Tired of freezing laptop

[Chris Pratt]

If you're running default Hardy then you should always have six
terminals available besides your gui.  Ever try <CTRL> <ALT> <F1>--<F6>
when it *freezes*?  You can find out what is tying up your system and
kill it there. <CTRL><ALT><F7> should bring you back to your gui...

ps ax|grep [t]ty
 5078 tty4     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
 5079 tty5     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
 5081 tty2     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
 5083 tty3     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
 5085 tty6     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
 7301 tty7     RLs+   3:49 /usr/bin/X :0 -br -audit 0 -auth
/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7
 7730 tty1     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1


Pat Brown wrote:
> Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>   
>> Pat Brown wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> I'm getting very tired of having my PC freeze up almost every time I go 
>>> online. I'm using Hardy on a Compaq Presario C700, with a Broadcom B43 
>>> wireless card. I apply every update the update manager detects. I've 
>>> been running Hardy since it was released and this problem is ongoing. It 
>>> doesn't seem to matter what I am doing online, eventually it will freeze 
>>> and require a soft boot using CTRL+ALT+Backspace. I've run some of the 
>>> tests people have suggested but the results mean nothing to me - I 
>>> posted them once and never heard any comments on whether it showed anything.
>>>
>>> I also can't watch YouTube videos at all on Konquerer. Sometimes I can 
>>> watch them on Firefox 3.0.1 but it too will shut down without warning.
>>>
>>> I recently picked up an almost new PC which I was originally going to 
>>> install Ubuntu on. Now I'm reconsidering and think I'm going to go back 
>>> to XP so I can watch videos and surf without this hassle all the time. 
>>> I'll keep Ubuntu on my laptop because I like it, but I don't like this 
>>> problem and until it's fixed I need an alternative that's more reliable.
>>>     
>>>       
>> I didn't see your original thread, but a couple things to start with...
>>
>> The freezing. You said ctl-alt-backspace brings the system back...that 
>> restarts X, not the system, so this would mean that it's actually the 
>> GUI you're restarting and not the system, is this accurate?
>>
>> What shows up under /var/log/system.log? And what is output from dmesg?
>>
>> Does the entire interface freeze, or do you still have *some* control? 
>> It would be handy if you could run something like the system monitor or 
>> in a terminal run "top" to see if they freeze up as well, because if 
>> not, it *might* show if a process is eating the CPU at %100 or if the 
>> swap is suddenly growing. I don't know if you have this capability but I 
>> diagnosed a problem like that before using a second computer that I 
>> secure-shelled into (if your system is running sshd, the 
>> opensshd-server) and ran top on from another system. The interface on 
>> the workstation froze, but background processes were still running fine 
>> so I could see the offending process (and kill it from the remote terminal).
>>
>> The flash issue. I had this problem not long ago and as I recall my fix 
>> was the flashplugin-nonfree package. Using synaptic, do you have the 
>> package "flashplugin-nonfree" installed? I believe I could play  on the 
>> YouTubes once I had that package installed.
>>
>> -Bart
>>
>>   
>>     
> Okay, I guess I'm restarting the X system. I have some keyboard ability, 
> but that's all. If I knew some commands to run a terminal that way since 
> I can't access it through the GUI, I could check processes and see if 
> something was hogging the system, but I don't know the commands. I have 
> the output from dmesg, but it's after restarting X. I would love to know 
> how to get to a place to kill a process - and know the name of the 
> process. I'm assuming it's Konquerer that's doing the CPU hogging since 
> it's always Konquerer that freezes X.
>
> When I have full keyboard access I can see Konquerer in the system 
> monitor. It's called konquerer [kdeinit] --si which means nothing to me, 
> I'm afraid. I'm doing my best to learn Linux/Ubuntu but I'm still very 
> green.
>
> The flashplugin-nonfree appears to be installed already.
>
> How do I get to a terminal when my X is frozen? I'll try that next time 
> it freezes.
>
> Pat Brown
> pat.mysterywriter at gmail.com
> http://www.pabrown.ca/
>
> L.A. Heat, now hotter than ever!
>
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