updated: system freezes for few seconds then continues

[MrCambron]

Updated: not quite solved yet ! on 4th post , , ,

---
System freezes for few seconds then continues

Yup I know I am A+ certified haha , but any ideas why my system freezes for few seconds ? It seems to do it more frequently while loading certain heavier apps when running more apps at once like transmission, netbeans, 5 tabs in firefox, and skype. But works fine while playing Unreal Tournament 2004 (but has low frame-rate even in all graphic low options).

Specs:
OS: Linux Mint 9 FluxBox (updated)
PC: HP Pavilion dv1000 (laptop)
RAM: 758mb (oooh my bad thought it was 1gb nope)
Video: Intel Mobile Express Shared 128mb (or what ever intel extreme express thing it is)
SMART: Healthy
Root Partition: 23GB ext4
Swap Partition: 1.1GB

hddtemp: 40-42C (HDD) Idle-Load
sensors: 52-56C (CPU) Idle-Load

Symptoms:
- often system freeze for few seconds while installing new apps from software manager and loading heavier apps such as netbeans or couple youtube videos.
- while frozen: able to move the mouse and the windows around but events are paused such as clicks, key press, and window screen updates
- while frozen: hdd light is off then when the system wakes up there is an hdd rush and light comes on for few seconds to catch up
- cant login from locked screen or terminal while its froze

[MrCambron]

oooh thought it was 1gb ram installed , i just got cheapod , k system info says total memory 758mb and free memory 17-45mb , , is that the reason it freezes like that ?

i need more ram or whata ? i never had a system less than 1gb ram for to many years

[MrCambron]

yap , upgraded to 1gb and works a lot better with memory from my old toshiba portege m200 , i think ill need to upgrade to 2gb later with gaming ram if it exists , corsair only has ddr2 , ,

boots up with 750mb free, start skype - 680mb , pidgin - 600mb , thunderbird - 550mb , netbeans 400mb , firefox with youtube 200mb free. just a few apps take up lotta memory , i run way more things on my mac 1gb ram and its still speedy but this falls apart

but would the problem still exists ? its just swapping less frequent , hdd usage less frequent , ill replace the hdd later too , and get back to this , but so far its perfect

[MrCambron]

Updated:
Further testing, I played Unreal Tournament 2004 through 4 long assault games and it froze up once for about 10 seconds , no hdd light on , then when it unfreezes the hdd light comes on couple secs reading/writing what it wants.

Then in firefox, I don't really notice it unless the pages stop loading and the youtube stops streaming and my downloads become corrupt and it does that hdd rush thing when it wakes up.

and if it does it during bootup of linux mint, i hear the hdd click on when it unfreezes

could it be some kind of acpi / hdd sleep issue ?

[MrCambron]

o dang , I got my old hdd from my other laptop that broke down and put it in this hp laptop , and I been running on this livecd for more than 24 hours with out shutting down or any problems youtubing or anything , then I run rsync to get all my data from old hdd to my imac over direct LAN cable connection with transfer rate of 1-10MB/s or what ever and now it is doing that hdd/system pause thing.

also the hp hdd had passed the quick and thorough hdd test builtin the BIOS, , , passed the SMART test within the linux mint (flux box) -> disk utility, , , passed the RAM test in the grub menu


- - stepping through this: - - (sep 14)
Ran rsync to transfer all my data from hp laptop with the hdd from other laptop. Did a fresh install of Windows XP Home OEM. Just installed a BIOS update, it said current version f11 year 2005 or something and new version f33 year 2006 something. Restarted then Windows XP wants me to call them because the key is black listed or what ever , so no more further testing windows xp until I call up HP.

Installed Linux Mint 9 Flux Box and will do further testing , , , running 20+ tabs of myspace/torrentreactor/gamevideos/... while downloading a zip, rsync around 120-180kB/s, buddy list whatever, skype, transmission, Xfburn while burning a cd, , , usually i would see a 10 second pause and firefox downloads coming corrupt but this time i only see the normal pause from loading mp3s to xfburn and the zip is still good , , wait one more tab of google and it does like a 5 second pause but not the 10-15 second one , , and it grew back to 10-15 seconds ,
- - stepping through this result: - - (sep 19)
Fixed the Windows XP Home activation issue, installed all the HP drivers and software, installed the Windows updates. Installed and played Unreal Tournament 2004 and got satisfying frame-rate in windows compared to linux. Was able to boot between both the operating systems. Then ! ! ! ! ! While running windows the battery had died, plugged in the charger and both operating systems were unbootable. Try to boot Linux Mint and it went to some nvram what ever command line, try to boot windows and it just freezes at the desktop.

[MrCambron]

Solutions:
1. Don't buy HP laptops or desktops (experienced this one and 3 other products)
2. Try installing linux to usb flash drive or use livecd
3. Don't try this again