1 Description

  • Ubuntu 16.04 Server Edition, installed with desktop environment
  • Freezes suddenly and randomly, everything except the mouse
  • ssh works fine
  • restart works, only until login screen. Once logged in, nothing appears (system menu, desktop, mouse click doesn’t work, etc.)

2 Diagnosis

Look at /var/log/kernel.log and /var/log/syslog for the related message

Dec  1 16:44:36 neurocan kernel: [  140.789097] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: Xorg[2366]: failed to idle channel 4 [Xorg[2366]]
Dec  1 16:44:37 neurocan kernel: [  141.293360] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: Xorg[2366]: failed to idle channel 3 [Xorg[2366]]
Dec  1 16:44:51 neurocan kernel: [  155.794412] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: Xorg[2366]: failed to idle channel 4 [Xorg[2366]]
Dec  1 16:44:52 neurocan kernel: [  156.298538] nouveau 0000:02:00.0: Xorg[2366]: failed to idle channel 3 [Xorg[2366]]

nouveau is the open source equivalent of graphics driver, indicating that the problem can be with the graphics driver.

Check current graphics card with this command

lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107GL [Quadro K620] (rev a2)

3 Fix

3.1 Secure-shell login

3.2 Stop lightdm service

sudo service lightdm stop

3.3 Install the NVIDIA driver

Add the ppa entry

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

Look carefully at the output to determine the proper driver version

Fresh drivers from upstream, currently shipping Nvidia.

## Current Status

Current official release: `nvidia-387` (387.34)
Current long-lived branch release: `nvidia-384` (384.98)

For G8x, G9x and GT2xx GPUs use `nvidia-340` (340.104)
For NV4x and G7x GPUs use `nvidia-304` (304.137)

Support timeframes for Unix legacy GPU releases:
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142
...

Then install the driver and reboot the system

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-387
sudo reboot -h now