CUDA samples cause machine to crash

Question

I was planning on starting to use CUDA on a machine with Kubuntu 12.04 LTS and a Quadro card. I installed CUDA 5.5 using the .deb from here, and the installation seems to have gone fine. Then I built the CUDA samples, again everything went fine.

When I run the samples in sequence, however, some of them botch my display, and others simply crash my computer.

What causes the crash? How can I fix it?

I'll mention that my NVidia card is the only display adapter the machine has, but that shouldn't make CUDA crash and burn.

Answer 1

The problem was due to the X server using the FOSS nouveau drivers. These are known to conflict with NVidia's way of accessing the card. When I restarted X (actually, I restarted the machine), the samples did run and work properly.

Answer 2

Not all the samples are runnable if you just installed CUDA on a clean ubuntu system. Some of them require additional libraries, and some of them require particular CC versions.

You could read the CUDA sample document of those crashed samples for more information.

http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-samples/index.html