Random bit patterns with Precision 490 & nVidia Quadro NVS 285

[Frederick Herrmann]

I have a new Dell Precision 490 with nVidia Quadro NVS 285 and
pre-installed RHEL4.

Sometimes it gets into a state where it displays what seem to be
random bits in various windows.  Mousing over buttons and icons may
cause some areas of the screen to be restored temporarily, but it's
basically unusable.  Logging out and in again recovers.

I saw this behavior with the originally installed driver.  I am now
running the dell-nvidia 8765 driver recently posted by John Hull, but
it made no difference.  (BTW, where does 8765 come from if the newest
I found at nVidia's site is 8762?)

I read "If you have a stability problem, PLEASE read this first" at
<http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=bcb1554e898b4f5dcb70ae
6d10b719b1&t=58498>.
Although I do have an old kernel (2.6.9-5.EL), it says newer nVidia
drivers
should work around the problems.

I used the nvidia-xconfig program to set up my xorg.conf.

Here are a few scary lines from /var/log/Xorg.0.log (don't know if
they're relevant):
(WW) Open APM failed (/dev/apm_bios) (No such file or directory)
(WW) NV(0): Failed to set up write-combining range
(0xc0000000,0x8000000)
(**) NV(0): DPMS enabled
(==) RandR enabled
(EE) Failed to initialize GLX extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not
found)

I'll appreciate any help or advice.

Thanks,

- Fritz