Yesterday I was using partition magic to make a new partition to install linux on a windows XP compaq presario SR1520NX. I had some trouble with the stupid hidden partitions, but I fixed that and now the windows portion works just fine. On the other hand, I installed Ubuntu and after booting it would randomly freeze after like 1-2 minutes of being turned on, nothing working but the mouse. I tried opening different programs and even opening none at all, but the error would still randomly occur. Though the odd thing is that sometimes it wouldnt freeze..

So, I figured ubuntu had some sort of issue with the computer and I installed SUSE 10.2, once again with no errors in install process or any visible errors booting etc. I start that up, and sadly I recieved the same stupid freezing trouble. I can open "More applications" and it would freeze, "firefox" and it may freeze, or even nothing at all.

Another thing (unrelated? dunno.) to add is that when I was working on unhiding the partition, I had an error where I had to drag the mouse over an icon for it to show up, and when I opened terminal it was transparant until I highlighted the outputted text. I haven't had that error again, but it makes me think maybe something with the graphics is breaking all of it..?

Well, if you've read this far thanks a ton, and hope someone can help me.

I'm taking a longshot here... but insert your live-cd and mount the linux partition.

Then do a tail /var/log/messages (or really anything in there) and see if that helps. My guess is that its a video card problem.

You have a video card that needs NVIDIA? If so, follow NVIDIA links and do the necessary things from the command-line (ctrl+alt+F1)

Ive been guessing thats it might be gnome related, I installed FreeBSD and loaded window manager and worked great, but the second I opened gnome froze again. Downloaded kubuntu and will be giving that a try soon..