From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; T312461; Q312461) Description of problem: At runlevel 3, system runs for 10 or 20 minutes but freezes (ceases to respond to keyboard or mouse). If I startx/gnome, if it starts at all, it freezes within a few minutes if I just let it sit and in less than a minute if a do anything at all on the desktop. Sometimes at runlevels 3 and 5, the system begins generating autorepeating characters, usually when I try to type something but sometimes on its own. This has occurred during and after logon at runlevel 3 and using the graphical logon. There are no error messages during boot or afterwards. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.There is no specific sequence of events that trigger the problem. 2. 3. Actual Results: At runlevel 5, any keyboard or mouse activity will cause freeze if continued for anything close to a minute. If there is no mouse or keyboard activity after startx, it freezes after a few minutes. At runlevel 3, it takes much longer. Expected Results: The system should not freeze. Additional info: Dell Workstation 530, dual Xeons, dual 36 MB SCSI (on-board controller), 1 GB RDRAM, on-board firewire /w external Sony DVD+R/+RW, on-board 3Com NIC, PCI Linksys LNE 100 v5 NIC, SoundBlaster Live 512V, Nvidia Quadro2 EX /w Dell- provided drivers for RedHat 8.0. Have installed Dell drivers using provided rpm and have recompiled and reinstalled the Dell drivers - same problem. Have done multiple formats and RH8 install attempts. Rated high severity because system is unusuable; however, this is not a machine that I use to earn my living.
You may want to try without the Dell provided display drivers to see if that improves stability.
In response to notting: The first day or so I did try both the drivers in the RedHat retail and the latest Nvidia linux drivers. Got the freezes and so starting working with the Dell drivers. Just set a new record for X11/Gnome - managed to run long enough to launch up2date and start downloading packages. It froze in the middle of the first download. Don't think I will attempt any more up2dates, too great a risk of freezing during a package install.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 73733 ***