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*GASP* My linux freezes.....

Crusty

Crusty

Lifer
Okay heres the deal. My computer freezes almost EVERYTIME when xscreensaver is running. But it also freezes randomly when I am using my soundcard, built in AC'97. My vid card is a Radeon 8550DV. My guess is that it is an IRQ conflict, what do you guys think, and what should I do to try and fix it?

btw, I am using Gentoo Linux. If need any more info, I'll be here for awhile, just ask away.
 
It sounds more like a possible heat issue to me... Failing that, perhaps bad RAM? I don't know if that would affect a Linux system like it would a Windows system. Though I still bet heat...

\Dan
 
Hard to pinpoint it really. Maybe try a different kernel or distro.

I'm in the process of trying to track down a freezing problem I'm having. I have about 6 different kernels, and it freezes on all of them except ONE. Ugh. :disgust:
 
Originally posted by: EeyoreX
It sounds more like a possible heat issue to me... Failing that, perhaps bad RAM? I don't know if that would affect a Linux system like it would a Windows system. Though I still bet heat...

\Dan
Click to expand...

Its not heat, and I just ran MemTest86 on my ram a couplda days ago.
 
Originally posted by: MCrusty
Originally posted by: EeyoreX
It sounds more like a possible heat issue to me... Failing that, perhaps bad RAM? I don't know if that would affect a Linux system like it would a Windows system. Though I still bet heat...

\Dan
Click to expand...

Its not heat, and I just ran MemTest86 on my ram a couplda days ago.
Click to expand...

You might want to try switching kernels. My system froze quite a few times when I tried using the 2.4.22 kernel. No messages, no warnings, nothing, so right now I'm using 2.4.21 and everything runs fine 😕
 
More then likely it's the video drivers. Lots of screensavers use 3-d libraries that aren't used normally in a desktop and can cause issues with a bug in a driver, thus freezing X up.


This will happen time to time from my propriatory Nvidia drivers.

Usually it doesn't freeze everything up, just X. And since it has control over your keyboard and monitor those things can be rendered useless.

Try hitting ctrl-alt-F1 (or F1-6) to switch to a console and see if you can shutdown X (or just reboot) from there. Try ctrl-alt-backspace or ctrl-alt-del or something like that to break out of X.

Usually what works if you have a second computer or laptop or something is to ping the frozen box. If you get a response then the OS itself isn't frozen, just X. Try telnet/ssh'ing into it and shutting it down (shutdown -h now) or (reboot) from there.

That way you don't risk corrupting any files.

However if the computer is completely frozen, especially if the keyboard lights are flashing, then your screwed and I would begin to suspect a hardware problem.

I'd try just turning off the screensaver, or trying different drivers. Using X11's drivers instead of DRI/propriatory ATI or visa versa.

If it begin freezing up randomly after that, then I would strongly suspect a hardware issue like irq conflicts or memory errors and stuff like that.

What drivers are you using anyways?
 
Well first off, my keyboard lights are flashing when it does lock up....so thats not good.

I am using te xfree-drm drivers. 4.3.0-r6
My 3d acceleration works great, Quake3 plays great and glxgears i get ~1400 fps.
 
Unfortunately I don't have much experiance with ATI or xfree-drm stuff, but maybe you could try a different revision of the drivers.

Or maybe try to muck around with the settings in your bios. Tell it you have a PnP aware OS, or maybe tell it you don't have a PnP aware OS. Turn off the serial and/or parrallel ports if you don't use them. Reserve a irq for VGA if you can, or not. Stuff like that.

(also if your overclocking, especially FSB overclocks, stop that. 🙂 )
 
It's a modern BIOS's job to assign IRQ.

IRQ's have to do with how the hardware physically responds to different devices, so you'll deal with it in every OS on at least the x86 hardware. I don't know about stuff like PPC or HP8000.

So you can still run into issues with conflicts. Generally on any OS (including w2k/XP, but not win9x) using the non-PnP aware function is usually the safest, but if it's causing issues then sometimes it's better to let the OS take a bit more control over it. Bios's can be pretty buggy at times.... Maybe check for updates.

Changing slots may make a difference, I am not realy sure.

You can check how your resources are assigned by checking out the /proc/ directory. Should be in the interrupts file. There a few other files in there that would be informative. The numbered directories are were the proccess info is expressed. All these are dynamicly created files, so you can't realy edit them.
 
My /proc/interrupts file

CPU0
0: 1074433 XT-PIC timer
1: 18283 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 662831 XT-PIC radeon@PCI:1:5:0
8: 2 XT-PIC rtc
10: 115125 XT-PIC aic7xxx, via82cxxx
11: 180473 XT-PIC aic7xxx, usb-uhci, usb-uhci
12: 35486 XT-PIC eth0
14: 13 XT-PIC ide0
15: 32955 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
ERR: 0


Hrmm...
 
Now does it freeze-up immediately when it goes into the xscreensaver? Could be a coincidence. You know some power management stuff can kick in after 30 minutes or so, that causes it to freeze up, which will be coincedently when the screen saver is always operating. Try passing acpi=off and apm=off to the kernel when it boots up.

Also could be related to the problem with the sound card....

Try disabling/removing that and see if it will lock up then.
 
Hrmm...I dont think it is power issues because sometimes the screensaver will work just fine for hours on end..but I will try it in a little bit once I finish my CS project.
 
Cool. I understand how frustrating it is, the best thing you can do is just try one thing after another until you narrow down the problem. Usually I try the easiest and work my way up to the hardest.

 
Well first off, my keyboard lights are flashing when it does lock up....so thats not good.
Click to expand...

That means the kernel has entered kdb, since you're in X you can't do anything with it though. If you were on a console you could hit 'bt' and see a backtrace to get an idea where it oopsed.

It's not an IRQ conflict, there's no such thing as IRQ conflicts with PCI hardware, so unless you have ISA hardware it's irrelevant. The only cards I know that have problems with IRQs still are sound cards Creative, sometimes their SB line needs to be moved around a bit to find out where it likes to run.
 
That's funny. I've had issues with IRQ's trying to get a nvidia card working... but that was probably a bug with the drivers.

edit:

So that's the kernel debugger, eh? So that means it's a driver bug?/

Is there some way to break out of that?
 
That's funny. I've had issues with IRQ's trying to get a nvidia card working... but that was probably a bug with the drivers.
Click to expand...

I've never had a problem with the nVidia drivers, I would suspect your problem was with the other card sharing the IRQ.

So that's the kernel debugger, eh? So that means it's a driver bug?/
Click to expand...

Could be anything in the kernel, you can try typing 'go' which will try to continue execution of the kernel but most likely it won't work or will crash again quickly.
 
Its that the screensaver is freezing, its also that my computer freezes other time randomly. Thats why I thought there was another problem. But so far I've been up and crash free for 7 hours. Hopefully I will make it the rest of the night!
 
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