[ubuntu-uk] Locking up when away from home wi-fi

[Barry Titterton]

Hi,

Yesterday my wife was using our Lenovo laptop (fully up to date 12.04 
LTS) at a friend's house, using their wi-fi network. She complained 
that, while trying to create a text document in LibreOffice, the machine 
kept locking up every couple of lines. She had no control of mouse or 
keyboard and her only option was to cycle the power button. This 
happened four times in a row. She also said that the hard drive seemed 
to be working hard, buzzing and clicking, all of the time. The only 
other machine on the network was an Apple desktop, which was switched on 
at the time. Please be aware that both my wife and her friend have very 
little technical knowledge so the above statement is all of the detail 
that I can give.

The laptop has never shown this behaviour before at home or when working 
on the university network, nor when working with our mobile broadband 
USB dongle, and since being brought home it has behaved perfectly on the 
home wi-fi.

Does anyone have any suggestions what might have caused this strange 
behaviour?

Regards,

Barry