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#1 2005-04-03 01:04:30

nacnud
Member
From: Brooklyn
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 22

Computer freezing badly

Hi folks, I'm having some strange behavior on my Thinkpad T23.  For a couple of days now it's been freezing randomly, generally at some point after I've logged in to KDE--but not when I use any particular program.  It becomes totally unresponsive, I can't reboot or switch consoles but have to shut down via the power button.  A couple of times the power button wouldn't even shut it down.  I was just now using it without x and it froze, the fan started whirring like crazy, and I can't shut down in any way.  The screen went into funny tie-die like colors and then faded to black with a line down the center.

I've read a couple of threads here about freezing but they don't seem to address my problem.  (I looked for renderaccel in xorg.conf, for example, but didn't find it there.)

Thanks for any ideas.

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#2 2005-04-03 01:15:37

Kern
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2005-02-09
Posts: 464

Re: Computer freezing badly

maybe try and separate a hardware from a software problem by trying a known valid system in it.

have you the option of obtaining a Knoppix Live CD and running it from the CD drive ?

if this runs ok, then maybe its a OS problem and somethings fubared.

if it crashes and dies, maybe its a hardware problem, altho as knoppix runs from CD it wont discount a faulty hard drive.

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#3 2005-04-03 01:19:45

T-Dawg
Forum Fellow
From: Charlotte, NC
Registered: 2005-01-29
Posts: 2,736

Re: Computer freezing badly

Maybe acpi or apm? Look into updating your bios if neccessary and/or try appending apm=off or even acpi=off to your kernel line. Your bios should tell which it uses.

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#4 2005-04-03 03:12:55

i3839
Member
Registered: 2004-02-04
Posts: 1,185

Re: Computer freezing badly

What did you change just before it became unstable?

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#5 2005-04-03 12:31:39

FUBAR
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2004-12-08
Posts: 1,029
Website

Re: Computer freezing badly

Have you tried logging into it through SSH when your system frooze up? Or simply pinging it.

The fan working like crazy is probably because of a process using all your CPU cycles which makes it heat up.


A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a workstation.

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#6 2005-04-04 14:57:59

Poprocks
Member
Registered: 2004-12-08
Posts: 26

Re: Computer freezing badly

People that run Windows on their laptops take power management for granted.  If you're going to use a laptop with Linux, especially a DIY distro like Arch, you *need to make sure* ACPI is enabled and working correctly, and in many cases you *need to set up* CPUfreq and powernowd (or cpudynd) *as soon as you install your distro*.  ACPI sleep states are recommended if you can get them working, but if not just remember to shut down every night.

Otherwise you could permanently damage your hardware.   All of this only holds on newer laptops, of course.  Older laptops handled this much more sanely IMHO (through APM, handled by the BIOS and not the OS).


I take my Poprocks with Diet Pepsi

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