f16 - locked out again

[Robert Moskowitz]

This happens once in a while, but this is the 2nd time this week, though 
the symtoms were different.

The latest occurance, I locked the screen <ctl-alt-l> and came back 
later to use the system.  I hit an arrow key which normally brings up 
the password dialog box and even before the box showed up I started 
typing in my password.  This normailly works fine and opens up to the 
workspace I was last on.

This time nothing happened.  There was a flash across the screen like 
the dialog box coming up, but the screen stayed black other than the 
portion of the top panel that normally shows when the screen is locked.  
I was able to <ctl-alt-F2> to another console and back.  I tried 
<alt-F1> then 'r' and saw the spindizzy but nothing after that.  In the 
end, I rebooted by logging into the F2 console.  Perhaps I should have 
done a tail on messages first?

Various things have happened over the past month on f16 with gnome 3.  
Not coming out of suspend and having to ppull all power for a hard boot 
recovery (AC and battery).  Gnome locking on me with no keyboard or 
mouse clicks, though the mouse will mouse around.

So it is still unstable for me.

Advise on trouble shooting?

Oh, and to the point of pulling the battery to get to a hard boot 
state.....   My brother-in-law was talking about his recent purchase of 
a notebook with a sealed battery; ie he cannot remove it.  His question 
was on which kind of warranty to get.  But now my question is:  does 
anyone have a notebook with a sealed battery and if so, how do they 
recover when nothing works?  When you cannot switch to another console 
and the power button does nothing?  How do you force a boot if you can't 
pull all power?