I have recently installed Debian Etch from netinstall CD. Everything seems to be working fine but from time to time the whole system freezes. Resetting X or switching to console does not work. The only way out is hard reset.

I do not think it is related to any of the software I am running. It hung when I was using Firefox, gnome system monitor, CD player, OO, etc.

Have anyone seen anything like this? Any ideas what may cause this or how to fix it?

HW: PIII/800MHz/512MB
OS: Debian Etch
Kernel: 2.6.16-2.686
X: x-window-system-core
DE: gdm, gnome-core

If it is not a laptop try removing apmd

Thanks for suggestion but I do not have apmd (or acpid) installed.

pIII 800 .... I have a bunch of systems at work that are that vintage, mostly running Windows but never the less I have seem system hangs, lockups trouble booting and in those cases it's usually caused by a motherboard going bad. A quick peep at the Electrolytic Capacitors on the motherboard may give you an indication if this is what is causing your problem.. typically if the tops of the caps are bulging instead of flat that's an indication of the problem. I always check this first before chasing after phantom software issues.. defective hardware can't be fixed with a simple patch..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

a new motherboard would be the only fix if this is your issue.

My box has dual-boot with XP and it does not hang. :-(((((
But thanks, I will check caps anyway.

Was worth a shot.. still worth taking a peek when the hardware is that old. Windows and Linux seem to make use of hardware a little differently..(memory usage for instance)

Well I dunno what else to tell ya to look at so best of luck to ya tracking it down.

It seems like this is related to very high CPU usage when I run gnome. I intalled xfce4 instead of gnome and it looks like system does not freeze anymore. I guess my box is not good enough for gnome.

It might be a more serious underlying hardware issue. I would not blame any software for this.

You should really check the hardware.

I doubt this is hardware but you never know. Anyhow xfec4 and icewm seem to be working just fine and I can run most of the gnome utilities that I like so much.

In my experience 99% of the random freeze issues are hardware-related.

Yeah, this is one of the symptons of a hardware problem. I once had a very hard to find hardware bug which caused random freezes, turned out to be a motherboard issue and I ended up buying a new board.

It might take a while to surface again. That's what makes it so hard to pin down. In your case it might be a CPU related problem. Check your processor and see if it shows signs of blackening - this is a rare condition but CPUs sometimes do tend to get fried and continue working under minimum load. I had a faulty CPU for a long time and it caused me no end of frustration to pin down the issue.

All this based on numerous hardware problems I've faced.

Thanks for info, harishankar. I will check my processor.

And also your RAM, although RAM problems tend to result in random reboots (older machines) or just blanking of the system (forced sudden shutdown) in modern machines.

well, no freezes at all so far with xfce4 or icewm.

I had, still have, a similar problem. But i do not have to reset. My pc freezes in gnome for a fraction of a second and runs as usual afterwards. The machine beeps once as well. However, when I'm using Kde or xfce4 I don't have the problem. I'm currently using debian etch 2.6.16-2 smp kernel on Pentium D 2.8 em64t (with 1gb ddr2 ram and 256mb ati radeon x600). I have gnome, kde and xfce4 installed and since I only use kde I did not bother much about the problem. I'd love to have a solution to the problem though.

I have been plagued with these freezes for a long time. I have had every theory anyone could think of, none of which had any relevance. Now I'm into hardware. I replaced the power supply to no avail. I ran a full memtest (about 4 hrs) without an hiccup. I have ordered a new mobo and cpu. It's time to update anyway.