Xorg crashes regularly on the T420 with the 12.04 version

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Hi,

Do you have the T420, or the T420s? I'm guessing you have the version with Optimus nVidia graphics (has both an nVidia GPU and an onboard Intel card. One thing you should understand with Laptops is that there are no "Standard" systems. The same model could come with three different GPUs, 4 different wifi cards and 2 different ethernet cards :(
Hi,

Do you have the T420, or the T420s? I'm guessing you have the version with Optimus nVidia graphics (has both an nVidia GPU and an onboard Intel card. One thing you should understand with Laptops is that there are no "Standard" systems. The same model could come with three different GPUs, 4 different wifi cards and 2 different ethernet cards :(

The systems that are certified are the Intel only systems, the Optimus based systems are NOT certified. This is mainly due to the fact that nVidia hasn't been very good about getting Optimus systems working under Linux.

One workaround would be to go into BIOS and set it to ONLY use the Intel graphics controller. That may help, you'd no longer be using the nVidia GPU, nor nouveau or nvidia drivers, and maybe that will resolve the issue.

The systems that are certified are the Intel only systems, the Optimus based systems are NOT certified. This is mainly due to the fact that nVidia hasn't been very good about getting Optimus systems working under Linux.

One workaround would be to go into BIOS and set it to ONLY use the Intel graphics controller. That may help, you'd no longer be using the nVidia GPU, nor nouveau or nvidia drivers, and maybe that will resolve the issue.

Wow... cut and paste fail... sorry, here's a cleaner version of my message:

Hi,

Do you have the T420, or the T420s? I'm guessing you have the version with Optimus nVidia graphics (has both an nVidia GPU and an onboard Intel card. One thing you should understand with Laptops is that there are no "Standard" systems. The same model could come with three different GPUs, 4 different wifi cards and 2 different ethernet cards :(

The systems that are certified are the Intel only systems, the Optimus based systems are NOT certified. This is mainly due to the fact that nVidia hasn't been very good about getting Optimus systems working under Linux.

One workaround would be to go into BIOS and set it to ONLY use the Intel graphics controller. That may help, you'd no longer be using the nVidia GPU, nor nouveau or nvidia drivers, and maybe that will resolve the issue.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks very much for your reply. I was aware about the various version of a same laptop model and precisely, I paid attention to buy the T420 (not S)...

This is the output of lspci:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)

I will enter the BIOS and check, but anyway, I still believe such a bug should not happen on a certified model and with a LTS Ubuntu version...

Best regards,
Pierre

Indeed... please be sure to specify in the bug that you have the T420, not the Optimus based system then. These days, it's hard to tell :/ If you're seeing this with the Intel driver, that's different from what I initally suspected... thanks a lot! :)

Pierre,

I'm having the same problem on my t420 and it's driving me crazy. This seems like standard hardware that's fairly universal -- just an i5 with HD 3000 graphics.

Xorg crashes regularly for me, I've noticed it usually happens when I try to enter text into some sort of box or frame in e.g. Chrome or Firefox. This will often happen when I open a new tab and try to enter URL or search info into Google. I normally get one or two characters entered when the computer freezes for a couple of seconds and I'm logged out. (xorg crash)

This generates a crash log file in /var/crash.

Any tips on what to do to diagnose this problem?

Pierre, do your crashes occur in a similar way?

I agree, very irritating. Basically I don't feel I can use this machine for any sort of serious work, due to the potential for data loss when xorg crashes :(

Thanks!
Shane

@Shane, you should either open a bug or at least read the one I opened for Pierre and subscribe to it for updates. You can file a bug (recommended either way, like this:)

ubuntu-bug /var/crash/crashfilename.crash

Thanks, Jeff. I'm still working on this and haven't forgotten. I added some RAM to the computer a while after I got it and wanted to make sure that's not the problem before submitting a bug report and making work for others :) I've run memtest86 and didn't find anything, just trying the computer without that extra RAM to see if that was the issue.

I'll be in touch and give feedback either way it goes!

Thanks for your help,
Shane