On 12/18/2013 6:37 PM, ~Stack~ wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I have had my work laptop for well over a year now running SL6 and
> everything has been fantastic. Never once have I had a kernel
> panic/problem. That is until the latest updates of which the kernel(+
> its extras) were the only things that were updated. Rolling back to the
> previous kernel works perfectly, so I could just remove the kernel and
> hope for the best in the future, but if it is feasible I would like to
> track down the problem so that someone who knows what they are doing
> might be able to fix it (and who knows, maybe it is already fixed
> upstream?).
>
> My laptop is Dell Precision M4600. 80% of the time it is plugged into my
> Dell PRO2X laptop dock which has my dual Display Port Dell U2410
> monitors (betcha can't tell what vendor my employer frequently buys
> from... ;-)
>
> My working kernel is: 2.6.32-358.23.2.el6.x86_64 (and anything before).
>
> The problem kernel is: 2.6.32-431.1.2.el6.x86_64
>
> There are two problems I am seeing.
> 1) VMWare workstation crashes constantly on the new kernel. And when it
> does, full kernel panic. It happens frequently, but not something that I
> can guarantee a crash if I do $actionA. I have a lot of VM's I do dev
> work in and so far it has been a different VM every time it has crashed.
> Never have had this problem with Workstation or this laptop.
>
> 2) This is the biggest one that annoys me. I get horrible color
> distortions on the secondary display. This happens every time. At BIOS
> both monitors display perfect color in a twin view showing the same
> image on both screens. Grub only shows primary screen (normal for this
> setup). When Grub loads the nouveau display driver the second screen
> turns on and the display looks like a rainbow puked glitter. Not even
> exaggerating. Crazy jumbled colors in warped patterns that move across
> the screen. The primary monitor is just fine. At first I thought it was
> the monitor, but swapping the monitors shows they are fine. Other
> testing showed that the hardware is just fine too and the final proof
> was evident by being able to boot into the previous kernel and not
> having an issue.
>
> I never have run the NVidia drivers on this laptop. It has always been
> Nouveau. (I run NVidia drivers on other systems, but this laptop has
> previously always been rock solid with SL+Nouveau so I never bothered).
>
> As stated, I can reboot into another kernel and everything is fine. In
> fact, I already set the old kernel to be default at boot. But if
> possible, I would like to track this down.
>
> What I am asking is:
>
> 1) Is it worth the time to track down? Anyone know if there have been a
> bunch of Nouveau issues/patches pushed upstream that might be worth
> investigating first?
>
> 2) I can put the kernel into all kinds of debugging and capture GB's of
> data, but I would prefer to capture only what is useful. Any
> recommendations on what output I should capture?
>
> 3) Any suggestions on narrowing the problem down to something other then
> "Its the kernel"?
>
> Thanks! I appreciate the help!
>
This is a bit beyond what I would want to tackle over email, but others 
here might be more proficient.

Barring help from others, I would suggest filing a bugzilla with TUV and 
let them guide you in the information gathering.

-Mark