sudden freeze

[giorsat]

Hi. In this last 2 weeks I saw my lmde 64bit freeze with no apparent reason. the problem started since linux kernel 2.6.38 appeared in sid. I have a testing distro but I must use a kernel younger than the 2.6.32 in it because of issues with sound and video.
anyway, I switched to lmde 32bit hoping the freeze would desappear, but no way. I get a freeze once a day with no particular reason. the only thing I can do is to unplug and start again.
does anyone have the same problem? any clue on how to investigate the freezing? i used the 2.6.37 kernel with no problem but now even this kernel gives me the freeze situation..

[HeSaid]

We need a lot more information that what you have offered in order to suggest where to begin.
Generally speaking, it is not the kernel causing a freeze The most likely culprit is the video driver.
By freeze... do you mean screen locks, mouse pointer does not move, keyboard does not work?
Can you Ctl+Alt+F1 to a terminal, log in and type dmesg? Look at the last few lines for a hint.
Is the 'freeze' consistent with any application? What application are you using?
Do you have ATI video? Did you upgrade to ATI driver in sid?
Do you have correct driver for your video card? If it is ATI, someone else will have to help further. We have no ATI in our house.
The 2.6.38 kernel is a good one. I use it on all of my machines except for the old desktop which is our entertainment center player.
--
Neal

[giorsat]

ok. sorry. Try to explain
I have a samsung notebook with core i3, 4g ram and nvidia card. I use the open source driver and not the nvidia one.
I updated the xserver to the one in sid but I have freezing all the same.
Freeze. The video freezes except for the mouse who can move around, the sound that keeps going. but I cannot switch from video to terminal (ctrl alt f1-f6) , I cannot push any icon, window, application nor open or close. Usually, I configured the power on button to shut down when pushed. It doesn't work. I have to switch off power.
the same kernel and xserver on another mobile pc, with ati hardware , does not give any problem at all..

[HeSaid]

I would highly recommend using the closed source nVidia drivers. The open source video driver may not be new enough for your hardware.
--
Neal

[ThistleWeb]

I've read in several places that the i3 range are supported in the .33 kernel and above, which Ubuntu / Mint uses, but Debian / LMDE don't yet. They still use the .32 kernel right now. I'd suggest either using a newer kernel, or switching to the Ubuntu based Mint for now.

[giorsat]

any idea where to find the procedure to install the closed source driver?

[prahs rozar]

This is interesting because I have a similar problem and I use an ATI card. I started using a different driver more recently, which I think coincides with the freezing.

[aralis]

I have almost the same on problem on a Dell Latitude E6400 with Nvidia graphics.

Boot to login screen and everything works at that point.
For about 5 seconds directly after login I can click on stuff and it responds and then:
-display freezes
-mouse still moves around but can't click (trackpad and usb)
-no response to keyboard hotkeys
-Ctrl+Alt+1-6 do work though and I can type in that terminal

This started after I was messing with with trying to get wireless drivers to work so it could have been anything I did.
Any ideas?

*edit:
These are the last commands that I entered around the time that I caused the initial freeze

Code: Select all

echo wl >> /etc/modules
apt install module-assistant wireless-tools
m-a a-s broadcom-sta
update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

[mostarac]

Greets, all.

I may have the same issue.

Total freeze, except can still move mouse cursor about.

hp Elitebook 8540p http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm ... 97214.html

nvidia card.

mint 10 x64, installed directly to disk, no other OS installed beside it.

Happens about daily. Most in not each time, I'm just browsing the web. Otherwise, I got virtualbox running my win7.

n00b here, just had mint less than a week.

i'm looking further into it, just stopping by to share for now. glad to be here.

[aralis]

I actually manged to fix mine by creating a new user account and logging in with that.

The useradd function did not work though, I had to log in to the GUI as root and create it from the gui user thing