Re: [gentoo-user] KDE and HARD lock ups.

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 3:00 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> If I had to guess I'd say, since this followed a power failure where
>> the machine was live and operating (if I've understood the thread
>> through a quick scan) that some file on disk has gotten corrupted and
>> it's that corruption that's causing the problem. You've checked
>> memory. Let's assume that te processor and MB weren't damaged by this
>> event. If that's the case - and unfortunately I don't know of any way
>> to ensure it hasn't as it requires one to have a bit-accurate image of
>> the machine before the power failure - there's probably no way to
>> eliminate this as a possibility short of an emerge -e @world.
>>
>> It's not where I'd start. I'd probably look for core dump files or
>> very carefully do experiment s trying to isolate exactly what part of
>> KDE is firing off the problem. re-emerging the NVidia driver is a
>> no-brainer as it takes no more than 1-2 minutes to test things.
>> Rebuilding the machine is certainly more involved.
>>
>> If you have lots of disk space you might rsync the whole machine to a
>> new partition to do the work, then using something other than KDE
>> which doesn't crash rebuild the copy from a chroot which leaves the
>> machine usable while the rebuild is going on.
>>
>> None of this sounds like fun...
>>
>> - Mark
>>
>>
>>
>
> I did something similar at least.  I have two drives in here that are for my
> OS.  I have a third that is for data, videos, audio stuff and documents.
>  The data drive is a 750Gb.  The old main OS drive is a 160Gb and the spare
> OS drive is a 250Gb.  I downloaded a stage3 tarball.  I then set up the
> spare OS drive and mounted the partitions basically following the docs.  I
> then copied over /etc, disfiles and the world file.  After that, I did a
> emerge -e world which installed everything that I had before.  It also has a
> slightly newer kernel as well.
>
> So, after running my memtest this morning while I took a nap, I booted into
> the new install.  I checked with the mount command to make sure I was in the
> new install too.  I deleted EVERYTHING KDE in my home directory.  After
> that, I logged into KDE.  A box popped up that composite was disabled.  It
> said I could hit shift alt F12 to enable.  After I started Firefox, it
> locked up complete with my keyboard lights blinking again.
>
> What does Fluxbox use as opposed to KDE?  Both use the Nvidia drivers right?
>  I use KDM for my login screen and I think nvidia is loaded when it starts
> and it uses nvidia thereafter.  So, if it was the driver, would it not mess
> up in Fluxbox too?   What makes Fluxbox work and KDE fail?
>
> Could my video card be having issues?  I may take the sides off and unplug
> replug everything and give it all a once over.  Maybe just a bad connection
> or something.  Maybe?
>
> If one of you guys were me, would you order a video card and try that?  Keep
> in mind, I have surge protection inside the UPS on the wall side.  I also
> have a surge protector strip that my modem, router, puter and monitor plugs
> into.  It's kind of hard to imagine that a surge could make it through all
> that and not at least smell up  the place a bit.  I'm not saying it couldn't
> but just hard to imagine.  I got surge protection coming out the ears here.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Dale

And this is your newer machine machine, correct? The one you built a
few months ago IIRC?

Sounds like you've takn the right steps to eliminate lots of problem
sites and it just isn't working. What a drag!

A machine lockup can come from almost anything not working. Bad
software is the easy one, but it could be hardware.

As for fluxbox vs KDE that's apples and oranges. They probably use
totally different parts of X and do it in very different ways. However
if fluxbox works perfectly for weeks then it wouldn't seem likely to
be a hardware issue unless it's a really unlikely corner case, but you
wouldn't think KDE would hit is every time and fluxbox never hits it.

Have you tried the most up to date ~amd64 drivers?