runlevel 5 gdm problem on FC3 fully updated

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Davide Rossetti wrote:
> 2-3 weeks ago I started experiencing a nasty problem with gdm in 
> runlevel 5. display gets blank after X starts then remain blank, but 
> DPMS not suspended. ssh-ing in, I can see X running at 100% CPU, 
> probably busy looping somewhere. It's a Radeon 9600.
> I tried both xorg radeon stock driver and (after experiencing the 
> problem) 
> kernel-module-fglrx-2.6.11-1.35_FC3-8.14.13.1-0.lvn.4.3+ati-fglrx-8.14.13.1-0.lvn.4.3 
> 
> with same broken behaviour.

I used to see the same thing on FC2 with my nVidia MX400 card.  Random 
screen hangs (usually the screensaver, but not always), frozen mouse, or 
blank screen, but always able to ssh in through the network.  X11 was 
always sucking up whatever cpu cycles the rest of the system would 
allow.  I must say that I haven't had a hang like any of that since I 
upgraded to FC3.  (sorry, not useful for you, I know.)  It used to be 
widely held that the problem (at least for nVidia) was the 3D support, 
and that disabling the 3D screen savers would help.  I don't know if it 
was ever proven, and I seem to remember a couple of hangs while I was 
actively using the system (the mouse just froze up).

Can you figure out what exactly happened to your system 2-3 weeks ago?
Was it related to a software update?  Perhaps a kernel update????

> strang thing is, if I set to boot in runlevel 3, login as my user, 
> startx then everything seems ok.

I must say, I never tried that, I just kept killing the X daemon and let 
GDM restart with a login screen....

I suppose it would be nice if there was someway to make the runaway X 
process dump core so it could be looked at to determine what exactly it 
is doing....

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us