At this point, I'm a little nervous about trying anything that requires me to reinstall that driver. So far, every time I've tried, it ends up degrading my system's usability to the point of having to reinstall. I'm going to wait on it a bit. I'd really like to stop tinkering with my Linux box and move towards seeing if I can be fully productive in it. I have a database in Access that I use to maintain student grades in my college classes. I need to try and move that over. I don't have time to keep messing around with the base OS.

Do this

1. log in as root

2. open terminal and type init 3

3. sh NVIDIA..........sh -q (go to your nvidia driver is )

4. modprobe nvidia

5. sax2 -m 0=nvidia (zero not O)

6. Set drivers in sax2

7. reboot


TaDa

BROse-
Aside from the modprobe, I've done all of that and had the problems I had described above. I followed the instructions on nVidia's web site specifically, and the results are what I described.

Answer for members BROse + pilotgi
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The problem is not installing the driver, the problem is keep it working ! As I pointed out I had no problem at all with both ways of installation (YOU or NVIDIA's driver). But the pleasure of seemless driver installation lasted always only hours or maximum 1-2 days.

Answer for member SchadeBoy
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I agree, the problem is clearly NOT hardware. It worked fine with older SUSE version (kernel 2.4) plus NVIDIA driver.

Question: would you say the problem is restricted to 3D ? Are you saying your SUSE 9.3 plus NVIDIA driver works stable when you keep "3D - disabled" ???


Question to all:
------------------
I understand the problem as "NVIDIA driver crash" under certain circumstances. What I do not understand is, why the system does not come up again after reboot (until next crash) ?
I replaced the NVIDIA driver by the generic VESA driver from a text console. After that I can start a xwindow as root and there is no NVIDIA splash screen anymore. But after init 5 I have the white login screen again and again.
Once the NVIDIA driver crashes I don't find any way to logon a user. This I see as a SUSE problem.

Rainer

rs33-
I think the problem ultimately resides in the driver by nVidia. Whenever I have the driver installed, I eventually get the problems that you and I have described. I have reinstalled my system now and have not done a thing to install the nVidia driver, and so far I haven't had any trouble at all - except that of course I don't have 3D.

If I enable 3D, I get the issue with the rainbow-like band of color on the right-hand side of my screen, and a portion of the top of my monitor is mirrored at the bottom. The effective screen resolution is 1400X1050, even though my screen is capable of 1600X1200.

I so wish I could take a snapshot of the screen to show you all what it's doing.

SchadeBoy -

And what driver are you using instead NVIDIA ?

I'm using the one that comes with SUSE - not the one you get through YOU, but the one that initially is installed when you do your initial installation of SUSE. It doesn't support 3D, but it does work.

The white login screen is XDM, the default display manager. The window manager after logging in is TWM. You can get back the Gnome or KDE display manager by editing /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager and changing xdm to gdm or kdm. You'll have to switch to a text-mode virtual console (CTRL-ALT-F1) and login to do it though. After you've made the necessary changes you can either reboot or execute "telinit 1", login as root, and run "telinit 5"

taglass -

Thank you very much, your hint helped a lot. It did of course not solve the NVIDIA driver problem (it is one !), but it helped to recover from the problem without further image restores (or reinstalls). I got rid of the NVIDIA driver and changed to VESA generic driver. This change caused the problem again, so that I had to go through the procedure twice, but finally I got it.
Thanks again !

Just noticed my advice about restoring the display manager won't stick across a reboot. You'll have to login using xdm, start a new xterm, su to root, and run yast2. From there goto System->/etc/sysconfig Editor->Desktop->Display manager->DISPLAYMANAGER and choose the appropriate display manager. What I don't understand is why installing an X driver should modify anything in /etc/sysconfig.

I'm still researching this, myself. I'll be considering your advice here, taglass. As much as I really want to try everything out, I am just so not wanting to have to re-install everything again. I'm actually to a point where I can do almost everything I need to in Linux.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

taglass wrote: What I don't understand is why installing an X driver should modify anything in /etc/sysconfig.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

I too don't understand this but it happened. And it seems there were more changes. After I got rid of the NVIDIA driver my system is running stable and almost everything that should work is working. Almost ! Because one side effect of the "working around" is that I can't shutdown the system anymore from KDM Logout. The only selection I am offered is "End Current Session". I am missing "Reboot", "Shutdown" and "other session" as before. It was there before I had the driver problem. The file /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager includes the lines :
DISPLAYMANAGER="kdm"
KDM_SHUTDOWN="all"
This means I am using kdm (not xdm or gdm) and I allow all users shutdown from kdm. Also I was checking thru all related settings in YAST and KDE Center, but nothing brings back the additional selections (shutdown etc.).

rs33
It's so rare when I see someone having the exact same problems I am. I, too, would get the issue with the logout screen as you describe above. Again, I haven't a clue what could be causing the problem as I am still very much a Linux noobie. But I'm willing to wade through it all, as I really want to understand Linux more.

I forgot to mention, after editing the file /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager I did a "SuSEconfig --module kdm3".
I also tried the YASTs SysconfigEditor. Strange thing there is, YAST shows me all variables duplicate, although there are no duplicates in the displaymanager file itself.

I've got the same problem. It gives me headaches. I've installed SUSE 9.3 three times and like all of you, Nvidia crashes. It gives me a strange Kernel message like 'Nvidia bla bla ... tainted kernel'. Now it doesn't even start KDE anymore. And I can't shut down the computer. I have to do a halt as root. Also the XDM window manager is a real pain. But you can run KDE in XDM ....

Anyhow, hitting ctrl-alt F1 ..... F12 doesn't do a thing on my computer. I get a black screen, just ctrl-alt-f7 brings me back to the windows manager. I had this problem in 9.2 too.

Another problem I had in 9.2 & in 9.3 is when I shut down the computer. X quits and I get a really fucked up screen with thousands of colours blinking and doing whatever. It shut's down normally, but it bothers me though. Someting must be wrong with Suse or Nvidia.

And why on earth doesn't it recognize my XFX 5700 Ultra dual head as a dual head. Okay, I've got only one TFT screen, but wouldn't it be nice if I could hook up another screen to impress my friends.

Well tonight I will install Suse 9.3 again, while keeping 3D support disabled. At least I will be able to use my computer.

Tommorow is another day..