Problems with NVIDIA drivers and Blender

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robertbouariu
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Problems with NVIDIA drivers and Blender

Post by robertbouariu »

Hello everyone! This is my first post here. :)


Two months ago I encountered an ACPI BIOS error while installing Mint 20.1, but those error messages disappeared after I made a BIOS update. I don't know exactly if this fixed the problem, but at least I don't see those error messages. For now at least. The system seamed to work fine, but sometimes, after shutdown and reboot, Mint defaults to the lowest resolution. Sometimes after a restart, the correct display resolution appears, but not all the time. It doesn't matter what Nvidia driver version I install (460.80 or 465.27 from the driver manager), sometimes it boots fine, sometimes it doesn't.

And this leads me to the weirdest part. I installed Blender, multiple versions (2.82a from repo and 2.83 2.91, 2.92, 2.93 from the website) and all behave exactly the same: After I open Blender I activate viewport Shading. In the Layout tab with viewport shading active or in the Shading tab, when I try to grab and pull the line between the windows to change the size, it crashes my whole PC. If I try to resize any window the system crashes and the GPU fans start to spin really fast and noisy and don't stop until I shut it down.

I managed to reproduce the same crash by doing exactly the same things running different Linux Mint versions (19.3 20.1), Majaro and Open Suse Tumbleweed, with different kernels and different NVIDIA drivers, newer, older or recommended (installed from the distros repos or from the NVIDIA web page) and with different blender versions. It doesn't matter if the render engine is Eevee or Cycles.

Two weeks ago I installed NVIDIA driver 465.27 (I'm not quite sure about the real numbers - I believe it was 465.27) from ubuntu ppa and it worked for a few days. I suspect a linux firmware update done right before the troubles with drivers loading at startup. The firmware update could of messed something.

I reinstalled Mint 20.1, made all updates first, installed Nvidia 465.27 then Nvidia 440.100 then 460.84, in that order. First two still made Blender to crash the OS, and after 460.84 and reboot the system defaults to lowest resolution and 465.27 instead of 460.84
I believe its a Linux problem, because I could not reproduce the crash inside Windows 10. On the Windows side, the GPU drivers are 450 thus older.

This is inix -Fxxxrz

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-74-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 wm: muffin 4.8.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: All Series v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: H81M-K v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
  BIOS: American Megatrends v: 3601 date: 12/15/2017 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4770 bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 54278 
  Speed: 1399 MHz min/max: 800/3900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1214 2: 1310 
  3: 1199 4: 1313 5: 1210 6: 1199 7: 1199 8: 1272 
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA TU116 [GeForce GTX 1660] vendor: Gigabyte driver: nvidia 
  v: 465.27 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:2184 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: nvidia 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 465.27 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:8c20 
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU116 High Definition Audio vendor: Gigabyte 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 chip ID: 10de:1aeb 
  Device-3: Plantronics Plantronics C520-M type: USB 
  driver: plantronics,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus ID: 3-6:4 chip ID: 047f:c036 
  serial: <filter> 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-74-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: d000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:8168 
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 670.70 GiB used: 11.29 GiB (1.7%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SA400S37240G size: 223.57 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 0107 scheme: MBR 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Kingston model: SA400S37480G size: 447.13 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 1103 scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 439.11 GiB used: 11.29 GiB (2.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C gpu: nvidia temp: 43 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 0% 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/graphics-drivers-ppa-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 248 Uptime: 1m Memory: 15.58 GiB used: 1.12 GiB (7.2%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 
Thank you!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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SMG
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Re: Problems with NVIDIA drivers and Blender

Post by SMG »

robertbouariu wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:44 pmTwo months ago I encountered an ACPI BIOS error while installing Mint 20.1, but those error messages disappeared after I made a BIOS update. I don't know exactly if this fixed the problem, but at least I don't see those error messages. For now at least.
Welcome to the forum, robertbouariu.

Those types of errors can only be cleared with a BIOS/UEFI update.
robertbouariu wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:44 pmThe system seamed to work fine, but sometimes, after shutdown and reboot, Mint defaults to the lowest resolution. Sometimes after a restart, the correct display resolution appears, but not all the time. It doesn't matter what Nvidia driver version I install (460.80 or 465.27 from the driver manager), sometimes it boots fine, sometimes it doesn't.
This sounds like a similar problem to the one in this thread [SOLVED] NVIDIA driver failing sometimes on boot ("no hardware acceleration"). Let us know if the fix roblm recommends in the second post addresses the issue for you.

I do not know if that will help with the issue you are experiencing with Blender.
robertbouariu wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:44 pmI reinstalled Mint 20.1, made all updates first, installed Nvidia 465.27 then Nvidia 440.100 then 460.84, in that order. First two still made Blender to crash the OS, and after 460.84 and reboot the system defaults to lowest resolution and 465.27 instead of 460.84
You do not mention by what method you installed these drivers, but it sounds like you have files from multiple driver versions on your system. You can check by running dpkg -l | grep -i nvidia in a terminal.
robertbouariu wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:44 pmAnd this leads me to the weirdest part. I installed Blender, multiple versions (2.82a from repo and 2.83 2.91, 2.92, 2.93 from the website) and all behave exactly the same: After I open Blender I activate viewport Shading. In the Layout tab with viewport shading active or in the Shading tab, when I try to grab and pull the line between the windows to change the size, it crashes my whole PC. If I try to resize any window the system crashes and the GPU fans start to spin really fast and noisy and don't stop until I shut it down.

I managed to reproduce the same crash by doing exactly the same things running different Linux Mint versions (19.3 20.1), Majaro and Open Suse Tumbleweed, with different kernels and different NVIDIA drivers, newer, older or recommended (installed from the distros repos or from the NVIDIA web page) and with different blender versions. It doesn't matter if the render engine is Eevee or Cycles.
Have you checked the Blender forums for help? The fact you are seeing it on multiple distros and multiple drivers seems to indicate it is not a Mint issue, but perhaps something related to the Blender settings you are using.
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robertbouariu
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Re: Problems with NVIDIA drivers and Blender

Post by robertbouariu »

Hi! Thank you for your reply.

I posted this on several forums and now I'm waiting for a reply. I know its a slow process and if I will find a solution I will post it here.
Meanwhile I tested Blender for artists (a fork of Blender 3.0 alpha I believ) and I have the same crashes doing the same thing. I used for this tests Mint 20.1 and Manjaro fresh installs and recommended Nvidia drivers.
I know its not a Mint issue or any other distro, because they all behave the same and beside this crash, the OS performs great.
Also using Blender 2.79 couldn't reproduce the crash, mimicking the same steps as for 2.80 or later.
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