System crashes

[tweev]

So my Dell Vostro 3400 seems to crash fairly often.

1) My plasma desktop sometimes just shuts down but thankfully seems to boot up again with nothing lost. That's great that it can get back on its feat but it's still annoying.

2) Of greater concern in that occassionally my whole computer shuts down and I lose everything. To make things worse, kubuntu won't start up again unless I got through recovery model and fdisk.

I think it may be a video card issue because this only happens when I'm plugged into an external monitor. I haven't tweaked my system at all to recognize my video card (I think it's using the onboard one right now) because the whole NVIDIA (GeForce 310M) thing used to be (and I'm assuming still is) a big pain in the butt.

Any ideas?
Thanks for the help!

[tweev]

Thanks for the tips.

I updated the drivers. It may have helped I'm not sure because the crashes happen only once in a while (hasn't happened yet)

I then did this:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

, which gave back:

Quote:
Using X configuration file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf".

VALIDATION ERROR: Data incomplete in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Device section "Default Device" must have a Driver line.

Backed up file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' as '/etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup'
New X configuration file written to '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'

Now when I reboot the computer totally crashes and I can only get back by deleting my xorg.conf file.

I tried modifying the xorg.conf file first by editing it with:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 310M"
EndSection

but that didn't help.

I mean it's working (no desktop effects are working which is too bad because I paid for this graphics card and I'm assuming it's actually only using the onboard one) but it would be nice to get running correctly. Any other advice?
Thanks again.

[SteveRiley]

IIRC, the command you want to run is nvidia-settings. I don't have my old nVidia-equipped ThinkPad to check now. Oshunluvr might chime in here, I know he has lots of experience with nVidia graphics.

[tweev]

@steve,
Thanks, sorry, I missed putting a step in my previous post.

I first ran nvidia-settings and it said "You do not appear to be using the NVISIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run 'nvidia-xconfig' as root), and restart the X server.

I did that, rebooted and the what I posted in above occured. Thanks for the help./

[tweev]

Same issues as this guy:
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...highlight=310M (not solved)

[SteveRiley]

I first ran nvidia-settings and it said "You do not appear to be using the NVISIA X driver. Please edit your X configuration file (just run 'nvidia-xconfig' as root), and restart the X server. I did that, rebooted and the what I posted in above occured. Thanks for the help./

Rats, I should have hung onto my old T410 a bit longer. I'd retrace my steps for you. I'm about only 50% certain that I didn't have to run nvidia-xconfig.

You mentioned that you updated the driver...how? Where from? Which version previously, and which version now?

[tweev]

To update drviers I went to the 'additional drivers' menu.

Nvidia was already selected and active as: 'NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version current)[Recommended]"

I changed it to 'NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (post-release updated)(version current-upates)'

by doing so nothing seemed to really change. I still have the crashing issue although it only seems to happen when I'm viewing flash. Funny how it just shuts down the computer though and the only way I can get it back up is by going through safe mode and repairing packages.

Another odd thing is that when I run the computer off the live CD it seems like everything (includeing the fancy desktop animations works great). It's just after installing that i have issues.

Thanks for you help,

[tweev]

Indeed there should be no need for any manual intervention.
Nouveau is the default during installation and it can be substituted by nVidia through the jockey-kde ('Extra drivers') applications.
Reversing would be done the same way.

There should be no need for intervention via the command line.

nVidia has it's own GUI called 'NVIDIA X Server Settings' to manipulate it's settings, if needed it can be started with 'nvidia-settings.

When looking in the package manager (like Muon), do you find any nVidia driver like nvidia-current or nvidia-current-updates being installed?

Hmmm.... when do open the nvidia settings I do get that warning that the Nvidia driver is not active. "you do not appear to be using the NVUDIA X driver. Please esit your X config file (just run 'nvidia-xconifg' as root) and restart X server".

When I do all that, it seems to not pick up on the 310M and the only way I can get back my gui is by deleting xorg.conf.

How do you restart x-server? I usualy just reboot.

[SteveRiley]

Another way to restart X: enable the default key sequence.

* System Settings | Input Devices | Keyboard | Advanced
* check Configure keyboard options
* expand Key sequence to kill the X server
* select the Control + Alt + Backspace option