On Apr 18, 2013 8:42 AM, "Bill Harris" <bill_har...@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote: > > I'm running an up-to-date Debian Squeeze 64-bit on a laptop. It's usually been stable, as I might expect from Debian Stable. From time to time, though, it freezes at seemingly random times. I notice it mostly when I'm typing and the keyboard stops responding, but I'm not sure it always freezes while typing. I can't do anything at that point, not even select a virtual console. > > I can't find an Alt-SysReq key on the laptop keyboard to kill it semi-gracefully, so I kill it with the power button. > > When I reboot, it usually boots partway and then freezes again. It's almost always just after it's said it's starting gdm3, checking battery status, or starting ACPI. > > Getting past that point is challenging. I've tried disconnecting the power and taking out the battery, but that rarely helps. What usually helps is to boot into Windows (W7, if it matters) and then shut down and boot into Debian. Sometimes it seems to help to pull the battery for a bit, too. Sometimes neither seem to help, and so I keep trying combinations until it reboots. > > Does that sound at all familiar? If so, is there a solution (either to keep it from freezing or to recover more rapidly after freezing)? What data (log file, I presume) do you need to help me find and fix the prroblem? > > Thanks, > > Bill
Hi Bill, Sounds rather frustrating to have no error or message that could help troubleshooting. Any errors you might have might be in /var/log/ messages, syslog, or.. any files under that directory, however if it freezes because of a hardware failure, chances are that the OS might not even get a chance to log anything. A question I would have is: can you estimate a period it takes the system to freeze? Does it happen many times a day? Yes, I do realise you said "random", but my suggestion would be to try and work on Windoze for that estimated period of time, see if it freezes again, this way you could possibly eliminate the possibility of a hardware failure, and start blaming a driver maybe.. Hope any of this helps. Good luck! -- Sent from my Brick (TM)
