System freezing frequently

[Tim]

On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 10:08 -0400, Chris Kurecka wrote:
> a coworker is going to bring in some thermal paste (hopefully
> tomorrow) for me to try.  He did tell me though that based on the fact
> that all the fans are good, the paste seemed pretty good, and more
> importantly that the CPU and disk go crazy when the system does
> freeze, he doesn't think that it's heat related.  I should point
> out (and probably should have before), that every time I've gotten my
> PC to freeze has been while I'm using it, not when it's just sitting
> there,

A over-heating issue is most likely to happen, if it does, while the
computer is being used.  When completely idle, the system will be a bit
cooler.  Also, over-heating issues tend to take a while to build up,
rather than happen instantly.

> and it specifically happens immediately after either mouse or
> keyboard input - it seems to happen more often with the mouse, but I
> think just typing has triggered it as well.  But it's from simple
> stuff like clicking or using the scroll wheel.  Maybe even just moving
> the mouse.  And then the system freezes, but the CPU monitor in the
> panel sometimes keeps going and shows 100% CPU use, and the disk light
> is going nuts. 

Though the above does seem to indicate something else.  Keyboard and
mouse activity shouldn't be all that intensive.  Though I have to say
that I've got one PC that does seem to take typing quite hard, and you
can really peg the CPU if you hold a key down until it repeats.

The hard drive going nuts could be down to some program running away and
using so much RAM that it also starts using swap space.  That sort of
issue ought to be easier to trace, though.


-- 
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 important to the thread.)

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