Hi,
So I have a Laptop, about 3-4 years old. Its an HP Pavillion ZV5000 and the specific model/service tag is "ZV5240US". I had XP on it for a while but then installed Linux. It started with Ubuntu and worked fine for some weeks/months. Now, after a good 1-2 hours of use it freezes. This is in Ubuntu 10.04 32-Bit. I am sure it isn't an overheating issue, I have the laptop on a flat surface table with a scroll cage extracting air from the exhuast vent. Moreover, XP never had this issue. I thought it might be a distro issue so I installed Fedora Core 13 32-Bit...same thing. It just freezes randomly forcing me to force shutdown. In both distro's I am using Gnome and both were fully updated.

Some specs on the laptop:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz
RAM: 768MB
HDD: 60GB 4200rpm
GPU: Mobility radeon card, 128mb of ram allocated.

If you need more specific specifications, just ask. I have no clue what the problem is. The linux works perfectly fine, its the freezing thats weird, should I try another distro?...do you think the computer is crapping out?

Thanks for any help!

Are you using the ati drivers or the ones that come with Fedora? Does the laptop have to use shared memory for video? Is it the same amount of time each time it freezes?

No, I am not using the ATI drivers, I used the defualt linux video drivers as they give me good performane and resolutions as is. The laptop does used shared video memory. I allocated 128MB for video memory which is the maximum that the Bios supports. And no it isn't the same amount of time before each freeze, sometimes it doesn't freeze at all, but its happened like 3-4 times in the past week. This is occurs in different distro's also, so it probably isn't a distro issue as I've tried Fedora and Ubuntu with KDE and gnome but who knows.

No not a distro issue. Most distros use the same xorg and what not. Does the video card have a standard for the card? Like 8 meg but can share memory as well? My wife had a Zv5000 and hers had a32 meg card but could share more.

It doesnt matter if you have fans on the laptop working or not. One component can still overheat. Can you run any diagnostics on te laptop? have you tried xp since it started freezing? That is what I would do first. Try xp again and if it freezes it is a hardware failure issue if not then it is a linux issue.

Have to narrow this down just a bit so we can figure out what is happening.

Thank you, i'll install XP and work it and see how it does.

Okay, I installed XP. Everything was working fine. No freezes. I went ahead a reformatted the drive and reinstalled Ubuntu 10.04 32-Bit back. So far everything works fine, the computer has been on for over 4 hours and no freezes work completely fine. So far so good .

Never mind. It froze again. I think it might be an overheating issue. Tomorrow, I will open up the computer and re seat the CPU and apply new thermal paste, after all its 4 years old. I'll report back with results.

Edit:
Just did some more examination, and lo and behold, one of the intake fans wasn't working. I couldn't quite see through the tiny slits, but I stick a needle into it...nothing. I'll be opening up it up and i'll see what I can do to get it working again. 99% and 20 bucks says its overheating.

Another Edit:
I couldn't help it, so I open it up and discovered what may actually be a Linux issue, not hardware. When I press the power button, both fans work fine, I even entered Bios for a few minutes and both fans were operating as supposed to. Then I booted and once Linux booted, the one fan I thought was broken, stopped working, the other kept spinning. Apparently the fans work fine. It must be a Linux issue. With windows, both fans are working. So how do I solve this?...Is there a driver or some kind of fan control software for Linux to make both fans work?

The acpi kernel module does this for you. I am betting it is because you have a shared graphics card you may need to install ati drivers for it to work properly what card is it specifically? I know the new xorg is kind of wonky for some reason with some cards.

Linus has applications you can use to moniter temps. I dont know ubuntu to well but kde 4 has them installed with it. I am still betting on a video driver issue myself though.

Okay, thanks for response. I did more stuff with the laptop today. To my surprise, it actually turns out this might NOT be a Linux issue, which is really reassuring because I like Linux but it must be a hardware issue. I even looked online and there is no word or articles involving a laptop of my model or similar model having these issues with any operating system, Linux included. So I tried again, maybe I just was too tired last night and didn't see what I thought, but anyway, when I turn it on, here is what happens: Both fans work, then as soon as the Bios screen goes out, the fan stops working. I tried going into the actual Bios and browsing the menu, and the fan still stopped and wasn't working at all. Apparently my XP wasn't on long enough to experience the overheat freeze, because it took 4 hours for the laptop to overheat on my Linux while I installed XP for 2-3 hours and used it extensively, I guess it depends on where my laptop is and the ambient temperature to determine the time it takes. Either way, a new fan costs only 4-5 bucks so i'll order one and replace it and maybe do some soldering if required and see what happens.

Sounds like a plan. Just sorry we could not figure it out without you spending any money on it.

Oh no problem. Nothing to be sorry about. Hardware breaks...it happens, the laptop is 4 years old and has been through some abuse lol, can't expect it to last forever. Thanks for the help though I'll post if the problem gets fixed

I am starting to have the same bet myself

The fan now, is working perfectly fine (the old one that is)...without even putting the new one in, I open the Laptop, messed with it did some soldering in certian areas and it starts working for some reason...not that i'm complaining. I also replaced my CPU's thermal paste with brand new high quality Artic Silver 5 paste. After all this, it froze in ubuntu. So I tried to install the native video driver from ATI's website for the laptop and see if a native good driver will work. Turns out ATI only supports .rpm...so I installed Fedora and put the Xfree86 driver and installed it, I will test and see how it works. There is also another driver called Xorg...I really don't know the difference or which is better so any help on that or which would you recommend?...

The Ati driver will always be better. The Xorg driver works well and will probably do what you need it to. It is an older graphics card so the Ati driver probably doesn't support it anymore. Typing xorgconfigure or xorgconf, or xorgsetup at a command prompt will set it up automatically for you.

You could try this:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c01684768

Yeh, I know they mention Windows but just read "OS".

You could try installing GKrellm which is a neat little system monitoring utility which lets you check CPU speed, temperature, disk access. etc depending on how you configure it. (The temperature being the main thing!)
(My CPUs on this desktop are running at 33 and 38 degrees with my Nvidea GPU at 63!! Hmm...)
It looks like you've already done all the CPU heatsink stuff already, Er... I take it the radiator fins were clear of fluff?? Yup!, Thought so, forget I asked...

Play Bonny!

It appears I have fixed the issue . I installed fedora and the driver seemed to be working but I hate how the fedora software mananger works and really wanted ubuntu. So I installed back to Ubuntu, went ahead and download the .rpm file from ATI Xorg driver. I then installed a utility called alien and through terminal rebuilded the package or converted it into a .deb file and installed it successfully. Its been some hours and I have been using it intensively with no issue...So far so good, haven't gotten my hopes up yet but I have my fingers crossed.