Zorin 9 locking up

Hi,

I’ve been trying out Zorin 9 for a few days. I was previously using XP on a number of computers for many years so it’s a bit of a culture shock to say the least.

I’ve a number of questions and concerns but my main one is that Zorin locks up or freezes every so often and the only way I can see to carry on is to do a hard boot. I’ve re-installed it 3 times and it still happens.

After a couple of minutes whatever is stuck on the screen goes and is replaced with some very small writing, which would be difficult to copy here but essentially includes ‘GPU lockup’.

Can anyone suggest anything. I’m doing my best to like Zorin but it’s not easy – well not for me anyway…

Incidentally I posted a couple of days ago but my posting never seemed to see the light of day

Thanks.

Try this:

Open terminal (ctrl+alt+T) and run the following command

sudo gedit /etc/default/apport

You will be asked for your password.

A file will open.

Change the line that says

enabled=1

to

enabled=0

Save, exit, restart and see if you still get any lock ups.

madvinegar - thank you for your reply and the very clear instructions on what to try.

>Save, exit, restart and see if you still get any lock ups.<

Sadly yes. I followed your instructions this morning and within a few minutes the screen locked up. Nothing I did had any effect, then after a couple of minutes the small writng appeared...

...Nouveau E {Xorg}... GPU lockup...switching to software fbcon
failed to idle channel
failed to idle channel
etc

I left the PC and within a couple of minutes the desk top re-appeared - but just the desk top and mouse - no icons and no bar at the bottom so again I could only do a hard boot to exit.

I re-booted and within a few minutes it froze again.

I never saw this partiall recovery before but I probably didn't leave the PC running long enough before re-booting...

Any further ideas - and thanks for you help again.

John

Can you please post back here the results of the following commands:

lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 vga
lspci -nn

madvinegar,

Thanks for your mail, I've run both commands as you request...

john@john-Dell-DXP051:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] [10de:00c1] (rev a2)
Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:0245]
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller [8086:109a] (rev 01)
john@john-Dell-DXP051:~$ ^C
john@john-Dell-DXP051:~$


john@john-Dell-DXP051:~$ lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub [8086:2770]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root Port [8086:2771]
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 01)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 5 [8086:27e0] (rev 01)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 6 [8086:27e2] (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GH (ICH7DH) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b0] (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller [8086:27df] (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [IDE mode] [8086:27c0] (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation NV41 [GeForce 6800] [10de:00c1] (rev a2)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller [8086:109a] (rev 01)
05:04.0 Network controller [0280]: Cisco Aironet Wireless Communications 350 series 802.11b Wireless LAN Adapter [14b9:0350] (rev 01)
john@john-Dell-DXP051:~$ lspci -nn

Thanks for your perseverance.

I see you are using the open source driver of Nvidia (nouveau).

Have you tried installing the proprietary (closed source) driver? It will probably solve your problem and work much better.

From the Zorin menu go to control center > update manager and hit the button "settings" (down left).
Then go to the last tab that says "additional drivers" and wait till it shows that available drivers for your card.
Choose the one that says "recommended" proprietary Nvidia driver. It should be nvidia driver 331 (I think) (but not the one that says "updates"), and hit apply.
Wait till it completes installation and then restart.
In case you don't know which driver to choose post a screenshot of your additional drivers tab and I will let you know.

For example see this photo. The 3rd choise down says "recommended".
http://i.stack.imgur.com/3LT2o.png

There are four driver options, the selected one is X.org server Nouveau. There are no options marked as recommended.

The other 3 options are all Nvidia.

I've selected the first option - 304.117, proprietry, tested.

What are the other options?

The other options are:-

Nvidia legacy binary driver version 304.117 from Nvidia-304-updates (propietary)

and

Nvidia legacy binary driver version 173.14.39 from Nvidia-173 (propietary).

I'm using the 304.117 (propietary, tested).

The fourth option of course was the Nouveau.

At the moment Zorin appears to be behaving itself, time will tell,

Thanks for sticking with me...

I beieve you chose the right one.
Also I believe you will not get any lockups and your GPU will perform much better.

Zorin ran for a couple of hours last night without any problems and i'll be running it daily and may report back but I have a good feeling about it!

Thank you madvinegar, your help is greatly appreciated.

Glad I helped my friend. Let me know so as to mark the topic as solved.

I had this issue on a laptop for awhile, and it basically went away right after installing the latest Intel provided Intel display drivers =] Is this issue now solved?

Hi,

My lock up problems appear to have gone, it was obviously related to my video driver.
Many thanks for your help

John

Well when I marked this thread as solved maybe I jumped too quickly as it's been playing up again for the last couple of days. After a period of use - could be just a few minutes or maybe as long as two hours then everything locks up and I get the message GPU lockup. All I can do then is a hard boot.

I've changed my res from 1024 by 768 to various options but nothing seems to help. I had thought it might have been an update that had caused the problem so I re-installed - again - and made sure that I did NOT download updates but the problem remains.

My video card is an nVidia 6800 wħich has always worked well with XP and W7. I tried another video card from a similar machine, a P260 which I think is similar but with this one Zorin never even got to the desktop. Blue background with the big Zorin icon but nothing else. The replacement card works ok with XP.

I read on the net that this OS is very picky with video cards/drivers, I'm wondering where I can go next. I'm really stumped, so much playing around I feel I'm beginning to get used to Zorin - only wish it didn't have these problems....

If you are happy to do a reinstallation using decalman's text install it seems to have helped quite a few members with video issues:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8004&p=38771#p38771

Swarfendor437 - thank you for posting the link - it looks interesting. There's a lot of interesting information on the forums and I am trying to read as much as I can without posting duplicate problems...

madvinegar gave me some good advice about this problem earlier and we thought it was fixed, but sadly not. I think we settled on the wrong nVidia driver as after some reading I found that the recommended driver for my 6800 nVidia card is the 173 so I have changed to that. I have also changed my screen res to 1280x960. I've refrained from downloading and installing 'any' updates for now. This morning Zorin froze very quickly afer boot up and I had to exit and run XP to post this.

Now one interesting but maybe not relevant thing I notice is that when the system freezes mention of 'nouveau' appears on screen shortly afterwards. This always happens. Always after a re-installation the system defaults to the nouveau driver and I select another driver but when the system freezes nouveau is always mentioned. Does this give a clue? Can it mean that the driver is somehow being corrupted and that bits of the original nouveau driver remain - or maybe my mind is stuck in a Windows scenario...

I will try and enc a screen digi - taken with a camera so quality may be poor...

Thank you again for your assistance...

Can you boot into the system? If yes, open terminal and run:

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf

An empty file will open. Copy/paste the following two lines inside it:

blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0

Save, exit and reboot. This will prevent the nouveau from being loaded.
Source: ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux ... blems.html

madvinegar - thank you for that.

Your instructions were very clear and all seemed to go well.

I have re-booted and I will run Zorin and see what happens.

Thank you for your help and perseverance.

Great find madvinegar!

Hi Guys,

Just when I thought things were getting better... Zorin locked up again last night.

So I ran the terminal commands madvinegar ( ) had suggested again. Two things struck me. A couple of error messages came up in terminal, this must have happened when I ran these commands initially a couple of days ago but when the system asked me for my password I assumed all was well and carried on. The file was empty - it did not contain the lines I'd saved. Now I'm sure I saved it before exiting... Anyway I saved saved them (again?) and exited. .

This morning another lockup. So I ran terminal again and inputted the apprropriate commands again. The error messages appeared again but the file now had the appropriate lines saved.

Later on today another freeze. The lines that appear shortly afterwards still refer to nouveau so presumably that is still causing problems. I turned off and re-booted a few minutes ago to check the file and the two lines are saved ok.

So it appears that nouveau is still causing lockups. Sorry I use both the words freeze and lock up - don't really know which is more appropriate...

Sorry to be a pain...

Sorry, I was going to enclose a digi with my previous post and forgot - I'm always sending emails and forgetting to enc attachments... Apologies for the poor quality - it might just be readable...

Hi, I have removed [SOLVED] from this thread as you are still experiencing issues. Would trying a text-install of the OS help? decalman wrote an excellent tutorial here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8004&p=38810&hilit=text+based+install#p38810

As you have an intel driver see this article:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/05/inte ... ller-1-0-5

and also the guide on this forum:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7909&p=39285&hilit=intel+graphics+1.0.5#p39285

Hi,

I think I read that tutorial a couple of days ago and I'm willing to try anything, I'll have another read. I've already un installed/re-installed four or five times but doing it the easy way...

Thanks for your suggestion.

No problem! Keep us posted!

All those terminal commands have scared me off a text-based re-install. This afternoon I ventured to download and install the latest updates, ~200Gb's worth. Now I usually made a point of not installing MS updates for my XP - or at least reviewing them before installing but I wondered whether the Zorin updates might just help with my lock up problems but sadly they did just the opposite - they hosed the OS completely and it's now unusable... (I can't do a restore as that never worked either!)

SO, I may have a go at the text-based install.

I still want to get Zorin up and running but I find it difficult to believe that I'm the only one who gets these problems, maybe I'm expecting too much but I did get the impression that Zorin would run out of the box.

Ah well, I don't give up that easy

Thanks for staying with me guys...

Sorry I should have mentioned the screen res is stuck at 640 x 480 and there are no alternatives, everything on screen is BIG and things like the power off icon are missing so I have to pull the plug out of the wall to switch off...

Can you not select the Edit function at boot and try:

Code:

acpi=off nomodeset xforcevesa nolapic

I tried a text install as suggested earlier. My Zorin has always installed without any problems, but has been giving problems in use. Like decalman I had problems with F6 – it didn't appear to have any effect and I had to leave Zorin to complete it's install. I then ran the commands he lists and all appeared to go well. Interestingly 'software and updates' now shows an additional nVidia driver, 304 123, which had been installed by default. I changed the screen res to 1152 x 864 and I'll run the OS for a couple of days to see if the lockups re-appear. I'm afraid to say this looks hopeful as it's looked hopeful on a couple of previous occasions!

One slight minus is that I am now back to the ugly start up/shut down screen I had a few days ago – no nice blue screen with the Z logo – just a screen full of writing (gibberish to me – sorry).

I followed the instructions at:-

http://www.binarytides.com/ubuntu-fix-nvidia-graphics/

kindly suggested by BobMontgomery and whilst I could open the file and input the appropriate commands I was unable to save the file (no 'save'...) so the start up/shut down issue remains. It's not nice but I can live with it for a couple of days – see if the locking up is sorted.

Thanks again.

Also check this out:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8232&start=10#p40181

This might sound obvious, but after you installed the proprietary driver, did you run:

Code:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

And reboot in order to create a new xorg.conf file with the Nvidia driver settings?

I saw that you blacklisted the open source driver, which was a good call....but as far as I was aware when you use the additional drivers feature in Ubuntu (or Zorin) it should have done that for you already.

Just a quick resume of what’s been happening since I installed Zorin OS9

After numerous installs/uninstalls the system ‘still’ froze or locked-up, anything from a few minutes to a few hours after boot up but always eventually locking up necessitating a hard boot.

After some good advice on here I tried the various other graphic drivers available, they all gave the same problem. I ran the text install as suggested. Now my system has never given problems *during* installation but I followed the instructions and ran the various terminal commands. I noticed afterwards that a new nVidia driver has appeared under 'software and updates', 'additional drivers' namely version 304.123 and this may have cured my freezing problem. I don’t want to push my luck and say it’s sorted just yet but it’s looking promising. However I lost the nice Zorin boot up/shut down screen and now have undecipherable (to me) text running down the screen. I also notice that Wine and PlayonLinux have apparently been deleted.

After some Googling I found and downloaded the errant driver (304.123 a binary file)) and I have it in my downloads folder. Now the big question – if I do a clean install yet again – back to square one - can I somehow install this driver without the attendant problems listed previously with Wine, PlayonLinux and the boot up screen?

With thanks to those who have offered help/suggestions. I am really trying to get Zorin working but dare I say it's taxing my patience – just a bit!

Hi, to get your glowing Z back, search in the menu bar search box for 'plymouth' or 'splash' - Launch the program and select 'graphical' and then select 'Zorin' - your 'Z' should be back after reboot. I would not go to the length of a fresh install to get Wine and PlayOnLinux back - just launch 'Synaptic Package Manager' - search for Wine - mark it for installation and Apply - then after install run from a Terminal:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Next for PlayOnLinux - go to their website to download the latest version - look for a .deb package - if you don't have gdebi installed yet now is the time to do it!

In terminal enter:

Code:

sudo apt-get install gdebi

Then navigate to the downloaded PlayOnLinux .deb file, right-click and select 'Open with ...' and choose 'Gdebi Package Installer'.

After all installs are complete - do the updates - you could run the update command after installing all you necessary packages to prevent repeating yourself (myself! )

[PS - that driver you found is the most stable one!]

Swarfendor437 - you have infinite patience !!!

Thank you for your last posting. I have got PlayonLinux and Wine back, and also installed gdebi as you suggested.

However I'm still having problems with the Zorin spash screen. Now this may bring a smile to your face or maybe not - and it will make me look like a 5 year old BUT I cannot find a search box in the menu bar... I have the OS set up to mimick W7. Now I'm assuming the horizontal bar along the bottom is the menu bar? So where is the search box?

I'm sure I'm being infantile but I'm missing something obvious here...

Swarfendor47 said "to get your glowing Z back, search in the menu bar search box for 'plymouth' or 'splash' - Launch the program and select 'graphical' and then select 'Zorin' - your 'Z' should be back after reboot."

Took me long enough to find the search box in the menu bar - it's only visible when I put the mouse in the appropriate place and click - then a small cursor appears...now who would have thought of that? (maybe I'm too used to MS where I get everything handed to me on a plate...)

Sadly that doesn't work. You gave similar advice in another thread but I don't seem to have a Zorin folder in there.

So, if I can't get this to work, I'm quite happy to re-install, how easy is it to install the latest nVidia driver (304.123) after a re-install - without breaking something else?

Thank you

HI, 304.*** is NOT the latest driver - it is 33x.***! and that is what might have broken your original install. I would just do a reinstall, get your updates done, THEN get your graphics instalalled via clicking on 'Settings' button on 'Software Updater' go to Additional Drivers tab and choose the nvidia 304!

Hi Guys,

Well I must admit defeat - Zorin has got the better of me!!!

I've installed and uninstalled loads of times and there's always a problem... Many of them related to the video driver. I have an nVidia 6800 card and I've tried all four drivers on offer in Software and Updates. The driver that did seem to work was 304.123 but installing that caused other problems - like breaking my nice Z splash screen. A couple of evenings ago I did try to repair it with the Splash Screen Manager but no luck. I went looking for this earlier this evening and couldn't even find it - as I've installed from the same disc it must be installed but now it's irrelevant.

I've also had instances where all the icons at the bottom right of the screen disappear (not the end of the world) and the only way to get them back is to re-boot. I've also a couple of times had the power and logon buttons greyed out so the only way i could shut down was to do a hard boot. Maybe video driver related again?

SO, I'm going to give Zorin a rest for now. I'll be sending some money off to the developers in the next couple of days and once I've got some more free time I'll be back to have another go. I still find the OS very interesting and attractive but I'm just a bit disappointed that it's so easily broken. I'm sure lots of people run it without issues so I'll happily accept it's just me and not the OS !!! Incidentally anyone out there fancy having a crack at Zorin, don't be put off by my experiences, I'm certain i'm in the minority, oh and Swarfendor - good luck with the Manual - I'll be one of the first to download it...

I'm very grateful for all the help I've had on here and apologies for some of the infantile questions I've been raising. XP seems so nice and straightforward !!!

Thanks again and maybe see you all later, meanwhile I'll be reading the mail and hopefully have another crack at Zorin later - I may even invest in another video card - now thats an idea...any suggestions ?

John

Hi, the general guidaance is - have intel, have nvidia, have amd have amd (ATi) - I have amd with nvidia - caame with on-board (ATi) 4000 chipset. Upgraded to nvidia 620 - fanless and 2Gb Graphics Memory.

You are not the only one experiencing issues with the bottom right panel - I like to customise like I could in 6 - and this was my work around:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7983&hilit=+customise

And I also like the Cairo-Dock DE (Desktop Environment) which has a 'Zorin AWN' feel to it:

download/file.php?id=3448&mode=view

FYI when trying to change/update to proprietary driver Zorin kept failing to apply (radio button would jump back to original X-Org Nouveau driver setting). Turns out this is probably due to bad update server settings as I when I randomly decided poke around and changed to best server for my area...volia' the change began to be applied!!!!

Suggestion: GUI should handle unresponsive servers better with either message that change/update cannot success due to error in accessing currently selected update server via Internet (and maybe opening network connection or server selection panel)...or (gasp!) automatically suggesting or attempting to find alternative servers. The "no message" return on apply failure due to fail to connect is not helpful and confusing to the less Linux literate.

(For the old school Linux devs ascribed to "if it was hard to write it should be hard to use"... If you are going make me know how the code is written maybe I should be writing my own personal non-Linux OS. Just in case someone is going to suggest reading and knowing the kernel or GUI source or start up scripts -- LOL.)