Xorg crash on workstation startup, 173.14.25, GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, Ubuntu 9.10

[Brad_K]

Fresh install of Xubuntu on a desktop system.
Run System-Update, Check for new updates, Install all updates.
Reboot. Everything works fine, screen is 800x600 max. resolution.
Make backup of OS partition for system recovery.
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Optional, makes no difference:
Synaptic Package Manager, Search: nvidia, remove all NVIDIA packages (the only installed packages are the ones to check for which card is installed)
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System - Hardware Drivers - NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 173) [Recommended]
Activate
Reboot
System shows the Xfce mouse, then the screen goes black. Keyboard is completely unresponsive, not even num-lock or caps-lock. CTRL-ALT-DEL does nothing.
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Restore updated system from backup.
Download NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.25-pkg1.run from NVIDIA website.
Boot into recovery (single user) mode.
Run with -x (extract only).
Run nvidia-installer, no problems that I noticed, install successful message.
Same problem as above.
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No other NVIDIA packages or drivers seemed to be installed in the default Xubuntu install -> update. The system does work without problems under Windows 2000 and XP; Gentoo Linux and Xubuntu without the NVIDIA driver.

I also tried using the previous kernel 2.6.31-14-generic as opposed to the current kernel 2.6.31-20-generic with no luck.

I could not find a patch to update 173.14.25 further.

Please help.

[AaronP]

Hi Brad_K. It looks like your Xorg.0.log file was corrupted -- it contains binary data. Could you please run "mount -o remount,sync /" before attempting to start X?

[Brad_K]

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Xubuntu fresh install + all updates, booted into Xfce.

Save '/var/log/Xorg.0.log' to '00_Xorg.0.log'

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Ctrl-Alt-F1, stop gdm

Save /var/log/Xorg.0.log to 01_Xorg.0.log

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Run: nvidia-installer

builds 173.14.25

Note: No xorg.conf exists because Ubuntu uses XRandR.

Auto-run nvidia-xconfig, it creates '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'

Save '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' to '01_xorg.conf'

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start gdm

Screen shows Xfce mouse, goes black, locks up. Ctrl-Alt-F1 does nothing, same with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

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Hard power off (hold power button for 4 seconds), power on, missed GRUB2 menu and system started X, showed Xfce mouse, locked, needed hard power off.

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Caught GRUB2 menu on 2nd boot, went into single-user mode.

xorg.conf - no differences.

Xorg.0.log contains binary information.
Saved 'Xorg.0.log' to '02_Xorg.0.log'

mount -o remount,sync /

diff 02_Xorg.0.log /var/log/Xorg.0.log : no differences.

start gdm
displays: gdm stop/waiting

/etc/init.d/gdm start
displays: gdm stop/waiting

gdm start
Starts gdm, which crashes displays some text (a few lines of: Unable to (something), but too fast to see) then quickly goes to a black screen and crashes.

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Missed GRUB2 key on restart, hard power cycle.

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Xorg.0.log - changed from last incarnation, perhaps useful.

Saved Xorg.0.log to 03_Xorg.0.log

mount -o remount,sync /

gdm start 2>&1 | tee gdm.log
Note: gdm.log does not show some sort of error that flashes by too quickly to see. Error looks something like:
Unable to ....

Unable to ....

Unable to ....

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My original thought was the binary corruption is because the computer locked in the middle of a write, however, it seems that there is some hard drive activity when pressing the Power Button on the front of the box. It could be only the display/keyboard freeze. I don't know, and also don't know how to connect a terminal to a serial port for debugging purposes. I'm stuck.

[AaronP]

Yeah, your computer is having trouble writing the log file reliably, presumably because of the freeze. However, there are a couple of logs with some interesting tidbits:

(II) NVIDIA(0): Initialized AGP GART.
(WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 6, 0x8000, 0x00000000, 0x00000624)
(WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 6, 0x8000, 0x00000000, 0x00000624)
(II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "nvidia-auto-select"
(WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (2, 1, 0x8000, 0x00000000, 0x000006bc)
(WW) NVIDIA(0): WAIT (1, 1, 0x8000, 0x00000000, 0x000006bc)

This indicates that the driver is having trouble communicating with the GPU reliably, and the GPU hanging or responding with garbage. AGP systems are notoriously buggy, so you might have to do some experimentation. A good place to start is by reducing the AGP rate from 8X to 4X or even 1X. Also, you could try disabling the kernel's built-in agpgart driver and using nvagp instead. There's a little more information available here: ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...hapter-12.html

Did this regress recently? Was it working reliably before you installed Xubuntu 9.10?