Comment 0 for bug 357577

System: kubuntu 9.04 Beta (dist-upgraded from 8.10), amd64, NVidia GeForce 9300 (integrated gpu).
Packages: all up to date, nvidia-glx-180 version 180.44-0ubuntu1, xorg-xserver version 1:7.4~5ubuntu18

After logging in, just when the kde desktop shows, the system becomes completely unusable: either it totally freezes (only a hard reboot helps), or big black rectangles appear in various places, or the mouse moves a tiny bit and then gets stuck for a few seconds before it can move a tiny bit more etc., or the mouse moves freely but doesn't interact with anything.

In one of the times when the mouse did respond but with very long lags, I've managed to eventually run top and saw xorg taking 100% cpu. A couple times I got a notification that compositing is taking up too much cpu and will be automatically disabled, after which the system was sort of usable but with display refresh problems. This gave me the idea of disabling desktop effects, after which the system is back to normal (but without the effects, of course).

I've come across various similar bug reports, but they are either specific to Intel chipsets, or closed as fixed, or relate to disabling direct rendering - all of which are not relevant to this problem which still occurs with a fully updated system.

Note that the previous configuration had the 177 nvidia drivers with Intrepid and there was no such problem. In jaunty I can't seem to revert to the 177 drivers - they don't appear to exist in the repositories.