PCLOS constantly crashing!!!

[dj_bridges]

Sorry for the general subject title of this post, but once the system crashes I can't do anything with it. Basically the screen freezes and the system becomes completely unresponsive to anything I try form the keyboard or mouse. The fan also ramps up to full speed although the laptop doesn't appear to be any hotter. There is also something strange happening occasionally when I log in. Essentially I type in my details hit enter and the system freezes at the stage 'Loading the Desktop'. Fortunately I can reload the X server by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL and have always then been able to log in without incident.

I am running PCLOS 2009.1 on a fully updated system. It is happening more often now (already twice in 2 hours today).

Any ideas??

[Crow]

I'm using a Satellite A105-SP4071 and it runs perfectly, do you have reasons to suspect a hardware failure?

[dj_bridges]

Nothing to suspect at the moment on the hardware front - since the crashes this morning it has been running smoothly. Similarly the other day it crashed and then worked perfectly for at least 4-5 hours....

[cyrwyn]

Have you tried to do a shutdown by a momentary press of the power button? This may need to be configured in Kpowersave. When the keyboard is fully locked it may be that X has crashed, but the kernel is still running happily and you can't communicate with it to tell it to shutdown. This might solve your problem or if it doesn't work may be telling you that the whole system has crashed.

[MaddogF16]

Possible video driver issue.

[ElCuervo]

Try running gkrellm or similar to monitor CPU and memory usage. If you see the CPU flatlining at 100%, open konsole before it locks up, and run top to see which process is using up cycles. Copy and paste the output here and we can probably root out the problem.

You can also run ksysguard to find and kill a runaway process, but be careful; it is easy to kill something that will stop proper operation of the PC.

[Crow]

I was writing this elcuervo, but your post seems better   

My laptop has the i945 too and no video problems.

Are you running specifically some program when the system began to fail? I'm noticed some problems with the last upgrades of Firefox.

Maybe someone knows how to read the logs.

Someone, are you there?

[dj_bridges]

Thanks for all of the comments - appreciate any help I can get as there isn't an obvious place to start with this problem. In answer to your posts:

My Laptop is configured to shutdown with a momentary press of the power button, but this does not work when PCLOS crashes. Can we therefore assume that the kernel is not responding or just that the keyboard is not communicating with the kernel?

I run kima to monitor temps etc, and wanted to run top, but the system very suddenly freezes with no warning so have never managed to run any sort of diagnostics to see what might be hogging resources etc.

In terms of a video card problem. PCC states:
Graphic Card: Intel 810 and later
Monitor:Flat Panel 1024 x 768
Resolution: 1024 x 768 24 bpp

Anything obviously wrong with that set-up?

So far no crashes today!

[dj_bridges]

Just going through some posts and found the following discussion:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=53385.0

Essentially, although the hardware is different, the solution was to change one line in the xorg.conf from intel to i810. Anyone think this would be a good idea for me to do (will backup the xorg.conf just in case), or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[dj_bridges]

Sorry to resurrect an old post, but the same issue is rearing its head.

Firstly I tried the solution that was posted ie to change the xorg.conf, but that didn't help. However something must have changed as I didn't have any crashes in the last couple of months. Unfortunately 3 days ago (7th July) I had the same screen and system freeze followed by the fan ramping up. While it isn't constantly happening I have had at least 4 of these events in the last 3 days. My system is completely updated and it doesn't occur with a specific program (has crashed when running just a single application or multiple applications).

Currently my linux system is less stable than windows so am keen to rectify this asap. Anyone know of anything that may have changed in the repos recently that could be the cause?

[robinm]

I am not a laptop expert, but I had exactly the same issues with my desktop a while ago, drove me mad, what I fond eventually was dust on the video card, a quick blow with compressed air and all problems gone. A laptop is a bit harder to clean than a desk top, but they do still get dust inside them so maybe worth opening it up and cleaning it out?? Just my thoughts, but I believe it will be a hardware issue rather than a software issue.

[kjpetrie]

You can direct top's output into a file by running top > file.log (or whatever you want to call it). Then, when it crashes you can look at the file to see what it recorded in the minutes before.

Also, after a hard reset always run fsck -f /dev/<partition> from the livecd with the partitions unmounted to repair the file system or you will get trouble. Also search here or on Google for Raising Skinny Elephants to see whether you can regain control after a lock up. It's better to avoid a hard reset if at all possible.

[coffeetime]

I have similar problem with my wife's laptop and I still can not determine what's causing random freezing/locking? Anyway, try this:

Possible fix is to go into the PCLinuxOS Control Center  (Configure your computer) -> Boot -> Setup the Boot System

Click the Advanced button
UnCheck Enable Local APIC
UnCheck Enable APIC
Click Ok
Click Next
Click Finish
Reboot

Run memtest. This tip from Tex didn't help me, but maybe it will help you.

[musonio]

My hardware situation is completely different, but mt computer started freezing too often after I moved to 2009.1. What I did was to removing everything that had to do with apic and the freezing episodes disappeared (although I had to start turning off my pc manually).
I reinstalled everything from minime 2009.2 and everything works perfect now.

[j-retired]

Just on a side issue......  when you use compressed air to clean the fan and airways, use a matchstick or toothpick to jam the fan and stop it rotating.  I caused a fan to overspeed and the bearings rattled like a bag of bones thereafter, though it still worked.  That cost me the effort of replacing the darn thing.  Almost certainly a rare event, but for the effort of a matchstick I reckon it's worth the precaution.

j