How to diagnose frequent lockups?

[vogonpoet]

I have Mint 10 installed on a Lenovo W520 and it was working fine for quite a while (6 months?) but now, it locks up 2-6 times a day. I haven't been able to find a pattern to it. Sometimes it locks up and I have to physically turn off the laptop. Other times, I leave the computer and when I come back it's just totally off.

When I boot up, I connect to my work's VPN, and run Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Dropbox, Parcellite, and Pithos. Many times I have Eclipse running also. I stopped running Pithos in case that was it and it still locks up. It has locked up without Eclipse running. So, I don't think it's Pithos or Eclipse. I just upgraded FIrefox today in case FF had something to do with it (no lockups in the last hour now).

Is there some overall system log I can look at after a lockup to maybe get an idea of what is going on when it locks up?

UPDATE: I don't think it's Eclipse, Firefox, Pithos, Pidgin, or Thunerbird. It has locked up without each of those running.

[vogonpoet]

Well, at this point I have gone all day now with no lockups so I'm guessing somehow FF was the cause of my problems. I'd still be curious to know if there is a system log file I can look into.

[vogonpoet]

Well, it's still happening regularly. I'm going ot post a new topic about problems I'm having doing system updates.

[vogonpoet]

Just noticed someone asked for the output of
inxi -Fc 0

so here it is:

Code: Select all

System:    Host REMOVED Kernel 2.6.35-22-generic-pae i686 (32 bit) Distro Linux Mint 10 Julia
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-2720QM (-HT-MCP-) cache 6144 KB flags (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips 17542
           Clock Speeds: (1) 2192.745 MHz (2) 2192.745 MHz (3) 2192.745 MHz (4) 2192.745 MHz (5) 2192.745 MHz (6) 2192.745 MHz (7) 2192.745 MHz (8) 2192.745 MHz
Graphics:  Card nVidia Device 0dfa X.Org 1.9.0 Res: 1600x900@50.0hz
           GLX Renderer Quadro FX N12P-Q1-A1/PCI/SSE2 GLX Version 4.1.0 NVIDIA 260.19.06 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio:     Card-1 nVidia Device 0bea driver HDA Intel BusID: 01:00.1
           Card-2 Intel Cougar Point High Definition Audio Controllerdriver HDA Intel BusID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.23
Network:   Card-1 Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 driver iwlagn v: in-tree: BusID: 03:00.0
           Card-2 Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection driver e1000e v: 1.0.2-k4 at port 6040 BusID: 00:19.0
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (26.5% used) 1: /dev/sda INTEL_SSDSA2M160 160.0GB 0C
Partition: ID:/ size: 75G used: 40G (57%) fs: ext4 ID:swap-1 size: 4.17GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:40C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes 234 Uptime 15 min Memory 567.8/3974.9MB Runlevel 2 Client Shell inxi 1.4.12


[vogonpoet]

I still think it's a problem with perl... for example, when I try and update/install pidgin I get this:

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>sudo apt-get install pidgin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 pidgin : Depends: libpurple0 (>= 1:2.8.0-1) but 1:2.7.3-1ubuntu3 is to be installed
          Depends: perl-base (>= 5.10.1-12ubuntu2.1) but 5.10.1-12ubuntu2 is to be installed
E: Broken packages


Notice it mentions perl-base

[vogonpoet]

I know nobody is following this but me, but... I updated everything via update manager so it now says I'm 100% up to date. Lockups still happening. Now I'm trying it without using the Nvidia beta driver. Sucks because the resolution with the standard driver is only 1280x1024 but maybe it will be stable.

[vogonpoet]

Locked up when not using the nvidia beta driver too. Grrr... I'm out of ideas/options.