GeForce FX 5200 hang

[kolb]

Hello!

My new inno3D Tornado GeFORCE FX 5200 card keeps crashing my system after a couple minutes. X starts fine, but after a time the user interface hangs (mouse cursor not moving, no response to keypresses). Than I panic and press CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE, but nothing happens. After some more time (20-50 seconds) the X server terminates. I see nothing wrong in the logs. The nv driver works fine (I'm using it now).

Some more info:
Video card: inno3D TORNADO GeFORCE 5200-8X
Driver Version: 5336
Linux Distribution: RedHat Linux 9.0
Processonr: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+
Motherboard: EPoX EP-8RDA3

Any suggestion?

[LordMorgul]

I do not know how to fix your problem, I know it has been discussed previously (delated hangs after the driver was working fine), but I cannot find any good threads atm. Here are some things to try:

First thing to test would be that your screensaver is not enabled, then make sure the hang still happens. Also, remove DPMS from your X config for the monitor. Comment out
Option "dpms"

Select the nVIDIA kernel agp driver rather than agpgart or disabled (you currently have it disabled). This is done by adding this option to the 'Device' section of the config (where you specify Driver "nvidia")
Option "NvAGP" "1"

You might ignore tv displays (unplug tv cables as well).. this caused some hang issues with earlier drivers in Red Hat 9 and other distros.. tv setups with 5200 and gef4mx cards is a no-no (this goes in the Device section)
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV"

See if the same thing occurs using the 5328 and the 5341 drivers. Refer to www.minion.de and use the patched versions of these drivers. Make note of the additional suggestions on the site regarding acpi.

Of course after you try these things and the hang still exists.. you can put them back (use your screensaver and dpms).

[Kahnmark]

kolb,

I think unfortunately that many geforce FX cards are heaters and are produced with excessive clock speeds on the, most likely near-freezing temperatures, assembly line. My GUI doesn't freeze up but as soon as I start anything strenuous, even Neverball, it freezes for about ten seconds, then I've got artifacts everywhere. I still haven't successfully underclocked my card in linux, but in windows I have, which fixes the problem.

My two cents,
Kahnmark