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It seems that every few months of use or so (haven't really been keeping track to tell ya the truth >_<) my Fedora installation becomes really unstable. I'll be in the middle of doing something and then all of a sudden it freezes and locks the entire system. And unfortunately I need to boot up my Mac OS X iatkos installation (mostly unused due to fail drivers :/) to get my HFS+ directory (100GB partition currently containing essentially all of my Media...) out of read-only mode after having to force shutdown the comp. Now this has happened to me on every distribution of Linux I have used for an extended period of time (probably a month or two at most = extended :/) on this laptop (Fedora 10,11,12 ; Linux Mint 7 ; Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Seems to happen ONLY at shutdown for some strange reason @Ubuntu 10.04 LTS unlike the Fedora distros...)) My Fedora 12 installation has currently became so unstable that I have started using my Ubuntu installation to wait for the release of Fedora 13. Just kinda wondering if anyone knows what causes this and if there is anyway to stop it from happening. I don't necessarily need a fix to this problem unless its somehow serious like my Hard Drive failing or something (Only would work if this was Windows as Linux is too smart to not notify me of that lulz... plus this comp is just less than a year old.) but its still a pain in the ass, esspecially considering that I currently dont have a bootloader (due to Windows or iatkos, idk...) and im using the Arch Linux live CD to boot... Plus everyone loves it when you lose all your progress right? heh... - was thinking of posting this on LQ but with this I figured, why not here? - after getting the e-mail EDIT : Computer in Question : Dell Inspiron 15 (actually a 1545? (as in title)) Had it since around May 28, 2009 4GB of ram (running 32-bit OSes so only accessing around 3.4GB in most cases (although Ubuntu 10.04 is reporting 3.9GB so >_>...)), Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.00GHz 300GB something Hard Drive that I had an issues with in the past (linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/…) (had this freezing problem ever since I switched to Linux though (1 week since I got this comp lol so idk about this thing happening in Windows...)) so yea... LSPCI Readout 600 characters isn't enough :/ - --StarGater93 |
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Sometimes such instabilities can come from improperly tested software. Do you download a lot of programs that are not frequently updated, like some games? These can be slightly incompatible with future versions of the same os. My advice: in the future, only download software that you can find a homepage for, and it has been updated in the last 2 months or so. it is unlikely apps may cause system hang. in different distos also. but who knows... maybe
(04 May '10, 07:38)
Web31337
Yea I never really tried any Linux games unless ZSNES counts :/... Although I think i do tend to download quite a bit of software on Fedora...(gotta love Yum's command-line syntax over Apt-get's regardless if Apt-get might be better in some possible way)... I think the only reason it did it in Linux Mint 7 was when I used Audacity for some weird reason... it was a long time ago and im mostly a Fedora user... As for Ubuntu, well as stated thats only during shutdown on some occasions >>... Fedora is the only one that randomly fails (out of the null other OSes I use "long term" )>>...
(04 May '10, 23:54)
StarGater93
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I suggest monitoring the memory usage, hard drive temperature, and other system qualities. You can run If your time is free, go ahead and do all this without changing your installation. For best effect, I would suggest just reinstalling the most stable distribution you've found for that lappie, and make it as minimal an installation as possible. The less packages installed the less variables there will be to account for. Then configure system monitoring to see if a clean install still has temperature issues. Also consider running a sector scan on your hard drive (man th ee2fsck -c option). A a ram check is worth the time, too. Personally, I abandoned Fedora as a distro because I couldn't keep my system stable and up to date, and I'm way too busy to regularly reinstall an OS. I personally have few complaints about Ubuntu. |
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It's easy to rule out hardware problems: I'd suggest starting by running a memtest and a disk diagnostic. Linux uses memory much harder than XP, so you can get by a memory error on XP that will cause Linux to fail. Memtest can be run from almost any live CD or from the grub boot menu if that's what you're using. Or, you'll get all the diagnostics from any one of a number of troubleshooting distributions: http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ Also, being a Dell, if you can still get into it, your utility partition contains diagnostics. I think it's an "F11" at the boot if you haven't over-written the Dell boot partition. (When I get a new machine, I tend to get one with a small disk, since vendors charge so much for upgrades. Then I swap it out for a larger, faster drive from a vendor like newegg.com and use that for my computing. In addition to cost savings, the advantage is that, should something go wrong, I have the pristine vendor-supplied disk for diagnostics as well as warranty claims.) Good Luck, DBA |
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Maybe some hardware specs would help us answer your question. Yeah, post your hardware configuration, how old your PC is, etc... I had similar troubles in Windows for 3 years. After I moved to linux it suddenly disappeared and my system is ultra-stable at any load, funniest thing is I still don't know what was the source of problem. But my closest guess can be a HDD failure.
(04 May '10, 07:37)
Web31337
Updated the OP with the LSPCI readout and other Hardware Specs & info...
(04 May '10, 23:49)
StarGater93
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Please accept an answer so the question/answer can be finished. Or provide more details so we can help.