12.1 hangs from time to time.

English Hardware
1

Hi.

I don’t know if this the right spot but I have done an install on 64 bit equipment so…

The system is a HP HDX 18 laptop with Intel quad core processor, 8 GB ram and a Nvidia GT 130M graphics card.

The install went OK with no real problems. To take full advantage of the graphics and to play HDMI sound, I used the one-click install to install the Nvidia video drivers.

Now, when I use the system, from time to time it will hang completely. The only way that I can get out of the situation is to do a power off.

I looked through the messages file (/var/log/messages) and found no error like a segfault. The messages stop at the time of the failure, and then continue on at the new restart time.

I had Ubuntu 10.04.2 installed previously, and had no problems of this sort.

Does anyone have any ideas where I can look for errors, or any suggestion as to how to proceed?

Thanks… Tom.

2

I normally suggest you install the nVIDIA driver the hard way over using the 1-Click method, but it is hard to say what is wrong. I have a bash script that can get some info on your system you could copy from a terminal session and post into a message here for us to read:

H.I. Hardware Information - A Bash script to install and run inxi with default options! - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Now before you would install the nVIDIA driver a different way, it should be uninstalled first, but here is a Blog on installing the driver the hard way:

Installing the nVIDIA Video Driver the Hard Way - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

And here is a Link to a bash script to install the latest nVIDIA driver you have downloaded:

LNVHW - Load NVIDIA (driver the) Hard Way from runlevel 3 - Version 1.20 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

3

Thanks for the quick reply. I have installed INXI as you suggested and ran it. The output can be downloaded from here.

Dropbox - hi.txt - Simplify your life

I remember the good old days of having to compile the video drivers. It was a fun process.

Thanks… Tom.

4

I am not sure how you created that capture, but its hard to read when it includes all of those escape sequences. Normally, I highlight it in terminal, paste into kwrite and then from there where ever I want without color or anything else. Here is your video section:

Graphics:  Card: nVidia G96 [GeForce GT 130M] X.Org: 1.10.4 drivers: nvidia **(unloaded: fbdev,nv,vesa,nouveau) **Resolution: 1920x1080@50.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: GeForce GT 130M/PCI/SSE2 **GLX Version: 3.3.0** NVIDIA 290.10

While here is the same thing from my PC:

Graphics:  Card: nVidia Device 1201 X.Org: 1.9.3 driver: nvidia Resolution: 1920x1200@50.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 560/PCI/SSE2 **GLX Version: 4.2.0** NVIDIA 290.10

I am not sure why yours has the comment **(unloaded: fbdev,nv,vesa,nouveau) **but none of those are loaded on my PC either and I guess you have **GLX Version: 3.3.0 **because of the GPU chipset you are using, but you do have the latest video driver loaded. I see you have kernel version 3.1.0-1.2-desktop x86_64. Would you like to update to kernel 3.2.2 to see if that might be helpful?

S.A.K.C. - SUSE Automated Kernel Compiler - Version 2.60 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

5

Just a thought - what kind of filesystem you used for the partitions?

An also, while you say that no error was thrown at /var/log/messages it would be helpful to see those too since you might missed something.

You also did not provide any info regarding what were you doing when the system hanged - is it there a pattern or not?

Cheers.

6

I created the file using hi > hi.txt.

I puzzled over the format but found if I opened the file in a terminal window using less, I got a nicely formatted coloured display identical to the one hi creates when first run in the terminal window. I missed the part about cutting and pasting. Sorry.

I will look into installing a new kernel using your link.

Thanks so much for your help… Tom.

7

File systems are:
Drive 0
sda1: NTFS (Windows 7)
sda2: Extended
sda5: Swap
sda6: /boot ext2
sda7: / ext3
sda8: /home xfs

Drive 1
sdb1 /storage xfs

The file exits at link http://dl.dropbox.com/u/334410/messages.

I had started up the machine yesterday am and after about 5 minutes it hung. I waited a few minutes and restarted. Once I was up and running, I captured “message” and edited it to delete all entries prior to Jan 28, and saved it.

The halt occurred at “Jan 28 09:07:03” when it just stopped.

I was using a bluetooth mouse and thought that might be the problem, so I replaced it with a wireless one. However the system again hung about 4 hours later.

I was not doing anything special. That is, it is not repeatable. I started the computer at 11:00AM and have not had a halt today (its now 4:17PM).

Thanks… Tom.

8

I first thought it was some btrfs issues but you use ext and xfs. Not sure about xfs if it suppose to have issues or not.

Any updates /upgrades (software - hardware) installed previous to this rather non-pattern phenomena?

Any tweaks to the hardware?

Is the temperature OK?

This could be either hardware or software issue unfortunately so it’s quite hard to investigate.

I would suggest that you use a bootable OS to check the hardware just in case.

On a Fedora bugzilla page I saw that they suggested to disable the vbox module if you do not use it. Maybe this could help.

Cheers.

9

Hi again.

I had followed all of the advice given above to no avail. When I installed a new kernel, I lost the wi-fi. So…

I installed Ubuntu 11.10 (I hate Unity) which was workin OK until I did an update to a new kernel. The kernel changed from 3.0.0.15-generic to 3.0.0.16-generic, and then the hangs started.

I dug around further and found that there is a lot of discussion on X freezes with kernel 3.0.* for all kinds of distributions. It appears that there is a conflict with the X system and the kernel which can create random freezes, that can only be corrected with a power off.

I am going to compile the latest and the greatest - 3.2.7 and try it out. If it works out with Ubuntu, I may move back to openSUSE. Did I say I hate Unity?

Thanks so much for your help. It is really appreciated… Tom.

10

On 02/23/2012 08:06 PM, tcada wrote:
> Did I say I hate Unity?

so, install KDE, or Gnome, or LXDE, or Xfce or any of the dozen or so
others…!

–
DD http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
What does DistroWatch write about YOU?: http://tinyurl.com/SUSEonDW

11

Hello,

I have a Geforce 8600 gt and the up-to-date drivers hangs my computer (version 295.x, this also happens on Win7 =S).
The issue in my case was the nvidia driver… i removed it (i was using nvidia repository) and manually installed the driver 285.x and my system doesn’t hangs anymore. maybe doing this might help you too =D

12

If you have “manually” installed the nVIDIA driver, that is good. I have a few blogs and utils on the subject should you need any further assistance with this.

Installing the nVIDIA Video Driver the Hard Way - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

LNVHW - Load NVIDIA (driver the) Hard Way from runlevel 3 - Version 1.45 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

S.A.N.D.I. - SuSE Automated NVIDIA Driver Installer - Version 1.46 - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

13

Just recently I experienced a hang - but only X - the system was reporting that the GPU had fallen off the bus - I found this Linux Nvidia: NVRM: GPU at 0000:01:00.0 Has Fallen Off The Bus Error and Solution

I added /usr/bin/nvidia-smi -pm 1 to /etc/rc.d/boot.local and so far all is good (for about three weeks). This would be a fully patched 12.1 with Nvidia’s driver from the nvidia repo.