i think its because i used a coustom kernel that was not "make installed" then i installed the video driver with out passing the kernel source to it, so the video driver was grabbing the source of the older kernel.

the screen would flash green, and get several vertical lines, and bring the whole system down. im getting an idea that it is the video driver as before i installed the video driver it did not crash!

my kernel that i built is well tuned, and i would hate to have to build another so well. i can use x for say 10 minutes, and then it crashes with red and green lines.

Please describe in details:

1. How did you upgrade your kernel? Please list the commands you used.
2. What's your video card? Which driver are you using for it?
3. Did you do anything to your video driver AFTER kernel upgrade?

Your problem does not look like what you think. So let's start from the beginning.

tar -xzf *
cd *
make clean
make mrproper
make menuconfig
make modules
make modules_install
cp /arch/x86/boot/bzImage /boot/mykernel
vi lilo.conf
uggggg
sorry almost death rattled there haha

its a geforce 8500 gt

3 NO im using the nvidia closed source driver. i built my kernel and then installed the video driver.

now even my distro default kernel the driver breaks. i know the "nvidia-uninstall" command

the thing is that i had the same card, same motherboard working FINE a few days ago with a sempron processor. i drop in a quad core and now its running like trash. its messed up, i lost fps when i dropped a processor thats supposed to be 6.5 times as powerful in.

ill add that i have a 800 watt "nuke the whales" power supply, so its not a power issue.

So what happens when you put the Sempron processor back in? Changing just a processor, without considering whether the rest of the system is capable of fully supporting it, particularly with such a big leap, could well cause you problems. e.g., when you changed processor, the motherboard bios might well have set your FSB to a much higher rate. Can your current ram cope with the new speed etc. Is the cooling adequate for the new speed......blah blah blah...

Just some things to think about

Well, I guess you'll have to compile the nvidia driver again with the new kernel source, otherwise I'm surprised it even worked compiling it with the old kernel source. Next time you build a kernel, try to make a clean install of it.

yes the board is designed for phenom processors. what do you mean "clean install" like trash the previous kernel and replace it with my own?

Clean install, I mean, get rid of the old kernel source and replace it with the new, clean out the old kernel modules, delete the old kernel. I would keep however, maybe the huge.s kernel as a backup kernel in case your new kernel fails to boot, it has enough things built-in to not need any modules.

It could be a driver bug then. If there were something wrong with the kernel and installation, it wouldn't run at all. But you really don't give enough details. Are you using the experimental OpenGL 3.0 drivers for example? If so, switch to a stable one.

i got my stability back after a format. i have an idea it was from a broken gnome install.