My computer freezes when nvidia drivers activated

Question

I'm talking about the ubuntu recommended drivers at Additional Drivers in System Settings. Its sad and frustrating.

I have a GeForce 7300 LE with Ubuntu 12.04.

Any solution to this?

Answer 1

Go to Synaptic Package Manager and see what driver is actually installed. Make sure you have actually locked the 295.33 version and not something else that just has 295.33 mentioned in its description. If you have not actually locked the driver the 295.40 driver will install when you open Update manager and the problem will start again.

You could also try the following and see if this helps. Open a terminal and try this installing the 295.49 driver:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current=295.49-0ubuntu1~precise~xup1

Once installed lock it as described in my previous post.

Also a fresh install could help. Once installed don't install anything else, go straight to terminal and try the above command. Its up to you whether you want to install the 295.49 driver or th 295.33 driver if you elect to do a fresh install.

Answer 2

The 295.40 Nvidia driver which was released with 12.04 won't work properly. To fix this install the following driver through terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current=295.33-0ubuntu1~precise~xup1

Once you have installed it don't go straight to your Update Manager otherwise it will want to install the 295.40 driver which you don't want. Go instead to the Synaptic Package Manage and lock the 295.33 driver. This will stop the Update Manager from wanting to update it. You can now use the Update Manager as usual.

There is another driver 295.49 which has not been released yet by Ubuntu. Keep an eye out for it and update to it when it is released into the mainstream updates.