Ubuntu 14.04 Screen Freezes Randomly with NVidia and it is possible to fix with Ctrl + Alt + F2 then Ctrl + Alt + F7

Question

I use Ubuntu 14.04 on my Asus N550JK laptop and have NVidia GeForce GTX 850M graphics card.

The problem is that screen keeps randomly freezing while performing everyday tasks. When the screen freezes I can use keyboard to type and after I return from freeze the typed letters will be there. I mean, the system works but the screen won't refresh. I can't see the mouse pointer moving.

I can escape the freeze with Ctrl+Alt+F2 followed by Ctrl+Alt+F7. I haven't managed to find any solution to this problem and it is very annoying.

I have the following drivers installed: enter image description here

I suspect this really may be considered a duplicate of What should I do when Ubuntu freezes?, which has several answers about problems with Nvidia drivers. (If not, please [edit] this to expand it with detailed information about what happened when you tried those solutions, or about why you believe they are inapplicable to or inadvisable in your situation.) — Eliah Kagan, Sep 21 '14 at 02:57
@karel that question is too generic. I have EXACTLY the same problems as this one. — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Apr 17 '15 at 06:16
@CiroSantilli六四事件法轮功 I deleted the comment which was posted a long time ago anyway. — karel, Apr 17 '15 at 06:32

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 11 '14 at 08:38

I had EXACTLY the same problem with NVIDIA drivers.

Your problem probably is related to these bugs (they all have the same symptoms):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-319/+bug/1220426
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1310762
http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1314871

Unfortunately it is not solved yet.

If you have an optimus capable card, the solution I've got to be able to use the dedicated graphics card while mitigating the problem was through the installation of bumblebee with primus.

Just do this on terminal:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus

When you need an application to use the dedicated graphics card, you can issue a command like:

primusrun steam

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 30 '14 at 09:41

2

I had the same issue using the NVidia 331.340 driver.

It seems like the NVidia driver conflicted with my Elan touchpad..

For me, using an USB mouse just fixed the issue.

edited Dec 30 '14 at 09:41

Fabby

34,259

answered Dec 30 '14 at 05:48

chekolasnergee

31

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 04 '14 at 00:00

1

If the drivers available through Ubuntu don't work correctly, you could try finding your driver on Nvidia's official Unix/Linux driver's page. enter image description here

answered Sep 04 '14 at 00:00

Ulincsys

786

But I have the driver that is listed as the latest version. :/ – Kodin Sep 04 '14 at 00:06
But you're using a non-proprietary driver. using the Nvidia supplied driver could give you better support. – Ulincsys Sep 04 '14 at 00:07
I have the same problem. Downloading the Nvidia driver and self installing it did NOT work. – SyntaxRules Sep 21 '14 at 00:15
Then I can't help you, this fixed my problems. If you are still experiencing problems, it may not be the graphics' fault. – Ulincsys Sep 21 '14 at 16:49

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 14 '17 at 06:15

TL;DR

Updating to latest driver solved the freeze on Ubuntu 14.04.

I have NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M.

$ lspci | grep -i vga | grep -i NVIDIA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF116M [GeForce **GT 550M**] (rev a1)

After upgrading from Nouveau to Nvidia, Ubuntu 14.04 kept freezing. The video alone would freeze, the audio for instance kept working. I figured that I had "nvidia-340" package installed from ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa.

I queried and found I had nvidia-340 installed

$ dpkg -l | grep -i "NVIDIA binary driver"

rc  nvidia-340    **340.96**-0ubuntu0.14.04.1  amd64        NVIDIA binary driver - version **340.96**

Queried cache and found a later one (352.63)

$ sudo apt-cache search "NVIDIA binary driver"

nvidia-340 - NVIDIA binary driver - version 340.96
nvidia-340-updates - NVIDIA binary driver - version 340.96
nvidia-352 - NVIDIA binary driver - version 352.63
nvidia-352-updates - NVIDIA binary driver - version 352.63

Googled "352.63 nvidia"

Visited the Nvidia site http://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/95159/en-us

Navigate to "Supported Products" tab, it had my Graphics card. Then run following commands:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-352
sudo apt-get install nvidia-352-updates

No more freezes so far.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 27 '16 at 04:52

I just experienced this problem (again) after re-installing my Ubuntu 14.04. Here is my workaround: -> Open NVIDIA X Server Settings -> Select the menu "PRIME Profiles" -> Select the option on the right pane to "Intel (Power Saving Mode)" -> Quit -> Restart

Ubuntu 14.04 Screen Freezes Randomly with NVidia and it is possible to fix with Ctrl + Alt + F2 then Ctrl + Alt + F7

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