Fedora 17: Freezes completely on a regular basis

[davidoff]

Problem:
Fedora 17 64bit freezes on a regular basis no matter what programs I use. I suddenly can't move the mouse curser, everthing freezes and the display turns off and on again. When a song or a (Youtube-)video is playing, the video freezes too but I can still here the sound.
==> I have to push the reset button on my computer or hold the power button. It is very annoying especially when I have important documents opened and not saved..

Things I've figured out:
* Same problem on Ubuntu and Fedora 17 xfce spin. (These are the two linux I've tried besides the gnome 3 version)
* Problems only occur AFTER running through first software updates on a freshly installed Fedora system.
* After figuring this out, I reinstalled Fedora again and before making the software updates I read through them and unchecked graphic relevant updates. PROBLEMS DON'T OCCUR NOW.
So I can restrict the source of the problem on the following bug fix updates:

Xorg X11 ati video driver
Xorg X11 vesa video driver
Xorg X server

Please tell me which logs you need. I will deliver.

[Edit]: I will have to install the updates first to reproduce the problem.

Graphic hardware:

ATI Radeon HD4900

[george_toolan]

Did you enable power saving for your GPU? Check http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature...gement_Options

[davidoff]

I don't think so. How can I check for sure? Should it be enabled? If I write dynpm in a terminal the command is not found.

[george_toolan]

Try

cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method

cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

and echo to change the settings

echo "profile" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method

echo "low" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

[davidoff]

output power_method:
profile
output power_profile:
default
changed to low now

I will now install the remaining updates to see if the problem still persists.

[Ian_A_Gibson]

My version of Fedora 17 does this as well - screen freezes; mouse freezes; screen blackouts as well. So I'd be really interested if the proposed work-arounds produce effective results. Also as a complete newb to Linux, some idiot proof instruction would help too, should the proposed instruction bear fruit.

[Randall Bingham]

I too am havingh the same problem. I am a newbie to linux/Fedora. If anyone knows how to fix this could you please provide instuctions to someone who is still trying to learn a new language.
I am running Fedora 17 KDE 64 bit.
My machine consists of the following:
AMD A6 3500 processor with integraded AMD Radeon HD 6530D graphics
Asus F1A55-MLX motherboard
3 gig RAM

If I let the machine idle for about an hour it locks up. The mouse quits working and everything freezes. Also sometimes the screen will black out after about 10 minutes of no activity. I have to press the reset on the machine and reboot.

Thanks in advance to any help.

[davidoff]

Ok. I've tested the workaround for many hours and the problem seems to be gone. Thank you so much george_toolan!

Ian_A_Gibson, Randall Bingham try the workaround and tell me if it worked for you too!

[Ian_A_Gibson]

OK I'm completely new to this, so what I did was copy the code into console as root user and the reply came back : No such file or directory. Clearly I'm missing something...

Any ideas?

Ian.

[Randall Bingham]

Originally Posted by Ian_A_Gibson

OK I'm completely new to this, so what I did was copy the code into console as root user and the reply came back : No such file or directory. Clearly I'm missing something...

Any ideas?

Ian.

The same thing for me. I'm going to need more specific instructions on doing this.
I have extremely limited expirence using the terminal so could you please provide step by step instructions.
Thanks in advance,
Randall

[rajeshsali]

[root@family power]# cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method
cat: /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method: No such file or directory

[root@family power]# cat /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile
cat: /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile: No such file or directory

[root@family power]# echo "profile" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method
bash: /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method: No such file or directory

[root@family power]# echo "low" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile
bash: /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile: No such file or directory

[root@family power]#

This is the output I get on the recommended commands for freezing problem.

I request you to kindly have a look at it and recommend me.
Thanking you,
Rajesh.

[davidoff]

Hello, It's me again. It seems that the problem is still not solved for me. Fedora freezes again regularly. Is there anything else I can try?

[george_toolan]

Also sometimes the screen will black out after about 10 minutes of no activity.

That's a feature and not a bug. The screen will turn off after 10 minutes to save energy ;-)

[Randall Bingham]

Originally Posted by george_toolan

That's a feature and not a bug. The screen will turn off after 10 minutes to save energy ;-)

Except I had that feature turn off. It is not going black now after reloading the OS and when I used EasyLife for the extra features I did not select unlock the screensaver. It is however still freezing up.

[tashirosgt]

Originally Posted by davidoff

Hello, It's me again. It seems that the problem is still not solved for me. Fedora freezes again regularly. Is there anything else I can try?

There are lots of random things you can try such as switching the brand of mice that you use (if it's a desktop machine). My FC 16 and 17 desktops don't work with the iOne brand USB mice that I own. They work with lenovo (IBM) mice.

You can try to do a rational diagnosis of the problem. (This does not always succeed!) That would involve examining your log files (/var/log/* and /home/*/.xsession-errors). If you get really hard freezes you might have to enable the SYSRQ key to proceed.

The term "freeze" is ambiguous. There are various degrees of freezes. One simple way to divide freezes is that in some cases the nulock led on the keyboard works when the numlock key is pressed and in others it doesn't. In some cases, CTRL-ALT-F2 brings up a console and in others it doesn't.