Very Computer

I posted this a few days ago, but got no responses.  I have some more
information now, and I'll try again.

When I installed my G200 card, started linux, ran Xconfigurator,....
everything worked perfectly.  No problems whatsoever.  However, the next
time I started X, it failed with a 'signal 11, aborting', and I couldn't get
X to start.  So, I reinstalled my old card for the time being.

I visited Matrox's site, and downloaded their beta driver for Linux.  I
replaced X's currently installed driver with the one Matrox provided.
Again, I installed the G200, ran Xconfigurator, and everything worked
perfectly.  This time, however, the next time I started X, it started (no
signal 11 this time), but all I got was a black screen, on which the only
thing visible were some icons (I run IceWM).  No text was readable at all.

Mind you, in between running Xconfigurator, and the next time I started X, I
didn't touch a single system file.  Nothing should have changed.  Why on
earth would it behave differently??

System info:
PIII 700, RH7.0, X4.0.1, Kernel 2.2.17, Matrox Millenium G200 8mb

Hope someone can offer some assistance,

Cheers,

Tim

You won't like my suggestion, but can you rule out hardware problems?

I have plenty of G200 around, mostly with XFree 3.3.6 (RH 6.2), but
one also on an 'avantgarde' machine with XFree 4.0.x (i.e., long
before RH 7.0 came out), and never had any problems since 3.9.16.  (I
had two of these cards die on me; only the symptom was fairly clear:
"black screen", no signal)

However, I recently was fighting with a very ill PC (no Matrox card),
where the symptoms were very similar -- unreproducible X crashes etc.
Try running a memory tester first (Sig 11 could be indicative of a RAM
problem).  Then, try the graphics card somewhere else.  Is the machine
stable without X (try repetitively bzipping and bunzipping large files
(tar 20(50) rpms together and let bzip play with this) -- that's
usually a fairly good stress test of memory, memory management and
disk) If the RAM and the graphics card are OK, you'd better get
someone with hardware experience, because this leaves motherboard
and/or processor.

Stefan

Thanks,

Tim

Quote:

> You won't like my suggestion, but can you rule out hardware problems?

> I have plenty of G200 around, mostly with XFree 3.3.6 (RH 6.2), but
> one also on an 'avantgarde' machine with XFree 4.0.x (i.e., long
> before RH 7.0 came out), and never had any problems since 3.9.16.  (I
> had two of these cards die on me; only the symptom was fairly clear:
> "black screen", no signal)

> However, I recently was fighting with a very ill PC (no Matrox card),
> where the symptoms were very similar -- unreproducible X crashes etc.
> Try running a memory tester first (Sig 11 could be indicative of a RAM
> problem).  Then, try the graphics card somewhere else.  Is the machine
> stable without X (try repetitively bzipping and bunzipping large files
> (tar 20(50) rpms together and let bzip play with this) -- that's
> usually a fairly good stress test of memory, memory management and
> disk) If the RAM and the graphics card are OK, you'd better get
> someone with hardware experience, because this leaves motherboard
> and/or processor.

> Stefan