Nouveau crash?

[Daimonie]

Hey Guys,

I recently installed linux - finally, after 2.5 years - again, and i've encountered three problems:

• From time to time, the system does not boot, saying 'BIT pointer in loadval table is incorrect', the something about nouveau
• The system freezes when asked to suspend to RAM
• Even on Vista, my battery has about 4 hours when reading a pdf. Last time i tried on my linux, i had about 25 minutes.

Now, i have googled a bit. I can't find any cohesive answers, but i think that it has to do with nouveau and a laptop video card. One of the things i noted was that it would be better to install the real nvidia-drivers, instead of the still experimental (?) nouveau drivers.

The system is a HP EliteBook 8540w - specs here under high end laptop .

Can any of you explain to me what the problem is, and how to solve it? Is it indeed necessairy to install nvidia-drivers, and how do i deinstall the nouveau ones?

[ardvark71]

Re: Nouveau crash?

Hi....

Welcome to the forums

Yes, if you want better (in my opinion) 3D acceleration, then you should install the proprietary driver. Here is a handy guide written by one of our forum members that should help you out with that process.

EDIT: After further research, you may (or may not) have problems with this particular chipset using the proprietary driver. Please see here, (even though only Thinkpads are listed.) You may want to keep your current driver. Proceed with caution.

The suspend to RAM and the battery issue, I'm not sure about in this case.

Regards...

[rfakhrai]

Re: Nouveau crash?

Yes, I think installing the proprietary nvidia drivers might help your situation because it could regulate usage or something that might be draining your battery. Dibl's HOWTO (linked in ardvark's post) is the definitive guide to doing it. I recommend method 3 (the kinda complicated way) because it is the most thorough and will take care of any possible nouveau conflicts.

Also, is anything sucking up CPU? ctrl+esc will bring up a "task manager" of sorts. CPU load would contribute to shortened battery life.

Hope this helps!

[Daimonie]

Re: Nouveau crash?

Nothing is eating up the CPU as far as i can see. Highest was 2%, which i guess shouldn't be an issue.

I (tried) to use the handy guide, but i used the unofficial-*ubuntu fix which kinda left it unable to restart (Probably both nouveau and nvid are running). I'll come back here and state the results when i have fixed the latter

[rfakhrai]

Re: Nouveau crash?

Yes, method 3 is really the most solid way to go. Report back.

[Daimonie]

Re: Nouveau crash?

Ok, it's still overheating. What i read on the modified post of [ardvark71] is that i probably need to downgrade to an older version. Guess i'll need to give that a try then.. ?

[ardvark71]

Re: Nouveau crash?

Ok, it's still overheating. What i read on the modified post of [ardvark71] is that i probably need to downgrade to an older version. Guess i'll need to give that a try then.. ?

Hi...

"Still" overheating? So it was getting to hot before you installed the proprietary drivers? Also, you installed version 195 of the drivers?

EDIT: I just found the page for these drivers. They were released last month (version 260) and mention your card specifically. They might address the issues found in previous releases. From the description you gave of your system, I'm guessing you will need the 64 bit version.

Regards...