SuSE 9.1 Freezes Momentarily Must Reboot
 

I have only been trying to run SuSE Linux 9.1 Personal for 3 days. I am completely new to Linux. I have reformatted and re-installed 4 times, but always have the same issue.

The installation goes perfectly and I get no error messages. The program generally loads fine, but does freeze up occasionally. Once running, everything is fine, until the system freezes. Usually, the freeze is only for a few seconds...the clock on the taskbar stops....then starts again, but I am unable to do anything after the freeze. I must reboot. When the freeze occurs, if I am using the default browser or Firefox, I get no connection for my high speed cable connection. Again, no error message. The freezing may occur within a few seconds of a reboot, or a few minutes...or an hour. The freezing will occur whether or not I'm using any application. I have a few minor problems, but overall, the Linux is great, if I can overcome the freezing problem.

My system:
AMD XP3000+
MSI KT6V Motherboard
512M PC 2700 RAM
80 G Western Digital 7200 RPM Caviar Hard drive
Nvidia FX5200 - 128M Video Card

If I reinstall Windows XP Pro, I have no issue with freezing up. This only occurs after performing the SuSE Linux 9.1 installation.

I really would like to learn the Linux system and switch over completely. I have removed Windows XP from my system and only have installed the Linux program.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.
zenarcher

has the freezing happened to any other OS? possibly a hardware issue?

I have switched back to the Windows XP O/S and do not have the problem. Then, reformatted and back to Linux...and the problem occurs again. I built the system myself, and build custom systems and repair PC's for a business, so am fairly familiar with the current hardware. I find no hardware issues, when running testing on hardware, but I suppose there could be a configuration issue with hardware and Linux. All hardware seems to work fine...printer by USB 2.0. The only non-working hardware is the USB connected Sony CLIE S-360 PDA. As I understand, it is supported by SuSE Linux 9.1, but I suppose I haven't figured out the configuration on that, as I can't get SuSE to recognize or Hot Sync.

zenarcher

I should also mention that I have the latest BIOS update in the motherboard and have downloaded all updates shown via SuSE YAST. Chipsets are: VIA KT600 North Bridge and VIA VT8237 South Bridge. If the system unfreezes by itself, which often occurs, I no longer have my ethernet connection.

zenarcher

i have a question.

i am a newbie also that someone recomended SUse 9.1 to try as a newbie..

but i have some questions...

is SUse9.1 personal a live cd like knoppix std? or do i have to install it to my hdd? i started downloading SUse9.1 Personal and saw that there were different kinds like Suse 9.1 Personal, SUse 9.1 Professional and SUse 9.1 Live...what is the differnece with them?

I'm not really skilled with SuSE, but I think I can answer your question. You can find the difference between Personal and Professional if you check on the SuSE website. Professional comes with a lot more features....and considerable more cost. I think what you call the "Live" CD does allow you to try SuSE Linux without installing on the hard drive.
zenarcher

At boot up type
acpi=no
as a boot parameter.

I did find in the log an issue with powersave. I think that is what you are referring me to, but not sure. Per the Warning in the log, I went to /etc/sysconfig/powersave/common and changed the default line to:
POWERSAVE_CPUFREQD_MODULE=off

If you are referring to another change I should make, please advise how to add your suggestion to the boot, as I am really new here...and not sure exactly how to add it to boot. Any details would sincerely be appreciated.

Thanks,
zenarcher

I am having a similiar problem with my laptop, that I posted on this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...postid=1175053

I would really love to have this fixed, as I love having SuSE 9.1 on my laptop instead of Windows XP, but having it randomly freeze multiple times a day is no fun. It's also impossible to leave it running overnight, obviously..

However, did have a question, If I disable ACPI on my laptop, wouldn't that be a BAD thing?

zenarcher:
To set "acpi = no", go to YaST, System -> Boot Loader Configuration -> Edit Configuration Files button at the bottom, then it should be in there.

If you look under the failsafe settings, it shows an example of where it's included, add this to your regular bootup entry.

I removed the "cupsd" service a bit ago, per someone elses obscure posting about a runaway cups process freezing their system, so if my machine freezes again, I'll give this a go as well...

Happily, I have found a solution. I wasn't getting any suggestions, really, on several forums, so decided to try different flavors of Linux. Finally, I tried Mandrake Linux 10....it installed perfectly.....runs without any errors, freezing or anything else. I don't know what the differences are in the different flavors of Linux....but I can say that after trying 3 or 4 flavors, all with the same problems...Mandrake solved the issue. Now, if I can just learn the secret of downloading, saving and installing software with Linux, I'l be a happy camper. I did find step-by-step instructions for installing my NVIDIA FX5200 driver...and it works flawlessly.

zenarcher

Interesting.. I removed CUPS from my machine yesterday, and it ran for about 18 hours before finally locking (though again, it doesnt 100% lock, just 100% cpu which makes the keyboard/mouse unusable..) Ultimately, I have to hard reset.

Anyway, I have two more things to try, first will be turning off acpi, then the last will be doing a clean compile of the latest kernel on the machine... If neither work, I may sadly ditch SuSE for a different distro as well..

Did you try the acpi=off suggestion?

Yes, I did try the acpi=off, which made no difference. With my system....the freeze occurs like this: The freeze can occur at any time...often, while nothing is open...just sitting at the desktop, however, the problem intensifies if you're browsing...and it doesn't matter which browser you're using. I notice the clock in the lower right...will freeze on a time...then, will begin running again...freeze again....run again....etc. During the moments of freezing, the mouse will not move. After the first freeze, you can no longer open or close any program....and you cannot contact a website. The only way out of the freeze is a hard boot. Everything then boots up normally. Sometimes, in rare instances, the boot up will freeze but this does not happen often. At times, the freeze will occur after only being up and running for a few seconds or minutes....other times, the freeze will not occur for a couple of hours or longer. Usually, it would freeze when the screensaver was running.

This same problem occurred with SuSE Linux 9.1, Mandrake Linux 8.2 and the current Fedora Linux. Since I wasn't expecting success with Mandrake 10, I merely swapped out my hard drive with a fresh one...and installed the Mandrake 10. Much to my surprise, everything ran perfectly. I then reinstalled my regular 80 Gig 7200 RPM Western Digital Caviar hard drive, formatted it and installed Mandrake 10, just as I had done with the other Linux software. Again, Mandrake 10 installed perfectly and has run perfectly....not a glitch......not a freeze...nothing. I am very pleased. At the moment, I'm running the Mandrake Linux 10 free edition. I wasn't about to spend money buying various flavors of Linux until I found one which would work properly. I'd end up with a very large and expensive library of Linux which wouldn't work. Since this is working so well, I'll probably buy the Mandrake 10. The free edition did not have the drivers for my NVIDIA video card, but I installed it from the NVIDIA website, folllowed instructions and it works fine. I also performed all the Mandrake 10 updates and all is great.

If you continue with the same issues, I'd suggest trying the Mandrake 10....which was suggested to me...and which is working.

zenarcher

Thanks for the info. I really hate to ditch SuSE, as I'm a huge fan of it, and have grown quite accustomed to the ease of use of it.

However, I am at wits end with this situation, and frankly quite tired of dealing with the freezeups.

I'll probably give Mandrake 10 a try here a bit later, hopefully their network install is as easy as SuSE's was...

Much of my reading led me to try SuSE, as well. If it's any consolation, I'm thrilled with Mandrake. I think it is every bit as user friendly as SuSE, if not moreso. Easy to install, easy to update and quite clear and understandable. Since my little bit of experience with Linux was primarily rebooting with SuSE....I can only compare the two as to ease of use...and have to say Mandrake is great. I have a lot to learn, but Mandrake is nice. I consider myself to be reasonably competent at understanding instructions....I worked in engineering related fields for about 25 years....I own a small computer repair business....and have worked with MS O/S since DOS 5.0....but Linux is an entire new ballgame...and I am happy to be working on the learning process there. I totally understand your frustration...I spent all my time with one hand on the keyboard and the other hand on the reset button with SuSE. I hope you'll give Mandrake a try and have the same success I've had.
zenarcher

It's interesting so many have noticed this problem.

I've been using Linux for years now.

After my last motherboard burned up ( PC Chips M.B.) I picked up a new Gigabyte M.B. (7VT600-RZ).

My old Linux installation (SuSE 8.2) was too out of date to support all the new features on the mother board and I was tired of recompiling my ALSA drivers after every kernel update.

So I switched to SuSE 9.1.

I had to fight it a bit at first but finally got things up and running.
Now after a month or so I start noticing the freeze-up others have mentioned.
It seems to only happen when I'm running Enemy Territory (an awesome 3D FPS online game).
I've tried different desktops and have the same problem, so it's not KDE.

My desktop will freeze and then after a few seconds will come back to normal.
After doing this a few times, it will freeze completely.

When the desktop freezes, the keyboard is unresponsive so pressing ALT-CTL-Backspace or ALT-CTL-DEL do not work.

I have the luxury of having several computers on my home network.
When the freeze occurs, I can still SSH into the "Frozen" computer.
The only thing that unfreezes it is killing X with a 9 signal.
e.g.: killall -9 X

When X restarts, everything is back to normal for a while.
A complete reboot gives the same results.

I really want to figure this out so let's take a little survey.
If your machine freezes answer these questions:

1 - Are you using an Nvidia graphics card and Nvidia drivers (not the nv driver but the nvidia driver).

2 - What CPU? I am running an Athlon Thunderbird with a standard x86 kernel (not the athlon kernel).

3 - What chipset does your M.B. use? Mine has the KT600 and VIA 8237 bridges.

4 - Onboard LAN? IF yes, what chipset (I have VIA 6103L LAN Chip)?

I really suspect the Nvidia driver but I'm trying to see what is common.
Please help me out be responding.


Thanks!!!