Hi I have a major problem..whenever i leave my computer for a couple of minutes it just freezes. I cant do anything at all, no keyboard input(no 'lock leds work) and no mouse input. All i can do is reboot via power switch. As you can imagine this is inconvienient if i need to leave the comp for even a short time, like answering the phone etc.

I havent had this problem with any other distros (RH, Mandrake) and would hate to have to change to one of them since i realy like Slackware.

Any help would be much appreciated

phunkymunky

That's a tough one.

The fact that it only happens when you're not using it suggests it's something that kicks in after some time of inactivity like a screen saver, or something that wants to shut the monitor off or put the computer in low power mode.

Are you using the X-window system when this happens? If so, try booting into plain multi-user mode (runlevel 3) and see if that helps.

Also, try looking in /var/log/messages, /var/log/syslog, or any /var/log/XFree86* log files you may have. See if there are any errors that might be related.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Lyle

thanks for the reply...

cant see anything obvious in the logs (that doesnt mean there isnt anything there tho !! ). The system would freeze at random points both in console and X. it would freeze if i was installing anything or sometimes while i was in the middle of browsing the web.

It seems that there is no single thing that causes the problem.

I have changed the runlevel to single user (1) and so far havent frozen the system even when i went out for a couple of hours it was still responsive when i got back.

Any ideas??

If anyone could let me know how i can determine the difference between what the system is doing in runlevel 1 as opposed to level 3 so that i can try to see what is causing this i would be most grateful.

also is it OK to leave it at runlevel 1 permanently (security issues etc)

cheers

phunkymunky

It could also be a power supply issue. I had similar problems a while back; if you by any chance have the K7S5A motherboard, then I'd say that's definitely the problem. If so, check to make sure your power supply is at least 350 watts or so. Mine was only 300 - it was a perfectly good power supply, but this motherboard is apparently very picky about what kind of juice it will drink Search around and see if anyone else has had similar problems with your model of motherboard.

Though, if you have this problem only with a particular distro, then it seems less likely to be the problem. Though, then again, I never had problems with it under Windows - only Linux. There may be minor differences in power usage between different distros, which could be enough to nudge it towards failure. It's worth looking into! Especially if you can borrow a power supply from a friend to see if that helps. Good luck!

By consulting /etc/inittab, we can see the difference between the runlevels:

• /etc/rc.d/rc.K is run to bring the system into single user mode
• /etc/rc.d/rc.M is run to bring the system into multi user mode; additionally, /etc/rc.d/rc.4 is run if runlevel 4 (X11 with KDM/GDM/XDM) is requested.

It sounds like something that's started out of /etc/rc.d/rc.M is causing the problem (unless it's a hardware problem as suggested by wapcaplet).

I would make a backup of my /etc/rc.d/rc.M file and in the original comment out the part that starts the Advanced Power Management (APM) daemon. My second guess would be the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) event daemon. Third guess would be the hotplug stuff.

Lyle

have commented out the APM and ACPI parts and everything seems OK. Have left the PC on for a night and it was still good in the morning.

Thanks for the help..am looking into compiling my own kernel so this is something i can look out for in future.