[PC-BSD Testing] PCBSD 8.1-RC1 Legacy nVidia Problems

[Kris Moore]

On 06/21/2010 13:55, Ian Robinson wrote:
> Testing PCBSD 8.1-RC1 on HP Vectra PIII, 1.0 GHz, 512 Mb RAM,
> nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 64Mb AGP 4x
>
> I think these are nVidia issues but I'm reporting them anyway just in 
> case because I did not have these issues under PCBSD 8.0.
>
> The PCBSD video installer picked the correct nVidia driver and display 
> settings appropriate for the monitor.  The video driver is nVidia 
> 96.43.16.  Desktop effects have been set to off.
>
> There are frequently minor pixels on the desktop that trail after a 
> desktop icon.  They are so small and occupy so little of the screen 
> that they are insignificant.
>
> However, the screen will occasionally leave a colored or a black 
> rectangle the size of the closed window on the screen until a few 
> seconds pass or until you overlay the screen with another program.   
> On one occasion I had the entire screen go black on black for approx. 
> 45 seconds, then miraculously return to normal.
>
> Additionally, the display dims with a light blue overcast and then 
> lightens.  If you were to jump over to console, the letters on the 
> screen are a pale blue against a black background.  After a while, the 
> colors will jump back to their normal state.  On the console, that 
> would be a pale white/very light grey against a black background.
>
>
> Ian Robinson
> Salem, Ohio

That does sound like a driver bug :(

Can you confirm by switching to "nv" and making sure you don't see any 
corruption? If so, you'll want to give nvidia a ping about this:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=47

On their forum they have instructions for submitting bug reports, with 
the details they need.


-- 
Kris Moore
PC-BSD Software
iXsystems