Got thousands of hits on this reported problem, lots of speculation, lots of try this or that but no cause or fix. I'm running 2 relatively new desktops on Suse 12.1, one custom install, one default install. Both freeze up at random, sometimes right on the login screen as soon as KDE starts up, but more often at random, irrespective of the number or kind of progs running. Only a hard reset will unfreeze this dud. Both desktops worked and work just fine on all earlier Suse versions, Ubuntu, and all MS-Windows.

Anybody here know the real cause and fix?
Thanks

random is a bit "odd"

suse is experimenting with udev
so on shutdown some devices might not be unmounting correctly
( and if not unmounted right then might hang on the next boot )
-- example: my ipod nano shuffle , yes it is very old
if do not remove it BEFORE shutdown then it hangs on boot - until i unplug the usb

but at random times ????
are you changing flash drives and THEN it hangs ?
moving an external usb drive to a NEW usb plug ?

Thanks, John. No h/w changes or moves, no s/w changes other than updates, don't have flash drives and hardly ever use USB except for mouse. I tried to narrow down the lockup; alas, in vain. It can happen in the middle of LibreOffice Writer, GIMP, Kaffeine, login, anywhere in KDE (no lockup in userlevel 3 or below). Same problem as reported by about 3000 googled suse 12.1 users. Occurs 5-10 times during an 8hr study period, sometimes in quick succession, sometimes with hours in between. If I notice right away a frozen key or click and switch to another screen (with Ctrl-Alt-F9) I can sometimes run part of the shutdown script with Ctrl-Alt-Del, but it will still freeze about halfway through the script. If I don't, inputs seem to load up the memory with nothing left to change screens with and everything freezes up. The logs say nothing because the reset dumps the RAM.

this is a new install of 12.1
you did not try to upgrade 11.4 to 12.1

you might want to upgrade ( fresh install !) of 12.2
12.1 has a mix of the old intv and "systemd"
for most it is not an issue
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Systemd
and the fedora page on it
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/systemd

see the "services" below


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

now as to locking

you are not running say "freenet" or a TOR node
-- things that WILL eat up CPU cycles and RAM

did you turn off the system indexing in KDE ( this is basically the same as Microsoft Windows indexing)
it is in the KDE config menu and NOT in yast2
"yast icon / favorites / configure desktop
(or type in to the terminal )
turn off "desktop search"


Have you disabled services you are not using ?
like blue tooth - if you have NO Bluetooth device in use
for KDE
the yast icon( in the same spot as the windows "start" )
computer / yast/
then click on system services