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#1 2010-11-19 20:34:05

kYd
Member
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 78

[SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

I have a new Packard Bell EasyNote TM laptop which is having issues after a fresh install, the system is freezing and becoming unresponsive after a very short, but randon, period of time, leaving the only option to hard poweroff, and I am stumped as to what is causing it.
The laptop has an ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics card, at first I thought this may be a driver issue, and the X server was locking up, so I followed the solutions on the Arch wiki on ATI regarding crashes all of which do not work for me.
I have also tried removing the xf86-video-ati package completley and used soley the VESA driver, but still the system froze.

I have checked dmesg and all the log files for any indication of something going wrong, but nothing appears.

Any one have any indications as to what the cause could be?

I am running the 64bit version of Arch (which I am completley new to); I've also tried removing flash as I've heard this could be a problem with 64bit, checked for heat issues which there is none, and also not booting into X at all and staying at the tty, but still nothing.

Thanks.

Last edited by kYd (2010-11-24 00:21:26)

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#2 2010-11-19 22:32:00

litemotiv
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 5,026

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

kYd wrote:

not booting into X at all and staying at the tty but still nothing.

So it still hangs when you boot straight into a TTY and just let it idle for 15 minutes?

If yes, you can try booting with acpi=off appended to the grub kernel line, to see if that helps.


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#3 2010-11-20 02:08:12

kYd
Member
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

litemotiv wrote:
kYd wrote:

not booting into X at all and staying at the tty but still nothing.

So it still hangs when you boot straight into a TTY and just let it idle for 15 minutes?

If yes, you can try booting with acpi=off appended to the grub kernel line, to see if that helps.

The above solution still results in freezes.

I booted up the laptop after leaving it off for a few hours, and left it at a TTY for 30 minutes, no crash - not what I wanted suprisingly. This was without using the acpi=off solution (I wanted it to crash to determine a baseline).

So I re-installed the xf86-video-ati drivers, booted into X, and two hours later I still hadn't encountered any issues; at this point I ran glxgears and five minutes later it did the usual freeze (X dies and booted back into an unresponsive TTY where I had launched X.

I can not determine whether this is a video issue, over-heating (though lm-sensors shows what I believe to be my CPU at a decent ~50-60 degrees), hardware problem, or due to me running 64bit.

Last edited by kYd (2010-11-24 00:29:46)

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#4 2010-11-20 08:35:17

litemotiv
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 5,026

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

Ok, so far you ruled out:

[CPU]
50-60 degrees is fine

[Video driver]
Crashes with both ATI and Vesa

[ACPI]
Crashes persist with acpi=off

Did you ever get it to crash in a TTY, or only in X?

At this point, it might be a good idea to do a memory test too. Memtest86 is on the Arch install CD, you can start it from the grub menu.


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#5 2010-11-20 09:47:20

kYd
Member
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

litemotiv wrote:

Ok, so far you ruled out:

[CPU]
50-60 degrees is fine

[Video driver]
Crashes with both ATI and Vesa

[ACPI]
Crashes persist with acpi=off

Did you ever get it to crash in a TTY, or only in X?

At this point, it might be a good idea to do a memory test too. Memtest86 is on the Arch install CD, you can start it from the grub menu.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

It has crashed both at a TTY (with no X server running at all), and also in X.

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#6 2010-11-22 14:32:46

kYd
Member
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

Ran a memory test which passed fine with no errors; right now I'm out of ideas as to what else it could be. For the time being I'm left with an expensive paper-weight; if it's a hardware fault I'd be unable to return it as I wiped Windows off it and took the stickers off the laptop big_smile

Last edited by kYd (2010-11-24 00:43:22)

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#7 2010-11-22 14:52:30

litemotiv
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 5,026

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

sad

At this point it might be best to reinstall Windows, with an Arch dualboot. Run Windows for a few days, if it crashes you can return it DOA.

The alternative is to call the store and explain the situation, they might be nice enough to let you return / swap it, if you make sure that Windows is cleanly reinstalled..


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#8 2010-11-22 16:53:20

kYd
Member
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

I'll stick Windows back on, and give them both a day or two more of testing.

I have a feeling that DPMS might be the cause of this; I find that it crashes after an hour or more of being left idle (using ati drivers with KMS disabled).

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#9 2010-11-23 00:15:32

kYd
Member
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Constant freezes on new laptop

Whilst using irssi in a tty (no xserver started) I switched to another tty and then back, upon doing so this error a 'divide erorr' appeard, and after checking my dmesg on reboot I have found a lot of errors relating to amd64_edac.
"amd64_edac: probe of 0000:00:18.2 failed with error -22"

A re-installation of 64bit Windows hasn't given me any issus so far, so I think my memory doesn't like 64bit Arch for some reason.

Solved:
Switching to 32bit Linux hasn't given me any issues so far.

Last edited by kYd (2010-11-24 00:40:37)

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