I just did a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10 (desktop edition) and for some reason it keeps freezing forcing me to power off then back on (then it eventually freezes again!). I can't figure it out to save my life.

I thought it was the vid card (because the same card boggled my old Ubuntu 7.10 installation) so I removed it, but that didn't solve anything. I then thought it was over heating due to lack of air flow or something so I placed it away from the corner to an open floor and it still freezes. I've been running Ubuntu since 6.06 and never ever had this problem before, it's weird.

Any ideas why it keeps freezing and how to resolve it?

P.S. - P4 3.06 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, DVD-/+RW DL burner, floppy: P4B533-E mobo, old Nvidia AGP vid card, Trendnet TEG-PCITXR gigabit NIC PCI card and Adaptec RAID card (2 x 1 TB SATA hard drives)

Several things come to mind.

1) Try to boot with a live CD, and see if the system freezes.

2) Still having booted with the live CD, mount the hard drive, and go find /var/log, and look in your logs for messages that might point to this problem.

3) Look on Ubuntu Launchpad
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu to see if there is anything similar to your problem.

4) Try another graphics driver, like vesa. To do this, you'd have to boot into recovery mode; run dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, take all default answers, except when you come to driver.

5) Turn off advanced graphics. I would do this before 4).

I've had that happen in the past. It was a bad power supply.

I second cmnorton with the following elaborations- replace various pieces of hardware, only one piece at a time: so if you replace the power supply but everything still freezes... then put back in the original power supply and replace the RAM, etc etc. Also not a bad idea to run a health check on your hard drive http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/...failing-smartd

Let us know how it goes

Thanks! I ordered a new power supply (since it's the cheapest component) and I'll start with that. The current PSU did give me issues off and on over the last 4 years when I had Windows XP on it.

I just hope it's not the mobo cuz it's a beeyatch to re-mount, re-cable and re-pin a new one.

I'll see how the new PSU works out and let you guys know

so I finally got the new PSU and Ubuntu ran for much longer (about 2 and a half days) but eventually froze too. I currently got the machine booted off the Ubuntu 8.10 Live disc (about 12 hours now), so I guess I have to wait and see what happens.

I mounted the hard drive and so far no errors reported in /var/log yet.

had the machine running Ubuntu live cd for 24 hours and it didn't freeze (which may haven't been a long enough test), so I imagine the culprit may be the hard drive. I cloned Ubuntu to another drive and it's been running for 14 hours so far.

Anything else I should try and test out?

dangit! the computer froze again, so it's not the hard drive.

Any other ideas?

Other ideas

Try running memtest for a while to check for an occasional fault in your memory, and a stress program on your CPU. The new PSU you purchased has both enough Wattage and enough quality to deliver stable power?

Try the Ubuntu live-cd test you did with another live-cd, say openSUSE 11.i or Fedora 10, and see if there is a difference.

I'm sorry that these are more guesses than good ideas.

Thanks! I'll try memtest86 next.

The old PSU (Antec TruePower 380) was 380 watts and the new PSU (hec/Orion HP485D) is 485 watts, so I'm pretty sure it's getting enough juice.

One other thing that comes to mind is that this computer was slightly damaged when shipped. Some parts of the case had dings, dents and scratches and inside the motherboard had come loose from the backing/flooring (mobo screws popped off). Also the heatsink for some minor looking chip on the mobo came off (and is still off). The Windows XP installation on the computer at the time still ran well and there were no freezes/lock ups (though this current Ubuntu 8.10 installation is freezing). Could any of these things and events have something to do with my Ubuntu 8.10 freezes?

Well if the computer got roughed around in shipping that is a likely candidate. You may want to make sure everything is nice and secure (i.e.: all the RAM/cards are securely in place)- seriously though- if that beast is under warranty get a new one since they shipped it to you all haphazard.

oh, no it's not under warranty. i built this computer almost 5 five years ago. it was shipped recently because I didn't want to take it with me on the plane when I moved here

anywho, i ran memory system stress tests and they were inconclusive because i ran the same tests on 3 other machines and they all randomly passed and failed on numerous passes.

now i'm testing cmnorton's tip #4 and removed all nvidia related stuff using synaptics package manager. this actually may be the culprit (at least I'm praying it is) because I had another nvidia card (geforce 3 ti 200) installed before this current one (gts pro) and that former card locked up my previous Ubuntu installation on another computer before I finally removed it (the ti 200). i don't know why i stupidly used it again with this current installation. maybe the downloaded and installed nvidia drivers for the ti 200 were mucky and still loaded even with this current older lower end gts pro card (i didn't bother uninstalling the drivers)........ i hope this is it