Active window turn grey ?
unresponsive ?
this has been happening for the last week ? AGGGGGGG !!
any help I'm at a loss as to why this is happininng

Do you have Compiz enabled? If so, then the darkening of windows is simply to show you it's either become unresponsive, or is working and not accepting user input at the moment.
Just be patient with it in those cases, it should fade back to normal colours shortly. If it still happens, then your system may not be up to the task you're asking it to do, or there may be a problem with the program it happens to.

Is my only solution to disable compiz ?
Why would my browser or term become unresponsive? does compiz involve itself at that layer?

No, the solution doesn't lie with compiz at all - it's just compiz way of showing that the application is unresponsive.
The problem therefore lies in the application it happens to. If it happens to Firefox, then the problem lies there.
Alternatively, if you're using a low-end system it may simply indicate that the system's resources are having trouble doing what you want it to do.

Total of 2 processors activated (7466.44 BogoMIPS).

13:59:22 up 16 min, 2 users, load average: 0.24, 0.36, 0.29
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
brian tty1 :0 13:45 15:34 1:03 0.04s pam: gdm-password
brian pts/0 :0.0 13:57 0.00s 0.03s 0.01s w

The system is not starving for resources ?
this gets to the point the the system has locked up ?? can't even open a tty to check? you can't even ping the machine from a diffrent machine ?

PS: Thanks for the response

It may be worth going (Assuming you're using Gnome) to System -> Administration -> System Monitor
As that should be able to give you at least a base idea of why it's having trouble.
For KDE, just search for System Monitor in the Kicker Menu, and it'll find it for you.

System Monitor tell me nothing cpu -10% mem --20%
I'm going to see if I can roll back to the last update of compiz i'll try that before i disable it
system is locked up AGGGGG!

Thanks again

If you pay attention... I already said it is NOT Compiz at fault - Compiz is simply noticing the unresponsiveness and dimming the window so you can see this.

Three Issues / Fedora 11
1: npviewer.bin (firefox)
2: ata1 (disk)
3: Buffer I/O (cdrom)

I've seen this before, generally there are more robust signs of failure ?
remove any media in CD-ROM/DVD devices



backup!

Kernel Bug on ata ACPI. edit /etc/modprobe.d/options add a line "options libata noacpi=1" no quotes



check the file system on reboot

sudo touch /forcefsck (if you have a running syetem) else you meed to boot single and unmount your lvm 's
****before running fsck

reboot =fsck will run with the needed option on start-up

this appears to help in my case ( your mileage may differ )
Remove browser addons ("firebug, yslow, etc etc )
sudo yum clean all
sudo yum update
should include a (** gtk update )
reinstall firefox addons (needed)
remove un needed apps

The systme appears to be stable again

thanks to all for the help




Mar 17 updates in question ?

Mar 17 00:19:48 Updated: 1:java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0-33.b17.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 00:19:50 Updated: nspr-4.8.4-1.3.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 00:19:51 Updated: 1:java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin-1.6.0.0-33.b17.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 00:19:53 Updated: cronie-1.3-4.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 00:20:02 Updated: 1:java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel-1.6.0.0-33.b17.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 00:20:03 Updated: jline-0.9.94-0.5.fc11.noarch
Mar 17 14:21:13 Updated: elfutils-libelf-0.145-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:17 Updated: transmission-common-1.92-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:20 Updated: elfutils-libs-0.145-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:22 Updated: 32:bind-libs-9.6.2-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:24 Updated: transmission-cli-1.92-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:29 Updated: transmission-gtk-1.92-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:31 Updated: elfutils-0.145-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:31 Updated: transmission-1.92-1.fc11.x86_64
Mar 17 14:21:34 Updated: 32:bind-utils-9.6.2-1.fc11.x86_64

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




Mar 18 13:50:32 localhost kernel: npviewer.bin[6917]: segfault at 0 ip (null) sp 00007fff80f7c178 error 4 in npviewer.bin[400000+1d000]
Mar 18 13:57:46 localhost kernel: ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x10000 action 0xe frozen
Mar 18 13:57:46 localhost kernel: ata1: irq_stat 0x00400000, PHY RDY changed
Mar 18 13:57:46 localhost kernel: ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg }
Mar 18 13:57:46 localhost kernel: ata1: hard resetting link
Mar 18 13:57:50 localhost kernel: ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Mar 18 13:57:50 localhost kernel: ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
Mar 18 13:57:50 localhost kernel: ata1: EH complete


Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 0
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: sr 2:0:0:0: [sr0] Add. Sense: Illegal mode for this track
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 0
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 0
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: HDA Intel 0000:00:1b.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
Mar 17 00:47:56 localhost kernel: hda_codec: Unknown model for ALC883, trying auto-probe from BIOS...

npviewer.bin is the Adobe flash plugin. If you don't mind reloading your page, hit ALT-F2 and try killall -KILL npviewer.bin.