random complete system freeze in 10.04

[Ben]

System:
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04

Hardware:
ThinkCentre M51 8141-KUB
Complete system info at: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/quickPath.do?quickPathEntry=8141KUB

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 540 with HT Technology
2.5GB PC3200 CL2.5 DDR SDRAM UDIMM
40GB 7200RPM S-ATA HDD
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (i915 chipset)
DVD Multi-Burner Plus 16x
Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet

Problem:
Entire system randomly freezes.

Symptoms:
System is not pingable after freeze.
SSH not operational after freeze.
Alt-SysReq REISUB keys do not function.
Ctrl-Alt-Backspace does not function.
Ctrl-Alt-delete does not function.
continuous Memtest scans do not fail.
Forced power off required to recover.

[Ben (svc4you)]

Additional notes:

There is no particular action I need to be performing to cause the system lockup to occur.

It's locked up viewing videos, viewing web-pages, sending / receiving email, installing packages, etc.

I've also tried removing the intel video drivers to no effect (so I re-installed them), as well as disabling effects to no avail.

[Ben (svc4you)]

upstream kernel 2.6.34-020634-generic is exhibiting the same issue, only not as often. Instead of a couple hours between system freezes, now it's about 4 - 5 hours between system-wide freezes.

[Ben (svc4you)]

Upgraded to Maverick. Problem still exists.

I'm getting a little nervous about hardware damage and data loss due to the sheer amount of forced power offs I must perform to recover.

[Ben (svc4you)]

Ok, here's some interesting additional info:

Problem occurs in other distros too. I installed:
-Fedora 13
-OpenSuSE 11.1

and the problem occurred in both installs, so I don't think it's something unique to Ubuntu.

I've re-ran all my PC Doctor diags and still no hardware problems...

[Ben (svc4you)]

also... I have gone back to 10.04 as 10.10 made the time between system lockup even worse. I also went back to a mainline kernel: 2.6.32-21-generic

[simonnewton (simon-simonnewton)]

Im also experiencing this issue in Jaunty. Upgraded to Maverick and the problem remains. Sometimes the problem happens during rsync, other times when nothing is happening. I caught a kernel panic in console once, but was unable to copy/paste it as it was only console. Nothing in dmesg or kern.log though! Ive installed the kernel crash recipe patches and will check for /var/crash after next crash.

[simonnewton (simon-simonnewton)]

This crash happened again, during heavy IO (rsync again). /var/crash directory was created, but nothing put into it even with the kernel crash patches. At a bit of a loss. Think the only thing I can do is take a photo of the console screen maybe?

[Ben (svc4you)]

Ok, so now ubuntu has cost me a hard-disk due to constant freezing and having to constantly cold-boot to recover.

The hard disk has been replaced with a like model.

I still get the freezes with the same frequency.

Can anyone help?

[Ben (svc4you)]

...and again and again. Anyone? Why is there no support here?

[winggndm (miguelmarte)]

I am experiencing the same issue. I believe this issue started some where around kernel version 2.6.30 when i used to run Gentoo last year. I don't believe it is a hardware issue or bios bug. I have tried several different bios version, video drivers and xserver version. As far as i can tell its a kernel bug as sysreq does not work and cannot log in through ssh.

Hardware is listed bellow.

Asus A8V Deluxe running bios 1015.002, 1017, and 1018.002
AMD Athlon 4400+
4GB OCZ Ram - Tested and no errors found
BFG Nvidia 6800OC 128MB

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 645741

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]