system hang up

[Gentour]

for the second time, my pc freezes complpetely ... I thought I was using windows and later recognized that its linux everything freezes exept the mouse, no keybord nothing works and I have to make hard reset. peopple who used win98 know what I'm talking about. now is there a way to know whats happenning? how? in /var/log I guess but where exactly and what I should look for?
thanx in advance

[FINITE]

Have you tried adding the mem=nopentium line to grub or lilo which ever you are using? If you are using an AMD pre XP or Polomino core processor then from what I have read its highly recomended that you do this. I am using one and did add this to my kernel boot options in grub. Same line at the end. Here is a link to where I read it http://www.linuxnewbie.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=006963

[svan9420]

Have you checked your kernel configuration to make sure that it is compatible with your system hardware? Sometimes, if you add the wrong options, you can cause your system to be unstable, and freeze up.

Can you give us your hardware specifications so that we may be able to further assist you in this forum.
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svan9420

[Gentour]

My system is :
Abit KT7A, Thunderbird 900@1000 (under windows its so stable so its not coz of overclocking), SB Live! 5.1, GF2 MX, Realtek 8139 ...
I have the athlon support in the kernel, DMA is on if available, nvidia drivers installed. I've tried the mem=nopentium and I'll see, the system had freezed 2 times in one month... thanx for help

[marte]

With me, the freeze only happens when doing an untar of a long file AND with UDMA for all IDE bus activated on the BIOS. The mouse never freezes. Strange. Turning UDMA off on the BIOS seems to solve the problem.

I've installed a previous kernel from kernel.org without any patches (2.4.1 and the problem was gone.

[marte]

The kernel is 2.4.18

And emoticons are really annoying!