Ubuntu Sluggish and Problem after Nvidia Driver Update

Asked by Walrus

I just recently started using Ubuntu (12.04) since a few weeks ago and noticed that the interface is very slow and sluggish:

    On Dash, I have to type the entire app name and wait a few seconds before it shows up in the search box, and a bit later before it displays search result

    Opening new files or applications takes also quite long and awkward

    Dragging icons or moving app windows around is not very spontaneous too: I have to take extra attention in moving the mouse otherwise Ubuntu would not do a correct movement or might ends up doing something incorrect instead e.g. opening the windows to full screen options or move the file to different folders, which is frustrating

My PC is a few years old already (1.7 GB RAM) so this could be a reason too but when I checked in System Monitor it's hardly ever consuming much memory. Plus web-surfing on Firefox is actually lightning fast (much more than Windows), so I suspect there might be something wrong with the graphics driver (mine is GeForce 7050).

I checked around System Settings and found an option to update the Nvidia driver. So I tried it and restarted, as instructed.

Now, I got into a big problem upon restart... as the login-screen windows (where I have to type in the password) would take several attempts to display and finally did not manage to (it'd freeze for several seconds before there's any movement again). The background screen also kept reloading several times too and at some point the screen turned black with pixelated color strips running on the bottom 1/3 of the screen, and after a long while the background screen would come up again. Eventually I'd manage to be able to access the desktop but the launcher, top menu bar and app windows border would not disappear.

I searched around and found many other people have this similar problem after updating Nvidia driver too, and on some threads the suggestion is to use "killall -u $USER" in command line (it's the only thing among various online suggestions I could do, as at that point I could not access Terminal without the launcher - Ctrl-Alt-T doesn't work for me). So I did that and was able to access the desktop correctly again with launchee/menu by creating a new account. But I would still have the same problem if logging into my original account.

So I just finally tried upgrading to 12.10 and now can access my original account with fully-functional desktop - the launcher, menu and windows border are all back now.

However, the problem with sluggishness still remains. And now I get scared of ever having to update the Nvidia driver again!

I wonder if anyone knows what's the reason that updating the Nvidia driver is causing this problem and is there a way I can update it safely in the future? I'm still not sure how to solve the problem with the sluggishness too and not sure where else to look to find a solution.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Ubuntu xserver-xorg-video-nv Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#1

Can you give the output of:

sudo lshw -C display; cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a; dpkg -l | grep nvidia

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Walrus (walrus) said :
#2

Thanks actionparsnip, here's the output I got:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: C68 [GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 12
       bus info: pci@0000:00:12.0
       version: a2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
       resources: irq:21 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:fc000000-fcffffff memory:feac0000-feadffff
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=quantal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.10"
Linux mai-GeForce7050M-M 3.5.0-17-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 9 19:32:08 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux
rc nvidia-173 173.14.35-0ubuntu0.2 i386 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
rc nvidia-173-updates 173.14.35-0ubuntu0.2 i386 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
ii nvidia-common 1:0.2.71 i386 transitional package for ubuntu-drivers-common
rc nvidia-current 295.40-0ubuntu1.1 i386 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
rc nvidia-settings 304.51-0ubuntu2 i386 Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
rc nvidia-settings-updates 304.43-0ubuntu0.2 i386 Tool of configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#3

sudo dpkg -P nvidia-current nvidia-settings nvidia-settings-updates
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Reboot to test

Revision history for this message
Walrus (walrus) said :
#4

Hmm, I just tried the above commands and when reboot, for some reason the monitor will show up in black screen with just white texts, first asking me to input my username, then there are several lines of texts saying "USB 3-1: DEVICE DESCRIPTION READ/64 ERROR-110"

There are about 7 lines of those texts, each one preceding by different numbers (e.g. 31.544022, 48.000044, 63.280046, 68.580561)

Then after a while I'd get to access Ubuntu desktop again. And it's still very slow & sluggish... (e.g. each command takes about 1 second to respond). I'm giving it a try for another day or two and see if it's still usable.

Here's the output of "sudo lshw -C display; cat /etc/lsb-release; uname -a; dpkg -l | grep nvidia" which is a bit different:

*-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: C68 [GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 12
       bus info: pci@0000:00:12.0
       version: a2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:20 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:fc000000-fcffffff memory:feac0000-feadffff
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=quantal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.10"
Linux mai-GeForce7050M-M 3.5.0-18-generic #29-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 19 10:27:31 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux
rc nvidia-173 173.14.35-0ubuntu0.2 i386 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
rc nvidia-173-updates 173.14.35-0ubuntu0.2 i386 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
ii nvidia-common 1:0.2.71 i386 transitional package for ubuntu-drivers-common
ii nvidia-current 304.51.really.304.43-0ubuntu1 i386 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
ii nvidia-settings 304.51-0ubuntu2 i386 Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#5

sudo dpkg -P nvidia-173 nvidia-173-updates
sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-current nvidia-settings
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Reboot to test

Revision history for this message
Walrus (walrus) said :
#6

Thanks very much. I did that and after reboot, it is functioning (which is a big relief) although not any noticable difference in speed and performance. I removed 1 USB device I no longer use, and the latest startup only show just 1 line of USB DEVICE DESCRIPTION's error message.

There are still some graphic glitches here and there, e.g. when I switch to another user, the screen will flash and turns into some pixelated rectangular shapes for about 2 seconds, before loading the desktop.

At this point the computer is still functional and I can surf the web with no problem, but video playback is choppy. I'm considering to maybe just get a new graphic card and add more RAM instead...

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Walrus for more information if necessary.

To post a message you must log in.