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#1 2007-06-20 22:54:20

LEoX2
Member
Registered: 2007-06-20
Posts: 6

Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

Hi,
I've got Archlinux installed since yesterday and it works great with nearly no problems. But everytime I watch a video with mplayer Archlinux freezes completely after 5-10 minutes. The video stops at the current frame, the audio loops and the Caps Lock and the Scroll Lock LED on the keyboard are both blinking.
I had that kind of freezing also once while I tested a 3d game (Tuxkart).

Writing texts, surfing in the Internet and other simple tasks are no problem. It seems that there is a problem with the video card. I've a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro currently running with the radeon open source driver. Previosuly I used the fglrx driver that produced the same problem.

If you need any logs or more information, just let me know. Thanks in advance for your help smile

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#2 2007-06-21 08:51:08

retsaw
Member
From: London, UK
Registered: 2005-03-22
Posts: 132

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

The flashing keyboard LEDs indicate a kernel panic.  Presumably (since it happens when watching a video) it is related to your graphics card, check that the graphics card is being cooled properly and not overheating, I would say that it might be a driver issue, but you've already changed drivers so that makes it unlikely.

Is there any possibility of trying the card in a different computer and trying a different card in this computer?  Doing so might help isolate the cause of the problem.

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#3 2007-06-21 12:45:00

soundwave
Member
Registered: 2007-05-25
Posts: 11

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

I agree it seems as though it is related to heat, since it only happened when you do graphically intensive stuff.

I would also check to make sure your fans in you machine are working and cooling properly.

Would it also have anything to do with the processor maybe over heating as well??

Last edited by soundwave (2007-06-21 12:46:10)

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#4 2007-06-21 13:35:07

Ramses de Norre
Member
From: Leuven - Belgium
Registered: 2007-03-27
Posts: 1,289

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

If it were the temperature, the machine should shut down instead of freezing, shouldn't it?

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#5 2007-06-21 14:17:38

LEoX2
Member
Registered: 2007-06-20
Posts: 6

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

I just cleaned the whole inside of my PC and all the fans a week ago. I also use Windows 2000 on this PC without problems while playing videos or running 3d video games. I don't think it's a over heating problem...
I could buy a nvidia graphics card and test it in my PC, but that wouldn't explain what is wrong with my ATI card, that worked fine without problems for over 3 years now.

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#6 2007-06-21 17:09:12

soundwave
Member
Registered: 2007-05-25
Posts: 11

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

Ramses de Norre wrote:

If it were the temperature, the machine should shut down instead of freezing, shouldn't it?

I had a machine with heat problems before and it did not just shut down. It looked like it froze, and the sound would skip like a broken record (if there was sound). Got some water cooling and have not had the issue since then. cool

Well yea it must be a drive based error for the card then if it runs fine on other machines and has been fine for three years. It's either a linux driver issues or another issue somewhere else in the machine.

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#7 2007-06-21 17:38:06

Mikko777
Member
From: Suomi, Finland
Registered: 2006-10-30
Posts: 837

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

I remember reading that there was a bug in ati drivers that caused abnormal heating in gpu...

I think it should be fixed by now tho.

Check ati bug page for that.

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#8 2007-06-21 19:37:54

LEoX2
Member
Registered: 2007-06-20
Posts: 6

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

Mikko777 wrote:

I remember reading that there was a bug in ati drivers that caused abnormal heating in gpu...

I think it should be fixed by now tho.

Check ati bug page for that.

I tried both drivers (radeon open source driver and fglrx) yesterday and both drivers produced the same problem. That's why I think the driver is not the problem.
Could there be any other reasons for a "kernel panic" (indicated by the blinking keyboard LEDs)?

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#9 2007-06-22 09:10:17

retsaw
Member
From: London, UK
Registered: 2005-03-22
Posts: 132

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

IME, an overheating CPU would cause a system to shutdown, but an overheating graphics card would just cause the computer to freeze, though I don't remember getting the blinking LEDs with it.

It's not impossible that there is the same bug in both drivers.  If it doesn't happen with Win2k it makes it likely that it is a driver issue.  You could try looking at your logs to see if anything useful was written to them just before the kernel panic.  I suppose you could try a different distro (maybe a livecd) and see if you can replicate the problem. Maybe try the vesa driver, I realise that you wouldn't get accelerated video, but if you still get the problem then it is not likely to be the graphics card driver.

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#10 2007-06-23 10:51:20

LEoX2
Member
Registered: 2007-06-20
Posts: 6

Re: Archlinux freezes with strange keyboard LED blinking

I could solve the problem by changing the "AGP aperture size" setting in the BIOS from 64MB to 32 MB. That is some kind of "trick" I already used years ago with my former Radeon 9700 Pro to get rid of similar problems. Though I don't know why it helps, it definitely helps. Maybe it's the the combination of my mainboard an grapics card...

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