PCLOS locking up?

[MCP]

More Information:

It seemed to me that this problem corrected itself, since my pc has been running just fine.  However the problem just happened again.

I had locked my widgets since another post suggested that as good practice.  I unlocked them to check for a widget and when I tried to scroll through them, BAM it happened.  Can kde4.5 cause my video card to shutdown?  Since it occured while trying to change a widget I thought something may have changed to cause this problem.

What do you think?
MCP

[Rudge]

Random lockups are pretty tricky to track down. 

[MCP]

Random lockups are pretty tricky to track down. 

I can appreciate that.  However I was able to re-create the problem just by unlocking widgets and trying to scroll through them.  I don't think the pc is locked up in the sense that it isn't functioning, because I can hear the hard drive responding to my efforts to restart the video.  But what does happen is my video signal is lost just as quickly as if you were to throw a switch.

On this last occurrence I tried to get it back by forcing a reboot.  But I found that no matter what I did, either powering down the machine or disconnecting power completely did nothing to restore(reset) my video.  I finally disconnected the power opened up the machine and reseated the video card (remove from it's slot and reinserted).  After doing this it finally came back when I powered it up.

One other thing I noticed when the video signal terminated I could hear a difference in the sound of the cooling fans.  Could the problem be related to an incompatibility in the video driver? Or could something else be turning off power to my video card? I have allowed synaptic to keep my machine updated and I've noticed that this includes the video driver.

Any help is appreciated.
MCP

[uncleV]

Random lockups are pretty tricky to track down. 

And could point to a hardware problem.

[djohnston]

One other thing to try. Power the machine down. Unseat the video card from its slot. Clean the card contact edges with a pencil eraser. If you have a can of compressed air, or an air compressor, blow some air into the card slot. Check the fan's wire lead on the video card to be sure the connector is seating to its connection point firmly. Then re-seat the video card and try again.

[MCP]

One other thing to try. Power the machine down. Unseat the video card from its slot. Clean the card contact edges with a pencil eraser. If you have a can of compressed air, or an air compressor, blow some air into the card slot. Check the fan's wire lead on the video card to be sure the connector is seating to its connection point firmly. Then re-seat the video card and try again.

I did take the card out and re-seat it. That's how I got it back up and running. I did blow out all the dust a few days ago. I'm not going to do any more experimenting for now because I have a rush job. But will keep in mind your suggestion.

I was beginning to think that it might be a hardware malfunction, but this PC has been running just fine for a year and it seemed to much of a coincidence the way it turns off when I open the widgets.

MCP

[MCP]

Update:

As long as i stayed away from widgets my pc has been just fine.  So with the new updates including one from nVidia, I decided to try again.  Previously the instant I tried to scroll through widgets, my video signal terminated.  However now I just did the same thing with no problem.  So at first look it appears to have been a driver problem.  But I will reserve marking it solved until it operates flawlessly over time.

Thanks for all your help,
MCP

[MCP]

Update:

As long as i stayed away from widgets my pc has been just fine.  So with the new updates including one from nVidia, I decided to try again.  Previously the instant I tried to scroll through widgets, my video signal terminated.  However now I just did the same thing with no problem.  So at first look it appears to have been a driver problem.  But I will reserve marking it solved until it operates flawlessly over time.

Thanks for all your help,
MCP

Well my video finally disappeared.  I took the video card out, burnished the contacts and regardless of what I did, no video.  However I also noticed that not only did my video disappear but not I had a high pitched whine emanating from the video card.  At first I thought that one of my harddrive's had quit but I quickly ruled that out.

Long story short.  I was just about to replace the video card with a cheap one I got locally when I also noticed that the exhaust fan on my case that was also connected to the power cord for the video card, was not running.  So I traced out the power cord and found it disconnected. Something happened to disconnect it.  So I reconnected the power and then re-installed the old video card. It all came back as before and is running just fine.  I also notice that the pitch of the exhaust fans has changed and my GPU is running cooler.  So hopefully the only problem was the power cord.    But time will tell.

I hope my experience will help others who have a similar setup,
MCP