From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Nov 4 07:16:53 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8971BC2F740 for ; Fri, 4 Nov 2016 07:16:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4FB1D10C1 for ; Fri, 4 Nov 2016 07:16:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-250-109.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.250.109]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C9DF0277D4; Fri, 4 Nov 2016 08:16:44 +0100 (CET) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id uA47GiGK003088; Fri, 4 Nov 2016 08:16:44 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2016 08:16:44 +0100 From: Polytropon To: Manish Jain Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" Subject: Re: Could this be a software problem or a hardware issue ? Message-Id: <20161104081644.21ad7e36.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2016 07:16:53 -0000 On Wed, 2 Nov 2016 12:20:33 +0000, Manish Jain wrote: > XP is working very nicely. "Windows" works nicely even with defective hardware, it's just that you don't notice it in the first place. ;-) > But FreeBSD is giving me a syndrome : If I > set the X driver to vesa, I get normal X display (with no drm, of > course). But if set the X driver to nvidia (which should be the correct > default for my NVidia GT 710 card), I get a strange screen with 'startx' > : mostly black with patches of colours spread across the screen. This somehow looks like "garbage in the graphics memory". A card named "GT 710" is not listed in the compatibility list at https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics - can you provide the complete name (from "pciconf -lv" and "dmesg" output) as well as possible detection messages from /var/log/Xorg.0.log (X log file)? The name "GT 710" seems to refer to an NVidia GeForce card: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics#NVidia_.2F_GeForce_Graphics It's missing from that list. > Rebooting with the driver reset to vesa solves the problem. You could try one of the two alternate nVidia drivers which can be installed, and then loaded via xorg.conf: "nouveau" and "nv". Both don't provide any great 3D support (compared to the proprietary "nvidia" driver), but they might be worth a try. > Further (with the X driver set to nvidia), I spotted that my ttyv0 gets > filled up with : > > ata0: FAILURE - odd-sized DMA transfer attempt 5 % 2 > ata0: setting up DMA failed > > There are 3 components that I suspect could be the root of my problem[s] : > > 1) the motherboard (Gigabyte GA970) > 2) RAM (Kingston DDR3 8 GB x 1, 1600 MHz) > 3) the graphics card (NVidia 2 GB, GT 710) > > All of the above are just 2-3 months old, the RAM probably the newest. If the errors only appear when the nvidia driver is being used, a kind of "DMA conflict" affecting the ata controller (where the mass storage and optical drives are being accessed with) could be possible. The driver uses the DRM / DRI facilities to perform direct memory access, the storage controllers do the same. An older web forum thread mentions HAL being the source of a similar problem. Do you have HAL (hald) running? (Anyway, it should be up to date if installed, and it's deprecated for a long time in the Linux world already.) https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/44604/ -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...