Infrastructure:

Physical:
MSI 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard with AMI V1.7 BIOS
AMD Phenom II X6 (1055T)
8 GB RAM (2 x 4 GB)
nVidia Geforce 7300 (G72) PCIe
ViewSonic VA2433wm monitor

Operating System:
CentOS 6.3 Final x86_64

Other Information:
The monitor is not bad because this machine is on a KVM with 2 other machines and they work just fine.

Problem:
On bootup I'm seeing the following error message:
[drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is (various, but mostly 128)

Then while the machine is running, the display will occasionally go black. But the keyboard still responds because when the screen returns what I keyed in is there.

Question:
Could this be a sign that my video card is going bad?
Or what else could it be?

TIA
Scrapper

May have different causes:
1. The videocard
2. The cable from the videocard to the switch
3. The port on that switch or the switching logic inside the switch (have seen both already)

So at first I would recommend to switch the cable with one from the other machines. If that doesn't help (which means the cable is OK) switch connect the machine to a known good port on the KVM. If that doesn't help (the port is OK) switch the videocard to a different one and see if that solves your issue.

If all of that doesn't help it may be a software issue.

Are you sure it isn't just power saving ? DPMS ?

If you think it is the video card, I would try the Video Memory Stress Test on the UBCD. Technically, I have also found some memory tests that use CUDA, like:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cudagpumemtest/
But you need CUDA installed for that.

EDID problems are common with the 7300 GPUs. I had a search and found a few related threads. I have a 7300 myself and get various EDID errors, but just ignore them as it works ok.

Thanks for all of ther replies.

What concerns me is the black screen from time to time - while I'm using the machine. If I ssh from another machine and use it via machine 'B' I don't get any issues. It's only when I access the machine through it's video card.

I'm going to switch the KVM cables around and do several reboots to check and make sure it's not the cable.

If I still have the same issue, I'll just get another video card. They aren't that expensive sine I'm not doing any gaming on this machine.

Thanks Again!

Scrapper

I've seen cards pass the video memory stress test but still be bad. Still, could be worth a shot. 7XXX cards wont work with CUDA, its only started with the top end 8XXX cards.

Thats what I would do if you keep having issues.

A cheap AMD HD5450/6450 or nVidia G210 will have similar power consumption, be faster (not that you will notice any real difference for desktop use), have hardware video decoding features (dont know if you would even use them) and might even give you a bit more system memory and I/Os back (as the G72 7300 cards are 'turbo cache' moodels that have limited memory on the card and use some system RAM)

Thanks for all of the responses. I've decided to just replace the viseo card. OK, I found the following at Fry's:
PNY VCGGT620XPB GeForce GT 620 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16

I picked Fry's because I sorta go right past it on the way home.

I am entering the following question here and in the CentOS 6 forum:

"I'm running CentOS 6.3 Final and I'm replacing my bad video card with PNY VCGGT620XPB GeForce GT 620 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16. Will the native Noveau nVidia drivers work with this card? Or do I need to add some other drivers?"

I am going to limp along with the existing card until I can get some sort of answer.

TIA
Scrapper

For CentoS 6.3, which has an older kernel and X.org I would think that it may work, but I would recommend to use the proprietary drivers to get all the features (especially power management and video decoding).

If you don't do gaming, why get such a good card ?

GT 620 = rebadged GT520. The GT520 is the pretty much the same cost, and might have a better chance of running 'out of the box' with centOS (I havent checked that).

*edit- opps, incomplete. GT620 can be a rebadged GT520, or a rebranded GT530 depending on the GT620 version...

I dont know why you would buy a GT520/620. The G210s are much cheaper, have pretty much identical TDP and power consumption, and if you aren't gaming the G210 would be just as good (and if you are gaming, there are better cards than the GT520/620)

Just poked around Micro Center and Fry's and 'thought' I was getting the best I could for my budget.

TIA
Scrapper

OK, Here's the latest:

Went by Micro Center at lunch and picked up a PNY nVidia GeForce GT 610 for $47.99. It comes with 10 free games (I'm sure they are for Windows).

TIA
Scrapper

Decent price for that card.

1 members found this post helpful.

How would spending more but not getting any advantage from it be 'getting the best for your budget'?

GT610 = rebranded GT520.

I wish nVidia would stop this stupid rebranding.....

1 members found this post helpful.

OK, I got the new video card (although not the one in the ad, it seems we couldn't find that one on the shelf). It turns out I bought a nVidia GeForce GT610. Everything is working as it should. Thanks for all of your input!

Thanks!
Scrapper