Geforce 6200 crashes Linux

I did some poking around but did not see anyone else posting about this, so I’m just putting it up on the outside chance that someone else might experience it someday. The GEforce driver 304.137 completely crashes my system (kills all processes and either hangs at a blank screen or the system reboots). Nothing in the system log files (messages, debug, syslog), with POST code D2 “unknown interrupt.” The graphics card is using interrupt 17 which it is sharing with the sound hardware (Intel AC97). This only happens when playing video either at Youtube/H.264 (I don’t have Adobe Flash player) or using Mplayer with ISO Media MP4. It only happens with kernels newer than version 4, which is to say it never happened with any version 3 kernels. I configure the kernel myself with only support for the exact hardware in my system compiled in. I have verified this occurrence using two different graphics cards, both EVGA GeForce 6200, P/N 512-A8-N403-LR and P/N A8-N405, both AGP 8X using the DVI output. It is entirely possible that this is not an nvidia kernel module problem, it might be due to failing hardware in the motherboard’s interrupt controller (MB is Tyan Tiger s2668, and yes I know it’s old!), but if it is a motherboard issue MCELOG is not detecting it. If anyone has any idea what might be the cause, please reply. Thanks a bunch!

Due to the legacy 304 driver being out of support since end of last year, not much will come around for that anymore, I think. Since the board displays a POST error, this will have reached its end of life.
Edit: if you’re really interested in looking for more info, you should switch to nouveau and use its debugging facilities.

Yeah, and I had to do some major hacking to the kernel source to get the 304 driver to build on 4.14 (it built just find on 4.13), so I think it’s time to relegate this old technology to the dustbin, or, to be more politically correct, the “recycle bin.” Oh, I did NOT just say that! :P