahms]

johannlo, did you ever get this resolved? I had a similar problem with my new 965 motherboard which I now seem to have resolved only by installing the 2.6.19 kernel in the development repo.

It seems the 2.6.18 kernel was generating a cpu spinlock lockup.

[Richard1098]

Originally Posted by brahms

johannlo, did you ever get this resolved? I had a similar problem with my new 965 motherboard which I now seem to have resolved only by installing the 2.6.19 kernel in the development repo.

It seems the 2.6.18 kernel was generating a cpu spinlock lockup.

Have you had any issues with the 2.6.19 kernel?

[johannlo]

I actually turned off AIXGL and that seemed to fix it!!!

haven't tried the new kernel (ooh windows, darn you games! hehe) so might give it a whirl on your suggestion above!

[brahms]

Originally Posted by Richard1098

Have you had any issues with the 2.6.19 kernel?

Not yet, it seems to be working great. It maps the interrupts differently for my ICH8 chipset which was perhaps part of my problem before. I just had to rebuild the nvidia driver from the livna source packages and everythings fine.

2.6.19 also includes the module for my Realtek 8168B ethernet, so that's one less thing to do!

[jinx099]

I'm ging to have to try this on my machine as I recently gave un FC6 because of the issue and went to Ubuntu 6.10 and was very dissapointed. Oh the joys of new hardware. I have a Gigabyte 965P-DS3 mobo with a nVidia 7900GS video card and I think this is the most relevant thread for me on the issue.

I have tried to diable AIGXL and still got the lockup, but maybe I did it wrong. All I did was change the window manager to metacity in the beryl-manager.

Can someone point me in the direction on how to compile the new 2.6.19 kernel and nvidia driver from livna source?

Thanks!

Edit: I also read on another thread (possibly irrelevant to me) that the newest standard FC6 kernel (2895 or something) fixes the issue. Can anyone with the 965P/ nvidia combo confirm that?

[johannlo]

No all I did was turn OFF desktop effects (in GUi, I guess u could edit xorg.conf as well). Though not being an expert I dunno if it actualyl changes your mgr back to metacity.

And yes I'm running a fully updated FC6 with Core2Duo and gigabyte 965-P3 and no crashing (well it stayed up for 24 hours with a rsync in the middle)

Its humming along fine even w/ 3D, but I actualyl have it turned off coz I run dual monitor, and its too dumb to recognise they're separate monitors (ie when I maximise a window it goes across both monitors instead of just one, real anoying)