My system keeps freezing randomly. Everything locks up, and a noise comes from the speakers. The mouse stops, keyboard stops responding. Everything. Specs are as follows:

Abit NF7-S version 2
Seagate 120GB Barracuda 7200.7
512MB TwinMos 3200 w/ Winbond
Radeon 9700Pro
Antec TruBlue 480W PSU

Temps are in the low 40's.

Please help me!!!

This sounds like a hardware issue. Do you have any other OS on the same machine? If so, does it also lock up randomly?

I suggest doing basic checks-
1 - take out and carefully re-seat the RAM
2 - unplug each drive and carefully plug each one back in. Same with pci and agp cards.
3 - same with power lead from psu.

See if that sorts it.

I had a similar problem with the default kernel of Mandrake 9.1, completely randomly the system would lock up (about once a week) and the num lock/caps lock keys would flash, and I'd be forced to hard reset. I compiled a new Mandrake kernel from the 2.4.21-25mdk source, and last time I checked, that computer had 10 days uptime. I'll be able to check on it again in 2 days when I visit back home again for the weekend, and it should be up to about 24 days if it didn't lockup.

ok well I have been through the old re seat everything and reset the bios. i have tried the latest kernel too (2.4.22) and that did not fix it either. thought it could be the ram, so ran memtest for 11hours - no errors!!! i am running out of ideas desperately here...

1. Check your BIOS for BIOS PNP O/S, Turn it Off.
2. Run in console mode, no X windows, and see if it does the same thing.
3. Does /var/log/messages file say anything at all near the lock ups?

there is no bios pnp setting in my bios

still does it without X running.

got to look at the logs when I get home, but I think last time I looked after the crash there was nothing, no warnings or errors just seems so random

1. You'll be looking for anything that looks weird in your /var/log/messages, such as the dreaded word, "Oops".
2. I downloaded the manual for your M/B (quite a drag at 56kbs), and looked it over:
(note, return bios settings to original setting if not successful)
a. In Bios, PnP/PCI Configuration
(1) Change Resources Controlled by 'Auto' to 'Manual', reboot, test
(2) Try the above in combinations (right down settings) with item 'b' below.
b. Try and disable the APIC in the BIOS and reboot, test.
(1) if that works, try enabling APIC again and setting to 1.1, reboot and test.
d. Disable Serial ATA in BIOS, reboot and test
e. Disable System BIOS and Video RAM caching, reboot and test, leave this one disabled anyway, that's how it's supposed to be.
f. Disable all in Onboard PCI Chip, reboot and test
(1) if that works, try enabling each device, one at a time, to see which device is the 'culprit'
g. Always (for now), assign IRQs for Video and USB in bios.

Well, that's about it, good luck on your adventure. It was good you ran the memtest as it gives a good hardware check of your memory, cpu and motherboard. The testing above will take some time and alot of reboots, but you just don't know where the problem is, if /var/log/messages doesn't give any indication of what's wrong.

Before you try faheyd's comprehensive method, you could try a quick test: add 'pci=biosirq noapic acpi=off' to the kernel boot parameters. You do this by editing /etc/lilo.conf and adding it to the 'append=' line under the 'label = "linux"' entry. (you need to be root to do this) For example, if the line in /etc/lilo.conf is:

append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi"

then change it to read:

"quiet noapic pci=biosirq devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off"

Save the file, then issue this command at a console, as root:

lilo

'noapic' is the same as turning off APIC in the BIOS, 'pci=biosirq' is the same as setting Plug n Play OS to No in the BIOS, and 'acpi=off' is equivalent to turning off ACPI in the BIOS (your symptoms could easily be the power management system malfunctioning). If you get no joy with this, then try faheyd's more detailed method.