I was running Azureus on Etch together with a music program, when Debian just froze. It was something like the old days when you got a deep scratch in an LP, it just played the same note again and again. I tried to stop Amarok and get out of the loop, but nothing worked and thus I did a cold boot. Afterwards the computer started, I logged in and after the piece of music that tells you all is well, it just froze. It's been doing that ever since.

Personally I think the computer starts autoloading the programs that was running before the reboot, but I honestly don't know. It might be any reason, since I can't move around in the computer, until it freezes. I think it's something like that, though. I can get into the pc by logging in as root in single user mode, although it's only textbased. My hopes are that there is some sort of file telling the computer to autostart that can be changed to stop the machine from starting those programs that causes the freeze (f ex Azureus, that slows the computer down like hell).

Any ideas?

My machine:

Intel PIII
Debian 4.0
Win XP (secondary)
256MB RAM



Thanks in advance
Tillus

Another 256 MB RAM wouldn't hurt Tried booting from a LiveCD, like Knoppix, to do some research? Mind you, you may have dodgy RAM that's on its way to eternity...

I don't have a Live CD, and I'm not that experienced yet, to find my way round the textfiles. Have tried Live type CDs before, but haven't been able to make them work. I have tried finding more RAM, but they're all out of SDRAMs nowadays. It's all new stuff.

I'm sure there are people like me near you that have SDRAM just laying around in their computer rooms unused. can't throw away perfectly good PC parts but have no use for them..

Is there a freecycle group near you ? post and see if anyone has some to offer ?

But please don't be one of those Gomers posting to the list asking for a complete Vista\XP PC with 2GB RAM, 3D Accelerator card suitible for gaming, with a 20" or Larger flatscreeen LCD, a plasma TV and a Playstation 3.. [rolleyes] I just don't get those people.. It's FREEcycle not the Lotto..

Tillus:
If you're still there, and have not found any help, make another post. I can send you a pair of 256 SDRAMS if you want them. How many memory chip slots do you have??

I think I solved the problem.

Like this:

I reckoned there was nothing wrong with the system per se, but in the start sequence, as it didn't hang before logging in. It also logged in perfectly, it was only after that that it froze.

I reasoned that if there was something with the start sequence, it might be that it froze, because it tried to load, maybe a crashed version of the program or something. Add to that that it's a program hogging all the power and you have something that looks and feels in everyway like a hangup and might take forever to get out of, if even possible.

I tried 'fooling' the computer by starting in single-user mode in text and then writing 'shutdown now' on the text line, thus exiting single user mode. After that comes the login prompt again and then I pressed Ctrl-D (I think) to start the desktop environment. I think this got me to the grafical login prompt and then I logged in as usual. After checking to see the computer didn't freeze, and this is important, I started the programs in question and then chose 'Quit' from their respective menus. Note that I did not use the close button at the top right in the respective window. That sometimes only closes the window itself and I needed the programs to shut down.

After doing that with every program that was running when the computer 'froze' and with them still shut down, I shut the computer off from the menu, as one should. Thus the system will check to see if any programs are running, that should run at the next power up. As no program (at least not of the ones causing the 'freeze') was running when shutting down like this, the auto-start sequence or what's it's name was overwritten and after that no programs were attempted at starting at bootup. After booting all that is needed is starting the programs one wants at startup and the next time everything will be as usual.

Note: I cannot guarantee other computers' hangups can be solved this way. It might be worth a try though. Also note I went through single user mode in grub or lilo or what have you. In this case it seemed to make all the difference. Good luck y'all.


I will still take you up on that offer though, Bill Hwy, as soon as I've checked the number of slots. I'm in a bit of a hurry, you see, I have to make an appointment. What did you have in mind and how many 256 MB memories do you have? I would guess I have room for 1 GB, but I can't be sure.

Have to run now, so I bid you all Good Byte