problem: system freezes.

Rick Stevens ricks at alldigital.com
Tue Sep 10 18:42:18 UTC 2013


On 09/10/2013 11:20 AM, William Mattison issued this missive:
> Good afternoon,
>
> Rick Stevens wrote...
>  > Need a lot more info:
>  >
>  > Make and model of computer
>  > Video card type (nVidia, Intel, ATI, etc.)
>  > Memory size
>  > Disk size and type
>  >
>  > You can (as root) run "dmidecode" and "lspci" from the command line
>  > and include that with your response. We can then try to help you.
>
> I get the following from "lspci":
> ---------------
> bash.2[~]: lspci

(some stuff snipped for brevity)

> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK106 [GeForce GTX
> 660] (rev a1)

That's the one. So it's an nVidia GeForce GTX660.

(more snippage)

> If you need a re-run with certain options, let me know.

No, that's fine.

> "dmidecoe" gives me over 1100 lines of output.  Please tell me what
> options to use to get this down what you need, or some way of paring the
> output down to a reasonable size.

No, it's really not necessary. The information below is sufficient.

> A few more facts that might provide clues:
> * This is a dual boot system; the other OS being windows 7 home.  I
> experience no problems when using windows.  Does this rule out hardware
> problems?

Well, for the most part, yes. Windows is a bit more forgiving when it
comes to wonky memory so that may still be an issue, but my guess is
it's OK.

> * This system has an ASUS Sabertooth Z77 motherboard.
> * This system has 16 gigabytes of memory.
> * This a dual monitor system.  I have two Dell U-2711 monitors, each
> 2560x1440.  These are "wide gamut", not sRGB.
> * This system has an ASUS Xonar Essence STX audio card.
> * This is a "diy" system.
>
> Yesterday evening, the display suddenly wend "psychedelic", showing
> seemingly random, changing, loudly-colored squares (?) all over both
> screens.  First time, after a few minutes, I had to shut off the power.
> Second time, after several minutes of the "psychedelic" display, it
> froze, after which I had to shut off the power.  Curiously, the audio CD
> kept playing normally (with normal sound coming out of the speakers)
> until I turned off the power.

Yeah, that's typically the driver having issues or memory problems.
Next, we need to see if you're running the nvidia or nouveau drivers.
You can look at the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and see which driver is
loaded. Alternately, try (as root):

	lsmod | grep -i nvidia

If you get an output line that contains both "drm" and "nvidia" in it,
then you're running the nVidia driver. If you get no output, try:

	lsmod | grep -i nouveau

If you get output, then you're running the nouveau driver and it may
have issues with your hardware. If you decide you want to try the
nVidia binary driver, then you'll need to install it. Here's a 
reasonable guide as to how to do it. It's for F18, but F19 is similar:

	http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2013/fedora-18-nvidia-guide/

>
> "linuxnutster" wrote...
>  > I'd start by going here:
>  >
>  > http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ <http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/>
>  >
>  > Burn it to CD/DVD, set your bios to boot up on  CD/DVD. Go to the memory
>  > section and run the highest version of memtest86+ to check your memory.
>  > The last time I had freezes like that in Linux, I'd blow a couple of
>  > memory bars.
>
> This is in progress.  I'll post something when I have something worth
> posting.  A caution about that website.  I loaded the website in
> Firefox, running in windows.  "NoScript" was active; windows security
> essentials and Malwarebytes were hooked in.  Yet something briefly
> flashed on my screen while viewing that site.  It wasn't up long enough
> for me to see specifically what it was, but it sure looked like an ad.
> Subsequent scans showed no problems.  Be careful with that site!

I just checked the site and it seems OK. Just make sure you check the
various checksums on the image you download to verify it's correct.
If you have your Fedora install DVD/CD, I think it has the memtest86
program on it. Just boot that CD and select the memory test option
instead of the install option.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    ricks at alldigital.com -
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