Re: [gentoo-user] Laptop keeps freezing

[Willie Wong <wwong@princeton.edu>]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 09:26:34AM -0700, Grant wrote:
> My Gentoo laptop keeps freezing.  It will stay up for about 30 minutes
> and then stop responding altogether.  I've checked the logs but there
> is nothing informative there.  I'm all up to date with packages.  How
> do you troubleshoot something like this?

The first thing to determine is that whether it is freezing of the
user interface or the underlying kernel. For desktops I often compile
the kernel with the option that it flashes the keyboard LEDs when it
is panicking, so I can see at a glance that the omelette has hit the
fan. 

So: 
  a) This freezing behaviour, does it manifest only in X, or does it
happen if you boot into a non-graphical environment?
  b) If both, is it possible to have your laptop on a private network
with ssh/telnet listening? If so, please see if after the freezing
behaviour, you can still telnet/ssh into the laptop? If you can, can
you run top from the terminal and see if anything is just taking up
100% resource? 

Other things to check:
  c) could your laptop be overheating? 
  d) is this a new phenomenon or something that has happened
consistently since the dawn of time? i.e. did you update any software
recently or is this something that just happened right out of the box
with your spanking new hardware? 
  e) If this is a spanking new machine, and if it comes with one of
the bastard OSes pre-installed, does this also happen running that
operating system? (Maybe you are due a refund?)

HTH, 

W
-- 
Willie W. Wong                                      wwong@math.princeton.edu
408 Fine Hall,  Department of Mathematics,  Princeton University,  Princeton
A mathematician's reputation rests on the number of bad proofs he has given.
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