Hey guys,

I am not a total newbie, trust me, but I am fairly unexpierianced at troubleshooting linux.

lately I have had an unexpected problem with (appearently) my screensaver. the issue is not user dependant, because every user has the issue. after entering screen saver, the system will reocover fine, however, two times now the screensaver has simply locked up and the system will simply not recover. I cant get to console, "CTRL+ALT+Backspace/Del" does not work, and a hard cold reboot is required. after the restart everything seems normal.

It has only happened twice but it has me nervous. I have run a series of hardware diagnostics and nothing failed, so this leads me to believe that the issue is software related.

is there a tool that I can use to log events that could lead up to this "crash"? or better is there a tool on my system that is running that may have already logged this?

I am particularly suspecious of my system's suspend state controls but I want more information before I go screaming to my conputer manufacturer for a soloution.

here is my system info: (not sure what you need to know so here is all of it... if it matters.)

Dell Dimmension 8400
P4 Prescott DT 800, 3.2Ghz
1GB DDR2 (2 512 modules)
160GB seagate SATA HDD (non raided, in combination mode for driver support in fedora)
NVIDIA Geforce 6800 PCI Express w/ dual Dell 1704fpt monitors (am useing the Nvidia 1.0-7676 driver with twinview configured... I configured that manually via xorg.conf.)
i810 integrated audio.
Hitachi 16x DVD reader
NEC 16x DVD+/-RW (dual layer)
generic External usb 2.0 enclosure w/ 250GB Western Digital IDE HDD. (usually off, used for data backup and recovery.)
HP psc750xi all in one printer/scanner (ACTUALLY WORKS!!! useing hplip driver and xsane)
Gnome 2.10.0

Ouch! That must hurt. If you have another computer networked to this one, you can ssh ito it and reboot that way. Sorry, but I don't have any ideas about your screensaver problem. Could it be the screensaver itself? You might try reinstalling it. Good luck!

*UPDATE*
since the last post, my system has become increaseingly unstable. now the lockups are relativly random but still seem to be limited to memory intensive operations. I have run MPmemory diagnostics and extended system diagnostics (which I trust as both run OUTSIDE the os alltogether, ie: they are run from bootable floppies) and both have passed with no issues.

I need to admit now that I have entered my dangerous phaze in the learning experiance... you know the point where you have attained enough knowledge to be dangerous.

is there any utilities I can use to track program usage and lockups?

Yes try top, and good luck.

ok, this is reply # 4, it has been my observance that by the time a post gets here, unless it is a really hot topic, noone reads this far so if I dont get a responce I am going to repost.

I have tracked my issues to kernel modules... or appearent lack therof.

I have done some research and some of the additional symptoms I have include slow performance in memory driven applications. slow load times, no DMA and inability to enable dma.

these lead me to look at the chipsed 'driver'... it would appear that my chipset is ither not supported or not properly installed in my kernel.

I am running Kernel 2.6.14-1.1637_FC4smp (installed via RPM)
I have an Intel 925 Express (Alderwood) chipset.

My system is a dell so it is a custom board. I have researched this on google and I have skimmed kernel.org but I cant find sufficient docs on this, I am not asking anyone to just give me the answer (I wont learn and get out of my dangerous phaze if you do) but I need SOMETHING that will lead me to fixing this.

Your problems sound mysteriously similar to a problem I had.

For me, I haven't had problems since I went into GNOME's power management wizard and told it to shut off the monitor after 30 minutes or so. Previous to that, no screen saver, no power saver. ... which, in the good old days, was the only safe bet for a solid system. Anyway, with FC4 default install, a crash every couple days. After going through the wizard, uptime of .. uh.. 9? days and counting (If you're inclined to do the math, my last crash was 2 days after my original post above)

Your milage may vary. My hardware is not dell, it's generic Tokyo stuff. It was pretty nice when it was new (3 years ago?) so I'm sure the board has power management.

..if this fixes your problem, it'd be funny. Linux has gone green, and must have power managment!

Keep me updated