My Linux box tends to lock up sometimes. Bad enough that all network activity ceases (dropping SSH connections), the on-screen GUI cursor stops moving (and I understand that it's a hardware cursor, so it ought to keep going even if processes are deadlocked) and the SysRq key doesn't work - although I suspect that might be because it's a USB keyboard…
To my mind this evidence leads to one of
If it's the kernel, I might be able to setup my laptop to monitor kernel messages over a serial port. I'll have to get myself a null-modem cable and give it a try.
For anyone who isn't me, here is the relevant output from the lshw command:
ikari
description: Desktop Computer
product: OEM
vendor: OEM
version: OEM
serial: OEM
width: 32 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.2 dmi-2.2 smp-1.4 smp
configuration: boot=normal chassis=desktop cpus=2 uuid=00000000-0000-0000-0000-00508D9D7584
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: AB9/AB9RPO(Intel965+ICH8)
vendor: http://www.abit.com.tw/
physical id: 0
version: 1.x (BIOS:15)
*-firmware:0
description: BIOS
vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
physical id: 0
version: 6.00 PG (04/02/2007)
size: 128KiB
capacity: 448KiB
capabilities: isa pci pnp apm upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy360 int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer int10video acpi usb ls120boot zipboot
*-cpu:0
description: CPU
product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6320 @ 1.86GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
| Date | Change | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 2007-09-23 | Changed BIOS PCIe compliance mode from 1.0a to 1.0 | No change - still locks up |
| 2007-09-23 | Changed BIOS to keep CPU fan on max | No change - still locks up |
| 2007-09-23 | Avoided using Compiz, incase it was exercising the nvidia driver in a bad way | Still locked up, but the GUI cursor was still movable, albeit it very jerkily. An attempt to connect via SSH timed out, system request keys failed |
| 2007-09-23 | Ran memtest for ~8 hours | No problems found |
| 2007-09-23 | Updated BIOS to v21 (2007/08/16) | Can't boot from Hard drive anymore (they're not listed on the boot-order page of the BIOS!). Cleared CMOS by shorting jumper as per Motherboard manual, system now enters Grub stage, but Ubuntu doesn't appear to boot. Changed BIOS to do USB keyboard via BIOS instead of OS so I can interact with grub. Booting in recovery mode (so the boot log is printed to the screen) shows that it is getting stuck retrying to connect to one of my harddrives. Switched IDE controller mode from IDE to AHCI: cannot find boot device. Switched back, boot gets stuck bringing up SATA - downgraded kernel to 2.6.20-15 (2.6.20-16 also exhibits this problem). Found that when in IDE mode, there are options to control how the drive is presented in the Standard BIOS Settings page. After much experimenting, settled on update v17, as all others seems to cause boot problems. |