OK, here's a good one.
Every now and then, and I can't pinpoint why, linux will just freeze, completely. So I've got to actually power off and boot up again to get in. This isn't really very nice for the poor old hard disk and it is becoming quite annoying.
I haven't been able to narrow it down, a couple of times it has happened when i've done something like this:
find / -name xxx -print

but othertimes i might be doing pretty much nothing and it'll go. Anyone have any similar issues or got any idea why?
ML8.1
Thanks.

That happened to me once in Mandrake 8.1. Try to reformat and reinstall Linux it should fix the problem for you.

you should only ever reinstall linux as a VERY last resort. this isn't windows after all. if that happens, try looknig at the logs in /var/log/
especically /var/log/messages. should be able to help you track down the problem. if it's mainly inside X, then it's very likely to be an X isue, as the linux kernel is much more stable than X.

if it is happening while in X.. can you ctrl-alt-backspace to restart X instead of your whole machine ??

ctl + alt + backspace doesn't work. There is no reaction from the pc at all.
I'll check out the logs now.

Here's what I got just before a crash and restarting...
Have to say, doesn't mean anything to me.
Any takers???
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Jan 3 21:02:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): starting (version 1.0.4), pid 8681 user 'andrew'
Jan 3 21:02:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): Removing stale lock `/home/andrew/.gconfd/lock' because of error pinging server: IDL:CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0
Jan 3 21:02:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): Removing stale lock `/home/andrew/.gconf/%gconf-xml-backend.lock' because of error pinging server: IDL:CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0
Jan 3 21:07:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): 15 items remain in the cache after cleaning already-synced items older than 300 seconds
Jan 3 21:07:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): 18 items remain in the cache after cleaning already-synced items older than 300 seconds
Jan 3 21:12:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): 1 items remain in the cache after cleaning already-synced items older than 300 seconds
Jan 3 21:22:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): 2 items remain in the cache after cleaning already-synced items older than 300 seconds
Jan 3 21:22:49 notebook su(pam_unix)[8801]: session opened for user root by andrew(uid=501)
Jan 3 21:24:21 notebook login(pam_unix)[1686]: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Jan 3 21:24:21 notebook -- root[1686]: ROOT LOGIN ON vc/2
Jan 3 21:24:29 notebook login(pam_unix)[1686]: session closed for user root
Jan 3 21:27:00 notebook su(pam_unix)[8801]: session closed for user root
Jan 3 21:32:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): GConf server is not in use, shutting down.
Jan 3 21:32:30 notebook gconfd (andrew-8681): Exiting
Jan 3 21:49:54 notebook su(pam_unix)[9050]: session opened for user root by andrew(uid=501)
Jan 3 21:51:34 notebook su(pam_unix)[9050]: session closed for user root
Jan 3 21:51:35 notebook login(pam_unix)[1685]: session closed for user andrew
Jan 3 21:51:43 notebook login(pam_unix)[9193]: session opened for user andrew by (uid=0)
Jan 3 21:51:44 notebook -- andrew[9193]: LOGIN ON vc/1 BY andrew
Jan 3 21:54:12 notebook gconfd (andrew-9513): starting (version 1.0.4), pid 9513 user 'andrew'
Jan 3 22:03:41 notebook syslogd 1.4-0: restart.
Jan 3 22:03:41 notebook kernel: klogd 1.4-0, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
Jan 3 22:03:41 notebook kernel: Inspecting /boot/System.map-2.4.8-26mdk
Jan 3 22:03:41 notebook apmd[1073]: Version 3.0final (APM BIOS 1.2, Linux driver 1.14)
Jan 3 22:03:41 notebook apmd: apmd startup succeeded
Jan 3 22:03:41 notebook kernel: Loaded 15064 symbols from /boot/System.map-2.4.8-26mdk.

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Hey... I just posted a solution I found for a problem I was having with the Nvidia drivers and my TNT2 card.... Well.. it might have nothing to do with your problem, but mine was doing the exact same thing... X was locking up tighter than a... well.. you get the image...

Anyway, if you do use Nvidia's drivers... then a temp solution is to set the XF86config-4 drivers section back to using just "nv" for drivers...

And... if you don't use Nvidia and X is causing the problems then look under /var/log/XFree86.0.log and find out where it is crashing at...

good luck...