Comment 5 for bug 1526657

I have exactly the same problem in both an Ubuntu 14.04 that I use at work and a Debian Jessie that I use at home, and the software is up to date. Both systems have a "VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [NVS 310] (rev a1)" and two monitors. After the problem shows up, I can login into my system through ssh, but the console is dead.

The problem never happens when I am using the system, only when the screen saver takes control and monitors turn off. I am not familiar with the guts of the screen saver and why the monitors turns off: one possibility is the video signal going away during the screen save operation; another is the computer explicitly asking the monitor to turn off. Anyway, the fact is that the monitor turns off and that may cause the problem.

I found a work around at work which virtually made the problem go away: I have the option (on the special monitors I use at work) to never turn them off, even when there is no video signal coming from the computer. When I activate this monitor feature, the problem goes away. At home, however, my monitors do not have this feature and I have the dead console problem every few days. At work, in the last 6 months (and after never turning my monitors off) I have had the dead console problem just once, and that could be a different problem.

So, my conclusion is that the problem happens exactly when the screen saver takes control and the monitor turns off. Hope that help you guys solve the problem. My current Debian kernel version is “Linux version 3.16.0-4-amd64 (<email address hidden>) (gcc version 4.8.4 (Debian 4.8.4-1) ) #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt20-1+deb8u2 (2016-01-02)”