This is actually a rehash of an older thread but with more thorough information.

I have an IBM Netvista PC 2ghz P4, built in video and networking, lots of memory, that I have been using at work to trial many different Linux distributions as they come out. The lastest Breezy Preview is currently on tap, and I'm very fond of it except for one thing.

Every Debian based distro I have run has had the identical problem (on this machine) of locking up tight if left alone for a bit, or sometimes at moments when multiple programs are starting - in the Gnome environment.

I'm certain it is this particular computer, but I can't find anything malfunctioning. I also can run Fedora 3 or Gentoo for weeks on end without a murmur. Windows XP runs flawlessly (so far as windows goes) for weeks on end.

I've disabled all power management, screensavers, updated BIOS, updated everything to the latest, and still the same issue. I had the same problem with both prior versions of Ubuntu, and also Debian Sid and Sarge.

Anybody familiar with this hardware that might have a pointer?

Ben

This is actually a rehash of an older thread but with more thorough information.

I have an IBM Netvista PC 2ghz P4, built in video and networking, lots of memory, that I have been using at work to trial many different Linux distributions as they come out. The lastest Breezy Preview is currently on tap, and I'm very fond of it except for one thing.

Every Debian based distro I have run has had the identical problem (on this machine) of locking up tight if left alone for a bit, or sometimes at moments when multiple programs are starting - in the Gnome environment.

I'm certain it is this particular computer, but I can't find anything malfunctioning. I also can run Fedora 3 or Gentoo for weeks on end without a murmur. Windows XP runs flawlessly (so far as windows goes) for weeks on end.

I've disabled all power management, screensavers, updated BIOS, updated everything to the latest, and still the same issue. I had the same problem with both prior versions of Ubuntu, and also Debian Sid and Sarge.

Anybody familiar with this hardware that might have a pointer?

Ben

When it hangs, does it really 'hang' completely or can you still reach the machine remotely using ssh??? If so, is there information regarding this issue in the output of your syslog, dmesg, kernel.log, etc.??

Withount this information I can't say anything about your problem.

I can only suggest you work your way through the information on these two links. They are very helpful at tracking down lock up situations. These are not easy problems to resolve.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-hw1/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...ary/l-hw2.html

Interesting, these are IBM links, and your hardware is a Netvista... Good luck.

I had a similar issue with Mandrake on a Intel Motherboard. What was causing the crash was actually the inbuilt network card. I would recommend you disabling the network card on the BIOS and see if it still freezes. If that's the problem, a cheap NIC will do it

Regards!

Well, sometimes it locks such that it responds to nothing. Other times, it acts as if all memory and Swap are fully occupied with CPU at 100%. But it's not busy. I haven't found anything in logs yet that is helpful. My first inclination was it was power management, as I noticed it while the screensaver had been running for a time, but then I've given up on that, as it has happened sometimes when it's in use too - as I said, usually when starting an application or two at the same time with other things running.

The only thing I've noticed that caught my attention was a boot message that stated cpu frequency scaling was not supported or something to that effect, as it's sort of acting like the cpu slows to a crawl. No obvious 'crash' event.

I'll check that. It definitely has an onboard NIC and video, both Intel chips. I've had really good luck with Intel NIC's in general, though.
Ben

Please do not post the same thread in more than one forum. Picking the most relevant forum and posting it once there makes it easier for other members to help you and keeps the discussion all in one place.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/rules.php

I have merged the 2 identical threads.

I have the same problem with a IBM netvista 2.4 Ghz computer, I do however use a agp nvidia card for graphics...
Did you try the previous suggestion fo an external Ethernet card ? and if so did it help ?

I did replace the onboard card with another and it made absolutely no difference. I don't think it's the video card, and I've used both the VESA driver and i810 driver with the same results. What most intrigues me and makes me think it's something in the software is that I've now been running KDE rather than Gnome for about a week, and the problem is absolutely gone. It might well have something to do with the whole HAL UDEV Gnome Volume Manager integration, but I recall the same issue before that stuff transpired.
Ben

Interesting to hear. I checked the IRQs mentioned in the article linked above. and noticed that my ethernet card shared IRQ with an USB bus... I removed a PCI USB card and now eth0 is alone. I'll keep you informed on my progress...

Well, this morning KDE was showing the same symptoms that Gnome did before. I have a new theory, because in reality nothing is truly frozen or has crashed. It's just unresponsive.

I switched to a text screen, and tried to log in. It took 5 minutes to get from the username to password. Again, not frozen, just unresponsive. The hard drive light is not coming on, so I am certain I'm not using swap space, which means the speed is unlikely to be a memory issue.

My new theory is that the cpu is somehow scaling down speed when the box sits overnight, or for long hours during the day, and then won't ramp back up at all when I go to use the PC later. This could go back to some sort of power management thing. I'll begin looking into cpu speed scaling and see if I find it I'll disable it as a test.

Ben

Might be a good theory...
I have tried to find information on how to disable or even check if processor scaling and or powermanagment is activated but have not found any useful tips. If you find out something useful I'll be glad for any info...

My computer also ran overnight but this morning is "Frooze" again...

*bump* I am having this issue with ubuntu 5.10 as well. So far no progress.
My only lead is that the PC seems to work fine until it is left to sit for a while unused (i.e. overnight) I suspect the issue is related to power management or the screensaver.

I completely suspected power management as well. I uninstalled all support, removed anything that had to do with screensavers or cpu speed, and no change. I have found it to be identical in both Gnome and KDE, and doesn't matter if I run gdm or kdm. I think it's some process completely taking priority over everything else, even though it isn't necessarily big or using memory. However, I can't figure out how to troubleshoot it further, because I can't even get a terminal window to be responsive once this freeze kicks in.

I'm fairly certain it has something to do with my specific hardware, as mentioned before, since I don't see it elsewhere. However, other distros run fine. It may even be kernel specific, although it acts like something under xorg. I tried recompiling a new kernel with make-kpkg with the latest 2.6.14-rc5, but although it boots, it doesn't see my /home partition on the second drive, although it claims to be mounted. I need to read through the config again.

Ben