Bug#661253: NVIDIA driver causes random X termination

[Andreas Beckmann]

On 2012-06-16 19:49, Russel Winder wrote:
> Kernel 3.2.20-1 and NVIDIA drivers 295.59-1 exhibits the problem. Not
> always a total failure now sometimes a freeze.  Logins via SSH continue
> to work so it is not a Linux freeze just an X freeze.
> 
> I note that after a freeze I get masses of processes like:
> 
> 25271 tty58    Ss+    0:00 /usr/bin/Xorg :58 -br -verbose -novtswitch
> -auth /var/run/gdm3/auth-for-Debian-gdm-8SFmTB/database -nolisten tcp

Ah, that's gdm3 bug http://bugs.debian.org/650183
Can you find the logfile (/var/log/Xorg.*.log*) that includes the time
of the "freeze" and crash and possible error messages, before gdm3 goes
havoc afterwards?

Can you try switching to e.g. kdm or xdm and see if the problem goes
away. Or at least leaves you a usable logfile?

> Given there are people out there not seeing this, I am beginning to
> wonder if the problem is a hardware fault with the graphics card rather
> than the kernel/driver/X combination. I shall get a new graphics card
> installed on 2012-07-01 and report in.

Two possible things you could try:
* driver 302.11 from experimental (fixes a lot of bugs)
* Xorg  from squeeze-backports


Andreas