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I've just installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop (Asus X53sd). There was already windows 7 Professional installed, so I created new partitions and everything worked fine during the installation. (I installed windows and Ubuntu on the same day).

My laptop has 2 graphic cards: NVIDIA GeForce 610M and Intel(R) HD Graphics Family. I've installed the additional driver for NVIDIA which was recommended after the installation of the Ubuntu OS (which is NVIDIA-319). For the Intel card, no drivers were suggested.

Then suddenly , when working on the Linux environment, my screen started to freeze, while the laptop itself was still running (I noticed that since I was copying files from an external hard disk, I could hear it working and after I restarted the laptop, the files were all copied).

I've tried several possible solutions:

  • change the driver to another possible one which was suggested (the previous version of the NVIDIA 319);
  • install the driver manually, downloading it from the GeForce website. This solution didn't work because I was not able to install it.
  • download several updates which were present but still didn't make my laptop working well;
  • upgrade the system to Ubuntu 12.10. In this case, if I tried to change the driver, then I was no more able to log on my desktop, since my laptop was said to work in the "low graphics mode". If i left as it was, it kept on freezing.

Luckily I have an instant on/off button which allows me to switch off and on the laptop in less than 10 seconds, without losing my work, but it is still pretty annoying when the screen freezes.

All these problems are not present when I work on the windows partition.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Lorenzo

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  • It is clear that you have Graphics problem. Run these commands in terminal and paste your result by editing your question: lsb_release -a, uname -a and lspci | grep VGA Sep 5, 2013 at 10:21
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    I'd better switch the driver to 304.88 version and stay with 12.04. 319 is raw and buggy, and should be used only with newest NVIDIA cards.
    – Danatela
    Sep 5, 2013 at 10:28
  • @SauravKumar: thanks for your answer. I'll try the new driver first, though. Sep 5, 2013 at 11:24
  • @Danatela: I'd like to do it, but I already tried before and I was not able to install the driver manually. I will try to do it again, but I am not sure I can manage that. Do you maybe know how to do that? I found a read me file on the GeForce website, but it's way too complicated for me. Sep 5, 2013 at 11:34
  • Just install nvidia-304 and nvidia-settings-304. Then run nvidia-xconfig and blacklist nouveau driver.
    – Danatela
    Sep 6, 2013 at 2:28

1 Answer 1

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I have the same issue with the nvidia-319 driver but I have discovered a workaround that is not too annoying for me. When it freezes, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (this will bring up a tty login screen) then press Ctrl+Alt+F7 which will take you back to your GUI).

There is no need to login on the tty screen, just go Ctrl+Alt+F1 then immeadiately Ctrl+Alt+F7.

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