What version of Ubuntu?
are you doing anything specific at the time or is it totally at random? Its unusual to lock up completely.
Couple of things you can try.
Press CTRL ALT and Backspace together.(Not Delete as per the windows three fingered salute). This will restart X ( The graphical element).
If the above doesn't work then try CTRL ALT F1-F5 This will open a command line terminal ( NO X, that is sent to the background, Press CTRL ALT F7 to bring it back)
If you can get in to CLI then let me know and I'll tell you what to type then.
If none of teh above do anything press teh num lock key a few times and look if teh light on the keyboard goes on and off as expected
If the above don't work then after you restart open a terminal and type
cd /var/log
ls -lrt
the last command will list all files with full details in date/time order with the latest files last in the list. Look for any files that were written to just before the time the PC last froze.
Make a brief note of the files that have been updated since and tell me what they are.
Likewise tell me what files were written to just before the freeze.
I'm guessing you have some quirky piece of hardware that it doesn't like
Again in a terminal type
lspci
lsusb
And post the output in this thread. ( YOu can do this anytime, but make sure all hardware is plugged in particularly usb stuff that you don't always have in.)
are you doing anything specific at the time or is it totally at random? Its unusual to lock up completely.
Couple of things you can try.
Press CTRL ALT and Backspace together.(Not Delete as per the windows three fingered salute). This will restart X ( The graphical element).
If the above doesn't work then try CTRL ALT F1-F5 This will open a command line terminal ( NO X, that is sent to the background, Press CTRL ALT F7 to bring it back)
If you can get in to CLI then let me know and I'll tell you what to type then.
If none of teh above do anything press teh num lock key a few times and look if teh light on the keyboard goes on and off as expected
If the above don't work then after you restart open a terminal and type
cd /var/log
ls -lrt
the last command will list all files with full details in date/time order with the latest files last in the list. Look for any files that were written to just before the time the PC last froze.
Make a brief note of the files that have been updated since and tell me what they are.
Likewise tell me what files were written to just before the freeze.
I'm guessing you have some quirky piece of hardware that it doesn't like
Again in a terminal type
lspci
lsusb
And post the output in this thread. ( YOu can do this anytime, but make sure all hardware is plugged in particularly usb stuff that you don't always have in.)
As entwisi says it probably is some odd hardware configuration you have that it doesnt quite like. I've had problems myself in the past normally with AMD processor based systems and used to have loads of problems on IBM thinkpads.
cd /var/log /// ls -lrt said:
All the things that have been done on the date of the latest crash, was afk at the time of crash so not sure what time it happened, looks to be around 3.30 though.
And other one - crashed whilst making this post XD
Crash time 5.31pm 30/1/08
The lspci and lsusb returned this:
Also, when crashed the num lock light does not switch on and off, and none of the other things you suggested got a response.
Thanks for the help
no issue with that Andrew,
Can I ask what type of driver you are using for the Gfx card. There is a standard one in the kernel called nv or there is a proprietry driver from Nvidia themselves that is called nvidia. The latter is usually installed using the restricted driver package .
It looks like your X server is whats dying. As X manages the screen and the HID's it doesn't surprise me that you get no response from the keyboard.
If you have another PC in the network you could try enabling ssh on your ubuntu and when it 'crashes' try to log on from the other PC using Putty if its windows or ssh CLI if its another *nix based machine. That will tell you if the kernel itself is dead or if its just X.( this is one of the beauty's of Linux over Windows. A crashed X system won;t kill teh kernel as its totally seperate. If you do log on you can even kill X from the other machine and restart it (use /etc/init.d/gdm stop and /etc/init.d/gdm start )
If your using teh nvidia package try dropping back to nv to test. If its fine on that then let us have more details of what driver version you are using.
Also, Have you enabld compiz Fusion?
Can I ask what type of driver you are using for the Gfx card. There is a standard one in the kernel called nv or there is a proprietry driver from Nvidia themselves that is called nvidia. The latter is usually installed using the restricted driver package .
It looks like your X server is whats dying. As X manages the screen and the HID's it doesn't surprise me that you get no response from the keyboard.
If you have another PC in the network you could try enabling ssh on your ubuntu and when it 'crashes' try to log on from the other PC using Putty if its windows or ssh CLI if its another *nix based machine. That will tell you if the kernel itself is dead or if its just X.( this is one of the beauty's of Linux over Windows. A crashed X system won;t kill teh kernel as its totally seperate. If you do log on you can even kill X from the other machine and restart it (use /etc/init.d/gdm stop and /etc/init.d/gdm start )
If your using teh nvidia package try dropping back to nv to test. If its fine on that then let us have more details of what driver version you are using.
Also, Have you enabld compiz Fusion?