Random system lockups, possibly video related

Question

Just using the notebook as normal, and then voila, the beachball of death. All keyboard functions are useless, but I can still move the mouse around -- other than that NOTHING works. After a hard shutdown, and startup, Console yields the following leading up to the time gap from the lockup:
4/15/08 2:04:42 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
4/15/08 2:04:54 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
4/15/08 2:05:06 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
4/15/08 2:05:18 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
4/15/08 2:05:18 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
4/15/08 2:05:18 PM kernel 0000000b
4/15/08 2:05:18 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
4/15/08 2:05:18 PM kernel 0000000b
4/15/08 2:05:30 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
4/15/08 2:05:30 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
4/15/08 2:05:30 PM kernel 0000000b
4/15/08 2:07:18 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
4/15/08 2:07:18 PM kernel 0000000b
4/15/08 2:07:30 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
4/15/08 2:07:30 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error
4/15/08 2:07:30 PM kernel 0000000b
4/15/08 2:07:42 PM kernel NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel timeout!
Anyone else seeing these? Last time it happened it Excel was trying to open a spreadsheet.

Answer 1

I'm getting these hard hangs as well.
Googling,
"kernel[0]: NVChannel(GL): Graphics channel exception! status = 0xffff info32 = 0x3 = Fifo: Unknown Method Error"
…lead me here. I've had a handful of hangs, usually once every couple days. I noticed on my last MBP (2.3, 2GB RAM) I had the full system kernal panics while on a 3-person audio Skype call after windows weren't rendering properly.
Today my hang was while the system was not being actively used, right after editing some audio with Rogue Amoeba Fission. I let it go for 20mins to see if it would recover, and it did not. I used Cntl-Cmd-Power to force a restart - and that took 10-20secs to actually kick in.
I have not tried removing a cable to kick start, I'll try that.
Lastly to the guys who are spouting venom about getting a patch for this, chillout. You're just making things unpleasant for everyone. Apple wants this fixed as much as you do. (speaking as a former Appler myself)