Okay, did some more stuff this evening, so here we are. The same settings as posted above, but this is what I am doing to get the module loaded and running right...

On reaching the gui logon for rh9, I log in as root into failsafe mode. then init 3, remove and restart the nvidia module, then back into init 5 seems to give me a stable system...

In my bios, the agp 4x is disabled, and the agp aperture is set to 68MB. Can anyone give me a little insight into if that setting is really crippling me? Is there some way to see what speed my agp is running at? To check if it is still 4x (even though its off in the bios), or if I really need to get it running in 4x...

I just successfully installed the nVidia drivers (4496) for my card (and older GeForce256) on my RH9 machine.

I'm assuming you're following the sh NVIDIA-blah-blah.pkg1 script where it recompiles (or downloads) modules FOR THAT SPECIFIC KERNEL.

you can't just install the nvidia drivers, and then go mucking around with different kernels....

Have you swapped Kernels around while you're doing this? Or, specifically, since you first installed the drivers?

You might want to pick a kernel, go through the driver install process, and see where that leaves you....

best of luck!

Something is funny with redhat 9 in my opinion. I upgraded (using up2date) from rh7.3 to rh9 (time to move to glib2 since my /usr/local extras were out-of-date again), and while my video works fine (it is an s3 savage4), the sound is a bit funny. It works fine in runlevel 3, and while the sound is there once X starts, the machine freezes within 15 minutes of music. Same with gnome or wmaker. Without using sound (music), X is entirely stable, as is the machine with music without X. I kept my old rh7.3 system as an alternative boot. It still works as expected.

dont leave it in X too long if the fan is not on - just in case - prolly not engaged but still - you would not want to burn out your agp chip.

thanks guys!

I might have narrowed this down a bit. Hopefully someone might have some insight (but everyone has been GREAT at helping me out, I owe everyone a beer!).

There is a chance it might be a heat problem, but I am not sure how to check this to find out.

I have been able to boot into my system a few times now without encountering a lockup (the settings are pretty much how they are posted earlier in this thread, except that i have 4x agp turned on now).

Boot into root, init 3, uninstall/reinstall nvidia module, init 5, good to go (kind of).

Except that I noticed that if I have too many windows rendering on the screen at once, I'll lock up. I can run TuxRacer for about 3 seconds, then it locks up. Quake 3 will load, but as soon as the game starts, it locks.

I noticed while constantly changing settings, and rebooting the other day something kind of strange.

When i boot the machine, the little fan on the video card spins along merrily. Right after the nvidia splash screen as X boots, the fan on the video card stops spinning. Now, if I run init 3 again and kill X, the fan on the card starts spinning again!

Am I going nuts, or does this sound strange to anyone else? The mobo is abit kt7a with VIA kt133 chipset.

Should the fan stop spinning on the video card ever? Is it controlled by the software? Is there a better way to test if its due to heat that my lockups are occuring?

I'm getting closer, I can feel it! (hope hope hope)

any thoughts anyone?

Well, I narrowed things down a little bit.

I can boot and run the machine (relatively stable) if I disable 4x AGP in my bios. but this is really not acceptable, because i bought this card to play my games as full tilt as possible at the moment

Anyone with any insight into this? I havent actually checked the fan yet this evening. I was busy trying to get my machine going in general if possible. I can play quake3, tux, and run glxgears. It looks okay, and the framerate is alright, I guess, but I dont really see too much of an improvement over my geforce2 (probably because I am only running in 2X agp).

Is there some way to force 4X agp except in the bios? If its shut off in the bios, can I re-enable it in the nvidia driver maybe? ( I think I saw an option in the driver code somewhere about this....)

When I installed the latest kernel..the latest NVIDIA drivers would not compile properly. The stock kernel that comes with Redhat 9 works great though. I have a GeForce 3.

ahh, at least it works for you. I am wondering if perhaps it is a geforce fx problem, or my mobo/bios, or just the driver...