Computer locking up after several days' uptime

[Mark Haney]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> A new Ubuntu user has 8.04 installed on an LG laptop. I do not have
> the machine nearby to check what the specific hardware is, but it is a
> fairly modern unit.
> 
> He is reporting that after three days' uptime the computer locks up.
> He did not have this problem in Windows. I asked if he could leave the
> machine running without programs for a few days' time to see if it is
> the OS or an application, but this is a work machine so he cannot do
> that.
> 
> Where can I begin troubleshooting? It may actually be a while before I
> get to the machine physically, so whatever I can ask over the phone or
> via SSH would help. Thanks!
> 


To me, especially considering it's a laptop, it sounds like it's 
overheating.  Take a look at syslog for ACPI messages for fans not being 
turned on, or similar.


Have him 'cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature' (or at least 
look at his CPU temp output if it's multiple core or the proc location 
is different, the above if from my laptop YMMV)

I suppose it could be a memory leak, but if it's a work machine he'd 
probably be using fairly standard work apps (OpenOffice, 
Thunderbird/Kmail, etc) so that shouldn't be a problem.  Unless of 
course he's a developer and he's compiling code on it.

Post the last syslog messages just before the hang, that might help. 
Along with dmesg output from that time as well.



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Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415

Call (866) ERC-7110 for after hours support