8756 driver causing kernel panic

[tbeckman]

The 8756 driver is causing a kernel panic on my old dell inspiron 8000 that has a GeForce2Go. The 7676 driver works okay on the machine, but all the 8xxx series drivers have caused problems. Currently running FC5, but the same problem happened with the 81xx drivers on FC4.

Problem description:
Starting X will cause the display to go blank and the machine locks up for about 2 minutes. Looking in /var/log/messages shows a NULL pointer dereference in the kernel in the nvidia module (if I understand it correctly). After waiting for 2 minutes the machine beeps several times, the display stays blank, but I can at least log in via ssh and shut the machine down.

The nvidia bug report log is attached from before running X. Can't run it after since there is no visible display on the machine and the script won't run from a remote window (hangs after just a little output). The Xorg.0.log and the relevant lines from /var/log/messages are also attached.

Tim

[netllama]

I've got FC4 running on a Dell inspiron 8000 with a GeForce2Go, and I'm not experiencing any instability when starting X with 1.0-8756. You stated you were hitting this problem with FC4 as well. Do you remember which kernel version you were using at the time?

Your bug report indicates that you're using the A10 BIOS, my system has A12, and Dell's website has A23 available. Can you confirm whether this problem persists after updating the BIOS?

Thanks,
Lonni

[tbeckman]

Lonni,

I tried it with various FC4 kernels.

Updating to the A23 BIOS has fixed the problem. Thanks for the suggestion.

Tim