[Bug 29166] radeon [Xpress 200 5a61] X Server freeze after some time (more times a day)

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29166

--- Comment #4 from David Mills <djmills32 at gmail.com> 2010-08-06 03:22:53 PDT ---
I'm getting the same.  It is very similar to bug
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=615649.  I have also logged this on
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=605478.

I was originally getting 2 types of freezes:
* one, a complete freeze, where the computer still had my windows visible, but
the mouse pointer would not move, nor would the computer respond to any key
strokes.  The only way forward was to power down.
* the other where one by one, applications stopped responding.  The mouse
pointer still moved, it was usually possible to change desktops, but it was not
possible to open new windows. Some windows would continue to respond for a long
time (minutes) such as terminal windows.  Most others would not.  It was
possible using CTRL-SHIFT-F1 etc to swap to the standard consoles and log in. 
But attempts to shut down were unsuccessful.  You might get the shutdown
message, but then no further response.  Eventually the only way forward was to
power down.

Using "nomodeset" at boot time seemed to prevent the first of these 2 - the
complete freeze.  Given that bug 615649 talked about the Intel video driver
being part of the culprit, I installed the ATI proprietary driver.  But this
did not prevent the freezes (but it did improve video performance enormously).

As is the system is essentially unusable.  I have reverted to my 11.2
installation (I have it on a separately bootable partition).  This is the
system I have been using for almost a year.  Prior to that a Dell Inspiron
notebook running 11.1.

A little about my computer.  It is a Dell Studio XPS with an i7 920 core CPU,
8GB Ram, twin 640 GB (mirrored using Dells SATA Bios) WD disks, a Radeon HD4550
graphics card, internal Bluetooth and IEEE 1394, a DVD+-RW, Gigabit network
card, 82801 Sound card and a CX 23885 TV card.

I know that my hardware is different (Radeon chipset) but the fact that 2
chipsets are experiencing the same symptoms might be useful information for
people trying to debug this issue.  i.e. the problem probably doesn't lie in
the graphics driver chipset specific code.  Even more so since people with
Intel graphics cards seem to be experiencing the same.

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