computer locks up, have to restart, any advice?

Trisha · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 97

Almost once a day now my laptop running linux with gnome locks up on me. I can't move the cursor, so I can't do

Applications -> System Tools -> system Monitor -> end process

Which I read somewhere to do. I also read to do ctrl + alt + backspace to restart x if the whole system freezes. That dosen't work either. I always end up having to just manually shut down the computer. So far I haven't lost any data doing this, but it has me concerned.

How can I find out what might be causing this? I am really not running many programs at one time. A large percent of the time this happens, but not all the time, I am trying to dial in with a modem using kppp.

It's not really a crisis, but in case it starts happening more frequently I thought I should start asking around a bit to get some ideas of what to do.

Thanks

MrApples · Guru Joined: 13 Dec 2002 Posts: 511

give us some more information about your hardware and system configuration, like kernels and filesystems/partitions

Trisha · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 97

I bought the laptop with gentoo preinstalled from a company call Linux Certified. These are laptops they have manufactured just for them. Unfortunately, I don't know what type of motherboard, etc. it uses, but I could find out from them, if I know what information you need.

It's got a 60 G hard drive, a Pentium 4 and I believe I got 512 Ram - I know that much.

Kernals, I don't know about. How can I find that out? I haven't had the computer too long and have not yet done an emerge sync or world, but am planning to soon.

As far as filesystems/partitions go, I'm not sure what you are looking for here. It's not a dual boot system though, just gentoo.

Sorry I don't know more about my own system. I'm new to linux and have a lot to learn, and hardware stuff was never my thing really.

Trisha · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 97

So has anyone else had problems with their system locking up and ctrl + alt + backspace not working?

Luckily, I haven't had any problems the past day and a half.

TyroneSlothrop · Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:20 pm Post subject:

I once had the same problem, and it had to do with the hardware. I trusted the onboard temperature monitors of my mainboard too much and thought, what the heck, let's turn the casefan off. Took me some time to track down this source of errors, but i learned sth on the way, too: don't trust reiserfs ;-)

After fsck lost+found contained from 10kB to 100MB of files, especially if the lockup occured during compile time. By now i've gone back to ext3.
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Trisha · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 97

Thanks TyroneSlothrop - but please forgive me for my ignorance: what is 'reiserfs'.

And could you (or someone) please translate:
"After fsck lost+found contained from 10kB to 100MB of files, especially if the lockup occured during compile time. By now i've gone back to ext3." ?

It sounds like you are trying to say there were files left on your computer because of having to shut it down that needed to be deleted, and it was worse if you were compiling something when it locked up.

OT - where did the quote in your sig come from?

netaku · Apprentice Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 193

reiserfs is a formatting style, just like ntfs for windows, ext2 and ext3 for linux, and fat for windows and dos.
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TyroneSlothrop · Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:57 pm Post subject:

Forget the post from reiserfs on. It's no longer on topic.

But for the record: :wink:

Reiserfs is an immensly hyped filesystem which everyone seems to use, but with which some people (i know a few) also have made bad experiences. And ext3 is an ancestor of ext2, the traditional linux filesystem. And it's rock solid. Fsck means filesystem check, and it occurs if the system hasn't shut down properly or if a specific mount count (number of times the filesystem was "accessed") has been reached. And if this fsck find's some data on your disk that used to be files (or part of files), but whose connection to the filename got lost, it will be put in /lost+found, a special directory just for this single thing.

And the quote i won't tell, although it shouldn't be to difficult to figure...
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Trisha · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 97

ok, it's a type of file system. How can I tell what kind of file system my computer is using?

Where would I find the /lost+found directory if one has been created?

(I googled the quote.)

electrofreak · l33t Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 713 Location: Ohio, USA

blue.sca · Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 7:11 am Post subject:

on what kernel you are and are you using nvidia drivers?
im getting regular lock-ups once a day, went to /var/log/kern.log and the last entries where something like "Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address", and a following kernel panic: trying to kill init ;)
i had problems with nvidia-drivers and a 2.6.7 kernel (2.6.7-love7 to be exact), so i hope, it is related to this, but it could also be bad memory. i will investigate this, if i found an solution i let u know.
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TyroneSlothrop · Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 10:15 am Post subject:

blue.sca · Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:05 pm Post subject:

ok, i did some random investigation, running memtest86 from the livecd (very good tool ;)) and had some errors (15 after three tests, bad or worse?). then i lowered the timing settings in the bios from 2-2-2 to 3-3-3 and it passed the test without errors. i hope this will explain the lock-ups, and if, i say sorry to 2.6.7 and nvidia-drivers ;)
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malone · Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:43 pm Post subject:

You can find out what kernel you're using with