Glitchy Desktop with LM17/Cinnamon

[wmichaelb]

I updated my old Ubuntu 10.04 install to LM 17/Cinnamon/AMD64, but there is a problem. The screen randomly hesitates or hangs for a second or two, and then responds. I've had it hang for as much as fifteen seconds or more; the timing is pretty random but never more than ten or fifteen seconds between glitches. It's pretty annoying, especially when typing, although what i type while it's hung does seem to go into the buffer. I've reinstalled the system, changed the video card, and tried both the Nouveal and nVidia drivers. I've also tried it both with and without compiz. I ran memtest86+ overnight, but found no errors. The system is fully updated and current, and I found no broken packages in synaptic. None of this seems to affect the problem. The system has 2 GB of RAM and swap.

I did not have this problem on another test machine (also with an nVidia video card) that I installed form this same DVD, so it's not the media. This machine ran smoothly on a Puppy Linux CD that I used to reformat the partition before I reinstalled, without any of the hesitation I see in Mint, nor did it on the old Ubuntu 10.04 install. So it's unlikely that it's the hardware.

I want to keep Cinnamon if possible, because i use the messaging applet so much, and that's not available in MATE, KDE, LXDE, or XFCE. Gnome breaks all the extensions every time they update it, and the messaging applet hasn't caught up with all the rediculous changes they put in. My only other choice as I see it is Unity/Ubuntu, which just doesn't do it for me, but I may have to if I can't fix this.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else to try? Cinnamon issue? Kernel?

Thanks in advance.

[nomko]

What's the output of this terminal command:

Code: Select all

inxi -Gxz

[wmichaelb]

nomko:

Code: Select all

inxi -Gxz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 3] bus-ID: 01:00.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau) Resolution: 1280x1024@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: GeForce 8400GS/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 331.38 Direct Rendering: Yes

After the reinstall, Mint is picking up the nvidia driver. But the problem manifested itself before and after the upgrade.

Thanks!

[nomko]

After the reinstall, Mint is picking up the nvidia driver. But the problem manifested itself before and after the upgrade.

Clarify before and after the upgrade...

[wmichaelb]

nomko: By before the upgrade, I mean after reinstalling but with the Nouveau driver.

By after the upgrade, I mean after reinstalling and after upgrading to the nVidia 334 driver.

The behavior was present before and after the upgrade.

[wmichaelb]

So, to update, after some good info from gtsfer (thanks!):

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 39#p915439

I backed up my /home directory, and reinstalled carefully per the instructions on this web site. It didn't cure the problem, but the time between glitches seems
to be longer. One thing I found that improved it was to uninstall the "Stocks" applet. It appears that every time the applet goes out to get stock information,
the desktop hesitates. But the problem still continues.