Linux computer freezes

Hello!

The LINUX OS computer I am using is lagging progressively, it freezes and jobs are killed hours after submission. Crt+Alt+F7 does not work. I wanted to open a terminal to kill the job that was using memory. When the computer is frozen, there is nothing I can do, except turning it off and stating over.
Does anyone have any ideas, what command should I use to prevent this problem? Or is there a cleaning program (Windows analog) that I could use to speed up the computer and prevent freezing?

Thank you,
Mihaela

Hi, Michaela, and welcome to LQ.

In order to give folk a chance to resolve your problem, you need to give us more information on your hardware and distro setup.

If you have inxi installed, or can install it, run inxi -F to produce a summary of said info which you can paste here.

yes, as @hydrurga said, what is all running on your PC when it freezes up? need to find the cause to prevent it from happening again. process of elimination needs to be taking place here.

sounds like a potential memory leak, that is to say a program isn't properly cleaning up its memory as it goes, slowly filling up memory with garbage until you run out of ram, causing the computer to go slower and slower as it uses up available memory until it crashes, i would run a process monitor to see which programs are using up the most memory and process, and as the computer slows, start closing programs one at a time starting with the ones that use the most memory/cpu, then waiting to see if it has any effect. then trying each one individually for a while until you find the one that crashes your unit, then try everything but that one and see what happens, could be more than one program so keep going until you know which one(s) are responsible.

Looks like the programs aren't able to clean up the memory as sayed frieza.
I had a similar problem and reinstalling the programming languages compilers helped a lot, in my chase the compilers (gcc talking more exactly) were having errors when parsing the scripts and they just started to fill the ram and overheating the computer, making a tremendous snowball that was magically fixed reinstalling gcc. Idk if in your chase this will helps but i think it worths give it a chance.

Do you updated the computer before the computer started to freezing? Maybe a bad update could be the point.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by mihaelad Crt+Alt+F7 does not work.

try F6, F5, F4, F3, F2, F1 instead.
does it bring you to a text console where you can log in with your usual credentials?

It might help to know the specs of the computer.

He meant inxi from post #2.

Originally Posted by hydrurga Hi, Michaela, and welcome to LQ. In order to give folk a chance to resolve your problem, you need to give us more information on your hardware and distro setup. If you have inxi installed, or can install it, run inxi -F to produce a summary of said info which you can paste here.

IE:

[tim@Titan ~]$ inxi -F
System:    Host: Titan Kernel: 4.11.5-200.fc25.x86_64 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE Plasma 5
           Distro: Fedora release 25 (Twenty Five)
Machine:   Device: laptop System: Dell product: Latitude E5470
           Mobo: Dell model: N/A UEFI: Dell v: 1.12.6 date: 02/07/2017
Battery    BAT0: charge: 81.6 Wh 101.2% condition: 80.6/81.6 Wh (99%)
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i5-6440HQ (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB 
           clock speeds: max: 3500 MHz 1: 2387 MHz 2: 2602 MHz 3: 2265 MHz 4: 2445 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel HD Graphics 530
           Display Server: Fedora X.org 119.3 drivers: modesetting,intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.5
Audio:     Card Intel Sunrise Point-H HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.11.5-200.fc25.x86_64
Network:   Card-1: Intel Ethernet Connection (2) I219-LM driver: e1000e
           IF: enp0s31f6 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 84:7b:eb:3b:c6:af
           Card-2: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi
           IF: wlp1s0 state: down mac: 0e:dd:6b:da:a1:42
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1024.2GB (2.6% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: SanDisk_SD8SN8U1 size: 1024.2GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 367G used: 8.2G (3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-2: /home size: 93G used: 2.7G (4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 16.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 53.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 188 Uptime: 1:23 Memory: 1555.0/15929.5MB
           Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.11

Not sure if this helps. The last 2 updates. Fri Nov 3 03:31:56 UTC 2017 and Fri Oct 27 20:34:35 UTC 2017
as of earlier had that issue in May also. both required reinstalling Samba.
Seems Samba is everywhere and there is broken links.
Hope this helps.

Use the live cd for your distro and run fsck on all drives. That would be the easiest option.

--When you post a question to this group you need to outline what distro your using and which version.