# Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic.



## mveety (Mar 26, 2014)

I installed FreeBSD 10-Release on my Macbook Air (significant improvement imo). The only real issue (minor granted) is that the nvidia driver causes a kernel panic and reboot. Has anyone experienced this and/or have a fix?


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## trh411 (Mar 26, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*



			
				mveety said:
			
		

> The only real issue (minor granted) is that the nvidia driver causes a kernel panic and reboot


Well, you certainly have not given us much to go on.

Is your conclusion that the nvidia driver causes a kernel panic speculation or can you provide information to substantiate the claim? If so, we need to see it. If not why have you concluded the nVidia driver is causing a panic? Can you provide crash files (/var/crash)? Can you provide a backtrace? Can you at least provide the type of panic you are encountering?

Did you follow Setting up the FreeBSD nVidia driver when you set up the driver? Is your graphics card a GeForce 320M? Which x11/nvidia-driver are you using?


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## mveety (Mar 26, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

I'm using x11/nvidia-driver. I also tried 304 and get the same results (page fault).

/var/crash/core.txt: http://pastebin.com/yv65HPeB


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## trh411 (Mar 26, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

Can you force a panic on demand, say by running a specific command, trying to start X or other similar action? Please provide the output of `dmesg`.


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## mveety (Mar 26, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

I can make it crash with `startx` or `nvidia-xconfig --query-gpu-info`.

`dmesg`: http://pastebin.com/fhfDwnBq


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## trh411 (Mar 26, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

Please provide your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file. Also, if you use one, please provide your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.


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## mveety (Mar 26, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

My xorg.conf: http://pastebin.com/jgRNUS3n
My Xorg.0.log doesn't seem to get written to the filesystem. The one that's there is the one from my last vesa session.


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## trh411 (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

I've been Google'ing on this issue and I've found success stories of FreeBSD on Macbook Airs circa 2011-2013, but nothing earlier. One troubling thing I found in researching this issue: the GeForce 320M (which my research shows is used on the 2010 Macbook Air) was specially built for Apple and it has no onboard memory; it shares memory with the CPU. If this behavior is something the driver does not anticipate (i.e., support), I could easily see page faults being the result.

What happens if you run X without an xorg.conf file? What happens if you run X using the VESA driver. Still get your panics?


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## mveety (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

It works with VESA fine, but I can't get a resolution higher than 800x600 in X though. I have syscons running at 1024x768 though.


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## trh411 (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

Just to confirm, is the graphics card an nVidia GeForce 320M as it states here? All the late 2010 models I've checked list this card in their specs.


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## mveety (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

Yeah. Same computer in every way.


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## trh411 (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

I found FreeBSD Apple Macbook, but it assumes an Intel processor with HD graphics, and does not specify the models supported, so its of no use for this issue .... unless of course I missed something.

I'm still digging.


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## mveety (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

I've also been digging for a while. I haven't really found anything useful. I've thought about posting to the nvidia forums, but I don't think they would be very helpful. Should I report this to them?


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## trh411 (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*



			
				mveety said:
			
		

> I've also been digging for a while. I haven't really found anything useful. I've thought about posting to the nvidia forums, but I don't think they would be very helpful. Should I report this to them?


I don't see NVIDIA as being much help here. Better I think to post to the freebsd-x11@freebsd.org mailing list.


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## SirDice (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*



			
				mveety said:
			
		

> I have syscons running at 1024x768 though.


Try turning that off, I don't think the NVidia driver plays nice with the graphics console. I've never been able to get them to work together nicely.


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## SirDice (Mar 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*



			
				mveety said:
			
		

> I've thought about posting to the nvidia forums, but I don't think they would be very helpful. Should I report this to them?


My experience says they're actually extremely helpful. Pay close attention to @zander, he's an NVidia developer.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=47


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## tm10 (Jul 27, 2014)

*Re: Macbook Air late 2010 nvidia driver causing kernel panic*

I have exact the same issue and didn't found a solution yet.
Maybe someone did? Or has someone any idea how this could be resolved?

Btw: zander wasn't active since 2012...

Thanks!


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