Tired of freezing laptop

[James Takac]

Hi Pat

On Friday 01 August 2008 12:23:49 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!


Since you still have the working keyboard you should be able to drop into a 
shell via CTRL ALT F1 and login there to the text screen

James