[xubuntu-users] Random Freezes on Old machine

[Luzius Thöny]

João Santiago wrote:
> Hi y'all!
>
> I convinced a friend of mine to switch to Xubuntu, since he was using 
> Xp and
> the computer was at it's knees. Now it runs flawlessly, he can even watch
> videos, both local and from the Internet (Youtube, Google video, etc.).
>
> The problem is that without any error or notice the screen freezes, just
> like that. If I'm, for example, listening to music, it will continue to
> play, but the screen doesn't change (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace doesn't work). 
> This
> also happens when the screensaver comes up - I can't get back to the
> desktop, being forced to manually reboot.
>
> His specs are pretty bad: Celeron 1Ghz, 256Mb RAM, Nvidia Aladdin TNT 
> 16MB
> (nvidia-legacy drivers are installed and activated). The system is
> completely up-to-date.
>
> Just a note: this doesn't happen when I open a specific app, it just 
> happens
> out of the blue.
>
> Anything you can think of? Does XU logs this type of occorence? If it 
> does,
> where can I see them?
>
> Thanks!
> Santiago
>

sounds to me like a a problem with the graphics driver, causing X to 
lock up. have you tried using simple VESA graphics mode?

~luzi