Nouveau - Dec 2018 - System freeze: Debian Testing with C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a]

Hi, I'm having what seems to be an old issue[1]?

System freezes randomly, with any "intense" use, or maybe just moving
some window...
The display goes like snow under wind or storm and the system stops
responding (I'm basically in the 12 case of [2]), then I have to
reboot by pressing reset button. Nothing else works.

I can avoid this hangs/crashes by way of the kernel parameter
'nouveau.noaccel=1' and then everything works fine, rock-stable, but I
lose *a lot* of needed performance.
Without that parameter the system freezes randomly.

This is an updated debian-testing box, with only the official (libre)
repos activated and with a regular (by-the-book) installation.

$ uname -a
Linux debian 4.18.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.18.20-2 (2018-11-23)
x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lspci -kv
00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce
7025 / nForce 630a] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a]
	Flags: bus master, 66MHz, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21, NUMA node 0
	Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	Memory at fc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: nouveau
	Kernel modules: nouveau

And dmesg gives me a lot of these if I work without the kernel
parameter (and none with it):

[  309.817809] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 01370001 FAULT at 00b010
[  309.980527] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010
[ 2027.812429] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 01360001 FAULT at 00b010
[ 2028.032100] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010
[ 2107.686803] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 01290001 FAULT at 00b010
[ 2107.720941] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010
[ 2233.743329] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 01440001 FAULT at 00b010
[ 2233.762308] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010

[20793.040671] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00e30001 FAULT at 00b010
[20793.117709] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010
[39884.652487] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00e40001 FAULT at 00b010
[39884.812393] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010
[69224.309586] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00e60001 FAULT at 00b010
[69224.425166] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010
[78810.914420] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00e60001 FAULT at 00b010
[78810.944150] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 00000000 FAULT at 00b010

Those are just some random examples. And this is what I get after just
boot and log-in to desktop (just fluxbox, really):

$ sudo dmesg | grep nouveau
[   10.172253] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: NVIDIA C61 (04c000a2)
[   10.182980] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bios: version 05.61.32.29.00
[   10.183898] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: fb: 256 MiB of unknown memory type
[   10.235289] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: VRAM: 253 MiB
[   10.235290] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: GART: 512 MiB
[   10.235294] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: TMDS table version 1.1
[   10.235296] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB version 3.0
[   10.235298] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB outp 00: 01000310 00000023
[   10.235301] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB outp 01: 00110204 942b0003
[   10.235302] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB conn 00: 0000
[   10.235304] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB conn 01: 1131
[   10.235305] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB conn 02: 0110
[   10.235307] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB conn 03: 0111
[   10.235308] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB conn 04: 0113
[   10.235528] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: Saving VGA fonts
[   10.272502] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: DCB type 4 not known
[   10.272504] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: Unknown-1 has no encoders, removing
[   10.275806] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: MM: using M2MF for buffer copies
[   10.304530] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: DRM: allocated 1600x900 fb:
0x9000, bo (____ptrval____)
[   10.304618] fbcon: nouveaufb (fb0) is primary device
[   10.420487] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: fb0: nouveaufb frame buffer device
[   10.448078] [drm] Initialized nouveau 1.3.1 20120801 for
0000:00:0d.0 on minor 0
[   16.573419] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 005c0001 FAULT at 00b000

So, what could/should I do?

Any advice/hint/idea will be very, very welcome.

Thanks a lot!

[1]
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2016-January/thread.html#23676
[2] https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/HangDiagnosis/

On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 7:11 AM riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail at
gmail.com> wrote:
> [   16.573419] nouveau 0000:00:0d.0: bus: MMIO write of 005c0001 FAULT at
00b000
This is not a big deal. We write to some register that doesn't exist,
but we don't use that engine anyways -- it's the media engine, I
think.
> So, what could/should I do?
>
> Any advice/hint/idea will be very, very welcome.
Use an environment that doesn't make use of GL for basic tasks.

  -ilia

Thanks a lot, Ilia.
> Use an environment that doesn't make use of GL for basic tasks.
Could you -or anyone- give me some link/point me in the right
direction to learn how to do that?

And is there something I can do to fix (help to fix) completely this issue/bug?

Thanks again.