Desktop freezing

[moodywoody]

Hi folks,

I hope you can help me with an annoying problem that just crept up.

A couple of days ago I reinstalled Mint 7 on a Dell Latitude 6300. System is fully updated, not a lot of stuff installed (most notably Virtualbox, some small stuff, no desktop candy whatsoever). Since then it has happened already half a dozen times that the desktop completely freezes. Mouse pointer can be moved, programs seem to continue to run (music plays on), changing volume and screen brightness with laptop function keys is also ok - but nothing else. No input is accepted, neither ctrl+alt+backspace nor REIBUS work. I can only go for a hard reset.

I've checked the log files but didn't see anything interesting.

Before I reinstalled Mint, I ran a Mint/Vista dual boot combo on the same laptop. I never encountered this problem, so I doubt it's hardware related.

Let me know what kind of info you need.

Any ideas appereciated,
Cheers

[richyrich]

Sounds like a graphics issue, but it would be good to post your hardware list. Terminal : inxi -v 4 , copy/paste the output back here.

richy

[moodywoody]

There ya go

sven@svens-mint ~ $ sudo inxi -v 4
System: Host svens-mint Kernel 2.6.28-11-generic i686 (32 bit) Distro Linux Mint 7 Gloria - Main Edition
CPU: Dual core Intel Core2 Duo T7250 (SMP) cache 2048 KB flags (sse3 nx lm vmx) clocked at 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller X.Org 1.6.0 Res 1280x800@60.0hz
Network: Card-1 Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express driver tg3
Card-2 Broadcom BCM4312 802.11b/g driver wl
Disks: HDD Total Size: 80.0GB (33.8% used) 1: ST980310AS
Partition: ID:/ size: 4.6G used: 2.8G (63%) ID:/home size: 60G used: 23G (40%) ID:swap-1 size: 2.02GB used: 0.00GB (0%)
Info: Processes 136 Uptime 4:04 Memory 311.4/2004.1MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.6

[richyrich]

Graphics: Card Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller X.Org 1.6.0 Res 1280x800@60.0hz

There is help here : http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=25132

ps: I used option 2 for my 945 Intel graphics. Fixed it for me, hope it can help you . . .

richy

[moodywoody]

There is help here : http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=25132

ps: I used option 2 for my 945 Intel graphics. Fixed it for me, hope it can help you . . .

richy

I fail to see what the problems mentioned in that thread have to do with mine.

[richyrich]

Well, if you don't think it is a graphics issue, I won't bother you any more . . . just tryin' to help.

[moodywoody]

Well, if you don't think it is a graphics issue, I won't bother you any more . . . just tryin' to help.

Excuse me for not understanding immediately what video performance/full screen problems have to do with a freezing desktop. I'd just much rather try to get a grip on where the problem is actually located (possibly with some sort of process monitoring tools or whatever) before trying out random stuff.

[moodywoody]

To whom it may concern ... after reading up some more (in particular starting here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/Freeze ) I changed a section in my xorg.conf from the basically empty

Code: Select all

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
	Option	"DontZap"	"False"
EndSection

to

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
	Identifier "Configured Video Device"
	Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
	Option "ExaNoComposite" "false"
	Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection

(rest unchanged). In the last fourteen days I did not observe another freeze so I assume this did the trick.