Linux freezes quite often.
 

Hello All,

I have Fedora Core 6 running on two machines. The trouble is that both freeze quite often. In fact, when writing this post my IntelliStation 6221-W11 froze. Both systems have the following kernel: 2.6.22.14-72.fc6PAE

System-000:

IBM IntelliStation Z Pro 6221-W11
2x Intel Xeon 2600 MHz; 400 MHz Front Side Bus; 512 KB L2 Cache
4096 MB PC-2100 RAM
Radeon HD 2600 XT; AGP

System-001:

Lenovo ThinkPad T60p 2613-HQU
Intel Core 2 Duo T7600; 2333 MHz; 633 MHz Front Side Bus; 4096 KB L2 Cache
2048 MB PC2-5300 RAM
FireGL V5250; PCI Express

Some software can be assumed to be running at any time on both machines when a crash occurs:

Folding@home 5.04 Linux Edition
ATI's Display Driver

Software that is often being used when the crash occurs:

Fedora Eclipse 3.2.2
Gimp 2.2
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12

Both machines have all updates installed, with the exception of OpenOfifce 2.0.4. Instead, I have 2.3.1, but the update still shows as being available.

Under Services, the following are loaded at boot-time on both systems:

acpid, apmd, avahi-daemon, bluetooth, cpuspeed, crond, cups, gpm, haldaemon, hidd, ip6tables, iptables, irqbalence, isdn, jexec, kdump,
kudzu, lm_sensors, mctrans, mdmonitor, messagebus, mysqld, netfs, network, nfslock, pscd, portmap, readahead_early, restorecrond, rpcgssd, rcpidmapd, smartd, sshd, syslog, yum-updatesd

Is there any way to find the error causing software? The freezes often occur at inopportune times and cause a loss of productive time. Often, I loose work and have learned to save often.

Hi, I have two ideas, 1) you CPU overheats and uses its safeguard (=freeze). I suggest you monitor your temperatures/turn off folding@home.
2)A bug in a driver/kernel; Try out a different kernel version, or of any third party modules (ati driver for instance)
At least you got a good habit from your problem :-D

Serafean

Thank you!

How would I monitor the system temperatures? I can do so in the BIOS, but I don't know how to do that under Linux. Also, this may be unlikely, because I have not had the system freeze overnight. It only freezes while I'm using it to work on documents and such. I would really like to keep running folding@home. I want to get first position in the Linux team.

I think the second is much more likely. Is there a way to find the problem. I know with Windows you can get a core dump when a failure occurs. Can the same thing be done under Linux?

Hi,

I'm sure you can get core dumps from linux, I just have no idea how :-(. A good bet would be to just try a different kernel/driver version.

To monitor your temeratures, use lm_sensors (first run sensors-detect, then use the sensors command to view your temperatures, or you might as well install kima).

so you mean that if you just let it sit there it doesn't freeze?? Is any desktop manager running?

PS. Do you overclock?

1. Dump seems the best option.
2. /usr/sbin/sensors-detect gives the following:

# sensors-detect revision 4171 (2006-09-24 03:37:01 -0700)

This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need
to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe
and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions,
unless you know what you're doing.

We can start with probing for (PCI) I2C or SMBus adapters.
Do you want to probe now? (YES/no): y
Probing for PCI bus adapters...
Use driver `i2c-i801' for device 0000:00:1f.3: Intel 82801DB ICH4

We will now try to load each adapter module in turn.
Module `i2c-i801' already loaded.
If you have undetectable or unsupported adapters, you can have them
scanned by manually loading the modules before running this script.

We are now going to do the I2C/SMBus adapter probings. Some chips may
be double detected; we choose the one with the highest confidence
value in that case.
If you found that the adapter hung after probing a certain address,
you can specify that address to remain unprobed.
Can't exec "i2cdetect": No such file or directory at /usr/sbin/sensors-detect line 5320, <STDIN> line 1.
Couldn't find i2cdetect program!! at /usr/sbin/sensors-detect line 5320, <STDIN> line 1.

3. I have only observed freezes when using the system, or having it return from a screen saver. Are you referencing KDE, that runs continuously.
4. I don't over clock. It's running in the stock configuration. Dual Processors at 2.6 GHz with HyperThreading. Any change in expected voltage produces unstable results. I need the machine to be working reliably.

Also do a memcheck. If you don't have a distribution or live cd, that gives you the option to do a memcheck on startup, you can get the ultimate-boot-cd... it can also perform cpu burn-in tests and so on.

Let memcheck run for at least 3 hours.