I've had this problem for quite some time, and I'm quite fed up with it. I have no idea how to go about testing for the cause of this problem.

I leave my computer alone for a while ( or even while I'm using it ), and it suddenly locks up. Video stops responding, keyboard stops responding, but I did notice that the sound from my TV tuner card still works, so I'm thinking this is a video problem since it doesn't seem like it halts the WHOLE system. However, I did notice that other things freeze, for example, I'm unable to ftp into my computer once it freezes, so those services seem to be down as well.

I thought this was a screensaver problem, but then it's happened to me frequently while I was actually using the computer. I'm sure there isn't a specific app ( other than mabye Gnome 2.0. which is what I use ) that's causing it since I've had this problem when I start the system, start x, and go away for a while.


Below may be some system specs that might be helpful:

CPU: P4 1.9 ghz
RAM: 512 MB
Mobo: Intel ( not sure which model )
Video Card: Geforce 2 Ultra
Sound Card: SB Live Value
Mouse: Intellimouse Explorer 3.0
Keyboard: logitech Cordless Desktop Pro
HD: Maxtor 100 GB, 7200 RPM 8 MB cache

Software Specs:

Distro: Gentoo Linux Stage 1, RC4
Kernel: Gentoo Dev Kernel 2.6.3 ( I'm sure it's not the new kernel, I've had this problem long before I switched )
Windowing/Desktop: Gnome 2.0

Services Running:
Apache 2
vsftpd
sshd
vmware ( 4.5 )

My Video card driver is up to date, and all of my software is the latest version from recent portage caches.

Hopefully this helps. or will get me some advice as to how to start finding the cause, like maybe some tips as to what to do the next time it crashes.

Thanks in advance,

Is there anything in the logs? After next freeze look into /var/log/messages and see if there was something unusual just before the freeze time.

Hey, for about a long period of no crashing, my computer finally crashed with the same symptoms. It's odd, my computer was under no stress at the time, I closed all programs ( including TVTime, but there seem to be bttv messages ) and took a nap.

You can see right where the crash happened, and there's a string of "^@" right before my computer restarted, and obviously there's the time difference. I was assuming that's some kind of dump, but taking a look at that portion with a hex editor reveals it's just a bunch of 0x00 bytes.

I've pasted the log below, and as far as I know, there wasn't anything that had a heavy load running. I had vm-ware running, but that was idle, and I disabled windows update on that.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apr 23 23:06:51 Rel_GentooLinux bttv0: skipped frame. no signal? high irq latency? [main=1e863000,o_vbi=1e863018,o_field=1c687000,rc=1c68701c]
Apr 23 23:06:52 Rel_GentooLinux bttv0: skipped frame. no signal? high irq latency? [main=1e863000,o_vbi=1e863018,o_field=1857e000,rc=1857e01c]
Apr 23 23:06:53 Rel_GentooLinux bttv0: skipped frame. no signal? high irq latency? [main=1e863000,o_vbi=1e863018,o_field=b791000,rc=b791024]
Apr 23 23:06:53 Rel_GentooLinux bttv0: skipped frame. no signal? high irq latency? [main=1e863000,o_vbi=1e863018,o_field=1c687000,rc=1c68701c]
Apr 23 23:06:53 Rel_GentooLinux bttv0: skipped frame. no signal? high irq latency? [main=1e863000,o_vbi=1e863018,o_field=1857e000,rc=1857e01c]
Apr 23 23:07:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16844]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:08:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16858]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:09:01 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16874]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:10:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16885]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:11:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16902]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:12:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16917]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:13:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16942]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:14:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16957]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:15:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16974]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:15:45 Rel_GentooLinux vmnet-dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.40.128 from 00:0c:29:78:e3:69 via vmnet8
Apr 23 23:15:45 Rel_GentooLinux vmnet-dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.40.128 to 00:0c:29:78:e3:69 via vmnet8
Apr 23 23:16:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[16986]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:17:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17007]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:18:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17018]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:19:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17040]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:20:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17051]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:21:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17064]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:22:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17083]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:23:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17100]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:24:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17115]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:25:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17128]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:26:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17139]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:27:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17152]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:28:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17163]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:29:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17181]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:30:01 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17193]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:30:46 Rel_GentooLinux vmnet-dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.40.128 from 00:0c:29:78:e3:69 via vmnet8
Apr 23 23:30:46 Rel_GentooLinux vmnet-dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.40.128 to 00:0c:29:78:e3:69 via vmnet8
Apr 23 23:31:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17206]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:32:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17221]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:33:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17238]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Apr 23 23:34:00 Rel_GentooLinux CRON[17253]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@ ^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@Apr 24 03:38:47 Rel_GentooLinux syslog-ng[4256]: syslog-ng version 1.6.0rc3 starting
Apr 24 03:38:47 Rel_GentooLinux syslog-ng[4256]: Changing permissions on special file /dev/tty12
Apr 24 03:38:47 Rel_GentooLinux Linux version 2.6.5-gentoo (root@Rel_GentooLinux) (gcc version 3.3.2 20031218 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.2-r5, propolice-3.3-7)) #7 SMP Mon Apr 19 00:16:59 Local time zone must be set--see zic
Apr 24 03:38:47 Rel_GentooLinux BIOS-provided physical RAM map:

There's nothing special in the log... Can it be hardware related (example: graphica card getting too hot?)

I noticed, I was running BitTorrent yesterday, for the first time in ages. My computer crashed. I rebooted, ran it again, I woke up this morning to find it crashed again.

I checked the messages again, and I see more run-crons calls, not sure if cron is affected by BitTorrent.

Have you run fsck on all partitions from a boot disk/cd? It's a good idea to check if something got wrong with the filesystem (and fix it).

yeah, I tried that, everythings fine. I'm sure it's my wireless drivers. I disabled my wireless connection, went wired, and left bit torrent running again, no crash.

Time to contact madwifi I guess. I'm using the DLIink DWL620 ( extreme G PCI card ) in case anyone's had any issues with it