Ubuntu – Ubuntu 14.04 Screen Freezes Randomly with NVidia and it is possible to fix with Ctrl + Alt + F2 then Ctrl + Alt + F7

14.04driversfreezenvidia

I use Ubuntu 14.04 on my Asus N550JK laptop and have NVidia GeForce GTX 850M graphics card.

The problem is that screen keeps randomly freezing while performing everyday tasks. When the screen freezes I can use keyboard to type and after I return from freeze the typed letters will be there. I mean, the system works but the screen won't refresh. I can't see the mouse pointer moving.

I can escape the freeze with Ctrl+Alt+F2 followed by Ctrl+Alt+F7.
I haven't managed to find any solution to this problem and it is very annoying.

I have the following drivers installed:
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Best Answer

I had EXACTLY the same problem with NVIDIA drivers.

Your problem probably is related to these bugs (they all have the same symptoms):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-319/+bug/1220426
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1310762
http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1314871

Unfortunately it is not solved yet.

If you have an optimus capable card, the solution I've got to be able to use the dedicated graphics card while mitigating the problem was through the installation of bumblebee with primus.

Just do this on terminal:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus

When you need an application to use the dedicated graphics card, you can issue a command like:

primusrun steam
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