Freeze default install thinkpad t42p

[redeemingspirit]

Howdy folks. I thought I'd try out fc5 test 2, after blowing away Gentoo for a Vista beta. *shudder*

Anyway, I thought things were great until I had major freezing. Hard freeze, I couldn't kill X or switch to another terminal, had to fully power off the system and bring it back up. I've never had this happen in linux before, I don't even know how to troubleshoot the issue! I tried a yum update in runlevel 2, but there was an issue with elfutils-lib dependencies. Any suggestions for troubleshooting the issue?

[drunkahol]

Not sure about troubleshooting, but I've installed fc5 test2 on a Thinkpad T40 without any problems.

I know this doesn't help troubleshoot, but it may help narrow things down hardware wise.

Were you in the middle of the install? Had you completed the install?

If you were in the middle of an install, did you try doing different types of install? GUI, Text, network, CD etc?

I had hard freezing issues when trying to install on a new Fujitsu Seimens PC at work, but it went OK on a Fujitsu Seimens laptop. I guessed that the newer chipset on the PC was to blame.

What age is the T42p you've got?

Cheers

Duncan

[redeemingspirit]

Hi Duncan,

It's last year's T42p, so pretty new. The install acually completed ok, I ran it once installing Gnome, once installing KDE. It would very randomly freeze - sometimes on the login screen, sometimes 30 mins after logging in.. I'm really not sure exactly what the criteria is. After logging back in, no clues in the logs.

I think I'll try logging in and changing to init level 2 and removing all the startup elements I don't need, see if it blows up. There seem to be a lot of modules I don't need running by default too, trash those grab the latest ati drivers and go...

[drunkahol]

Could it be a hardware freeze due to internal temperature?

Can you set the CPU speed lower in the BIOS? (I've never tried :) ) Just wondering if it reaches a certain temperature that the hardware sends a shutdown signal that completely buggers the drivers.

I had similar problems with an HP DL585 4U 4-way Opteron server with 32Gb RAM last year. System would completly freeze occasionally and then restart after a while. The logs would say absolutely nothing as it was the disk controllers causing the problem. I could actually get the hardware to crash on command by loading up with disk IO. Tracking it down was certainly a task as you've described. We kept trying with varying numbers of services running untill we found the errant system. It was the HP Insight Management drivers which monitor the health of the system.

It's runlevel 3 you want though isn't it?

Cheers

Duncan

[redeemingspirit]

Hi Duncan,

Thanks for the input. It's definitely a device driver of some sort, I'm not sure what else would cause a hard freeze like this. the good news is I got the same issue running SuSE 10.1 Alpha4. Random freezes. Leaning towards video drive, I think they're both using the radeon driver rather than the ati driver set. Still try an update, and see.

Is runlevel 3 multiuser networked no GUI?

Thanks!

[drunkahol]

Yes - runlevel 3 is multiuser no GUI.

runlevel 5 is multiuser GUI

Debian do things different with runlevels 2 and 3 I understand.

If you think it's video driver related, have you tried running extensively in runlevel 3? You could still load up the system with work and see if it still freezes.

An alternative is to use the Generic VGA drivers? Someone can correct me on this if I'm wrong. It would allow you to keep using GUI applications (albeit in a fairly cruddy desktop).

Cheers

Duncan

[redeemingspirit]

Hey Duncan,

I ran in runlevel 3 for hours last night with no problems at all. I'm coming from Gentoo, so now I just need to do my homework to see where the modules are loaded from, take out the radeon driver and add in the fglrx from ATI, and see if all is well.

Thanks again,

Chris

[infraray]

I just tried to install FC5 T2 and got a total system freeze as well on my Dell laptop. It installed fine but when I did a reboot it froze at the point where it brings up the network. It sat for like a 1/2 hour or so and it sent my fan into overdrive and the only thing I could do was to power it off. I tried another reboot and same thing. I since wiped it out and went back to FC4. I think I'll wait a while longer.