Ubuntu desktop freezes

[calyco]

Everything runs fine in Ubuntu, the only problem I am having is the desktop freezes randomly. I am not able to move the mouse or use the keyboard, the hard drive LED stays lit in a constant state. Any ideas on whats happening here? Btw where do I look to check the logs for system activity for future troubleshooting?

 

[n0cmonkey]

/var/log should be where the logs are kept.

Does the whole system freeze or just X?

 

[calyco]

Thx for that n0cmonkey, I just checked /var/log/messages and I dont see any errors. It crashed again after I plugged the AC adapter back into my laptop and closed the lid. When I opened it back up there was only a blank screen left and the little character that keeps blinking as if its waiting for a command, like when your at the terminal, just without the "user@host:~$". The hard drive led again is stuck at a constant state. I tried ctrl + alt + F1 to switch to another terminal but it didnt do anything. Im taking a guess here but could a be a problem with acpi?

 

[calyco]

Let me clarify it a little, in my first post the freeze occurs randomly, gnome is locked up and ctrl + alt + F1 dosent do anything so it seems to me to the whole system froze.

In my second post, the lock up occurs only when I plug in the ac adapter to laptop.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: deviant03
I'm taking a guess here but could a be a problem with acpi?

Yup, sounds like it. There are lots of laptops that just plain don't work properly when it comes to suspending/sleeping/resuming. If you Google around on your laptop's model number, you might find some hints. But this area can be very frustrating for Linux users.

 

[calyco]

Ok forget about the "AC plug in freeze", if I plugg in the AC when the lid is up (LCD displaying something) then it works fine. 😉

 

[VirtualLarry]

can you pass "acpi=no" to the kernel image command-line in the bootloader? (I think that's it, correct me if I'm wrong, Linux-gurus.)

 

[DogFaceMonk]

In the first post it could be that your hard drive is failing, or it could be that you have something like updatedb that thrashes hard drives set to run without being niced up. A few questions though:
1. Is the hard drive thrashing and making a lot of noise? (Go by the noise not the indicator light.)
2. Does anything seem to be triggering these crashes (removing power cables, excessive bumpiness, anything)?
3. What model of laptop is it? (Some newer laptops have hard drive protection built in and it can freeze a Ubuntu system if you hit a bump.)

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: deviant03
Thx for that n0cmonkey, I just checked /var/log/messages and I dont see any errors. It crashed again after I plugged the AC adapter back into my laptop and closed the lid. When I opened it back up there was only a blank screen left and the little character that keeps blinking as if its waiting for a command, like when your at the terminal, just without the "user@host:~$". The hard drive led again is stuck at a constant state. I tried ctrl + alt + F1 to switch to another terminal but it didnt do anything. Im taking a guess here but could a be a problem with acpi?

If you're curious, you could disassemble the DSDT on your laptop and try to reassemble it, which will likely give you quite a few warnings. For the usual reasons, most laptops use Microsoft's ASL assmebler, which allows much bad code to compile. ACPI is Intel's standard, and the associated utilities are implemented very well by them.

 

[calyco]

Since the random lock ups only happen a few minutes after I yank out or plug in the ac adapter to my laptop I think its safe to say the problem has to do with acpi. Leaving the lid open before I plug in the adapter seems to have solved that problem. Instead of random freezes now I get random log outs. Three times already Ive noticed that this happens sometimes when I open firefox. I found this in /var/log/messages right before I am kicked out of X and back into the Ubuntu login screen:


Mar 17 13:46:40 localhost gconfd (deviant03-31601): Received signal 15, shutting down cleanly
Mar 17 13:46:40 localhost gconfd (deviant03-31601): Exiting

VirtualLarry - Wont disabling acpi disable all the power management features too? Well at least when I was using FC3 with acpi disabled my monitor wouldnt even auto shut off after a specified time and I need that.

 

[n0cmonkey]

From what I've read ACPI is more trouble than it's worth.