Ubuntu getting locked up

[Liam Proven]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Chuck Kuecker <ckuecker at ckent.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a strange thing going on with my system. Three times now, Ubuntu
> has gotten locked up somehow such that I cannot open a terminal window
> or restart or reboot the system. I cannot stop the X-windows either. I
> am running Ubuntu 9.10 with all the latest updates.
>
> So, I kill power and restart. Each time, the system comes up with a
> damaged filesystem and goes into recovery mode. I run fsck, fix all the
> errors, and reboot. The system is fine when it restarts.
>
> OK. So I go on with the development code I am working with. I had to
> interrupt the build script with control-C. Now the weirdness starts.
>
> First symptom is that the terminal window now does not do line feeds.
> The prompt just wraps around. Up and down arrows do not access previous
> commands.
> I kill the terminal window and attempt to open another, It opens, but is
> blank white, with no cursor.
>
> I try to restart - the pulldown menu works, but the restart and reboot
> buttons do nothing. So, I kill power and start over.
>
> When I run fsck, it seems like the corrupted orphan linked list inodes
> and other errors such as counts are always the same. Suspicious.
>
> The hard disk with the filesystem is a new disk, less than two months usage.
>
> When the system restarts, my email server and Apache are working normally.
>
> One other thing I noticed - whether it makes any difference, I am
> running the 'engine' screen saver that shows animated IC engines. Lately
> it has been very slow, although there is not much going on when I look
> at CPU usage on the system monitor. The last time after I ran fsck and
> rebooted, the screen saver ran at normal speed. Perhaps a clue.
>
> Has anyone seen this kind of scenario? I am wondering if the build
> script is somehow breaking something. It's a version of ltib provided by
> Freescale for their embedded processor running Linux.
>
> Chuck Kuecker

You've not told us anything about your machine's hardware, but this
sounds like a possible hardware problem to me.

I'd suggest:

Step 1

Open the machine up & give it a thorough clean, ideally with a
compressed-air spray or something similar. "Airduster" these are
sometimes called.

I suggest paying special attention to the graphics card & processor
heatsink & fan. If you know how, carefully remove the heatsinks & fans
from both the CPU and the GPU & give them a thorough clean. Your
problems sound a little like they might be caused by overheating to
me.

Step 2

When reassembling, get and apply some fresh TIM
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_interface_material) when
refitting them, making sure to remove all trace of the old stuff.

Step 3

When it's all back together, boot from an Ubuntu CD and run memtest86.
I suggest you leave it going for a few hours or overnight.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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