Laptop Reboots when startX (260.19.44 or 270.30) GT525M 8.2RELEASE

[indepthsi]

[Edit: See original problem below]

after user adam asked if it was optimus enabled card ... I glanced over at the linux forums and stumbled upon (2) threads outlining/detailing NVIDIA's lack of support for Optimus on Linux ... which means *of course* ... FreeBSD is SOL ... is really sh*tty b/c I've purchased 14 laptops over the 7 years and ALL of them ALWAYS required an NVIDIA GPU (b/c of the FreeBSD support) ... guess that's a thing of the past now. .

So long from a long time supporter NVIDIA ... now to con Dell into taking this now PoS laptop back!


[original post]
Hi all,

Not sure if this is where this should be reported or if I can obtained assistance here.

I've been using NVIDIA cards on FreeBSD for ages now (which is why I continue to purchase NVIDIA) ... this is the first time I've ever had something like this occur.

Have a new DellXPSL502X with a GT525M nvidia card running 8.2 release.

Whether I load driver 260.19.44 or 270.30 ... as soon as I startx (or use kdm - or anything X related) ... the laptop immediately reboots to the bios screen.

I have confirmed that this is not an issue when using the VESA driver ... everything works fine (just not accelerated etc).

I've google'd a ton and haven't found anyone reporting this issue or any suggestions on things I could try to resolve/troubleshoot the issue.

Any assistance and/or direction would be greatly appreciated ... as this machine is too nice to continue to be a VESA paperwait. :/

Thanks in advance!

[rnejdl]

First guess would be you are running a 32 bit kernel with 4GB of memory. Have you tried the 64bit OS or put this in /boot/loader.conf:

machdep.disable_mtrrs="1"

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

[indepthsi]

Originally Posted by rnejdl

First guess would be you are running a 32 bit kernel with 4GB of memory. Have you tried the 64bit OS or put this in /boot/loader.conf:

machdep.disable_mtrrs="1"

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

I should have clarified that ... I've tried both 32bit (i386) and 64bit (amd64) ... both with no luck ... however ... not amd64 with that loader.conf setting.

I will definitely give that a shot and report back.

Thanks a bunch for your reply!

[indepthsi]

Originally Posted by rnejdl

First guess would be you are running a 32 bit kernel with 4GB of memory. Have you tried the 64bit OS or put this in /boot/loader.conf:

machdep.disable_mtrrs="1"

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

Hey really appreciate your suggestion ... unfortunately that's a no go ... on both i386/x86_64 ... :/

But again thanks for the suggestion!

[rnejdl]

My apologies for not being clear. The machdep flag is used in 32bit only. In 64 bit you don't need it. I haven't seen any system freezes in 64 bit for a long time, though. Are you able to capture any sort of debugging when it crashes?

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

[adamk75]

Is this an Optimus enabled laptop?

Adam

[indepthsi]

Originally Posted by rnejdl

My apologies for not being clear. The machdep flag is used in 32bit only. In 64 bit you don't need it. I haven't seen any system freezes in 64 bit for a long time, though. Are you able to capture any sort of debugging when it crashes?

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

No ... the machine immediately reboots to the bios loading screen ...

fsck is required on startup ... and /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log get wiped out ... and nothing relavent appears in dmesg or /var/log/messages. Really crummy in terms of getting any useful error messages ... :/

Originally Posted by adamk75

Is this an Optimus enabled laptop?

Adam

Yes it is ...



Also .. some more information ... I've tested this on Linux (Fedora14) as well and get a similar result .. it doesn't reboot ... but the system immediately becomes unusable ... freezes (*literally completely unresponsive*) ... kernel is 2.6.34.8-63_x86_64 if anyone is concerned.

In windows (*of course*) ... everything appears to work just fine ... :/ ... if you're into that sorta thing.


Also, the laptop has an integrated video (Sandy Beach PoS intel card) ... currently I have this running Fedora since the updated linux kernels support KMS/GEM ... while FreeBSD does not :/ .... *sigh*.

Hope this additional information may bring resolution.

Thanks again for your responses and suggestions.

[adamk75]

Originally Posted by indepthsi

Yes it is ...

Unfortunately you are up that proverbial creek without a paddle. Unless the BIOS provides an option to disable the on-board GPU and use the nvidia card exclusively (which is an option most Optimus laptops don't have since it defeats the purpose of Optimus) you can not use the nvidia drivers. Optimus configurations are only supported on Windows.

Adam