Arch Linux

Description:
This problem involves (at least) the intel 915 graphics card in (at least) i686 and is a bug within the kernel sources. It occurs with both the xorg i810 driver and the xorg intel driver, but hardware acceleration (dri) must be enabled. The error occurs both with xaa and exa when considering the intel driver. This problem has a patch created by Mike Isely that completely fixes the issue. I have submitted the patch in this bug report.

While running an opengl application with vsync enabled, the bug will cause the system to completely stop responding at a random time between ~5 and ~90 minutes from starting the application. No input is accepted and the image on the screen during the crash is frozen on the screen until powering down manually.

I have compiled the default arch kernel26 PKGBUILD with all default patches and the included patch added; doing this causes the issue to completely go away and has no created any further issues. I have tested by running an opengl application with vsync enabled that has caused the issue consistently, most often in less than half an hour. I ran the application for 10 hours of consistent activity and had no system locking, thus it would seem the patch works as intended.

Additional info:
* package version(s) : kernel26 version 2.6.24.3-3 (current stable release)
* this problem has also been happening in all kernel versions I have used with this laptop which include the entire 2.6.23 series that arch released. However the patch has not been created for versions prior to 2.6.24.3-1 so I don't know if it would work for them.
* a more detailed description of the problem and how the fix works is included in the patch
* the url to the patch's website is http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14937
* the patch is created for kernel 2.6.24.3
* I compiled the arch release of 2.6.24.3-3 with this patch and it seems it plays nicely with all other included patches.
* the patch creator commented that head still has this problem and his patch thus far has been unnoticed (to be fair it was released quite recently)

Steps to reproduce:
* run an opengl application on an computer with an intel 915 graphics chipset (and possibly other intel chipsets) with vsync enabled using either the i810 driver or the intel driver and with hardware acceleration enabled.
* run this application for 90 minutes and sometime during this time the system will completely freeze
* because this is an instability, it is possible (although statistics would say unlikely) that it would take slightly longer than 90 minutes.

Comment:
hopefully this patch can be included as soon as possible as the problem is quite severe