I've posted a couple of times before...last time I was moving to PC Linux OS
Anyway, I've be using that for a while but had exactly the same issues there
i.e. random black-screen crashes


For me, I've always suspected the video-card/intel video drivers were
responsible.
One reason is that I could reproduce the crash every time in both ubuntu and
pc linux by running "Test Video Card"

To try to fix the issue, I recently bought a cheap maxtor video card to put
into the machine and try out. But I haven't been able to get that to work at
all in my dell desktop.
That got me tweaking the bios - BTW: I've got an old Pentium 4 Dell Optiplex
GX260 Desktop

In the bios is a setting "Onboard Video Buffer" which could be set as 1MB or
8MB. It was set to 1 and I changed it to 8MB.
After that, I could successfully run the Video Card Test without fail so at
this point I'm very hopeful my issue is sorted. I have never ever been able
to do that and the symptom was always the same black screen crash.

Info provided in case anyone else could benefit from this bios setting also.

I have not had a crash since (couple of days) but it's too early to say
anything for sure at this point. Will post again if I do have a crash.

Conor

P.S. I'm sticking with PC Linux OS for now as I find some of it's apps
better after using it for a while, and I have a lot of new apps installed
which I don't want to reinstall on a fresh ubuntu system.

P. P.S. My video card details are (from command: lspci -vv)
-----
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)
(prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Dell Device 0126
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr-
Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort-
<TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Region 1: Memory at fe900000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915, intelfb
----

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 9:02 PM, John Bruno <email address hidden>wrote:

> My issue only freezes the mouse pointer (System is still stable and
> responds to KB commands). I did remove Pulseaudio last night and
> installed oss4, if anything the freeze came even quicker, I've since
> gone back to pulseaudio.
>
> For what it's worth, I leave my system running all night playing either
> Video or MP3's and as long as the mouse is not moved, it never freezes.
> I'm basically at my whits end (Mouse #2 just froze, switching to usb
> mouse #3).
>
> If I can't find a solution soon I'm going to try 2.6.31RT Kernel.
>
> --
> Ubuntu 10.04 random freezes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/585765
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in The Linux Kernel: New
> Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
> Status in “xorg-server” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Hello,
>
> on my new laptop, a HP ProBook 6440b (with Core i5 and a plain Intel
> Chipset, 4GB RAM) I get randomly freezes of the whole system. I can't
> reproduce that, what means I don't know a aplication or usage of the system
> making it freeze. sometimes I have uptimes of a day, without freeze and
> sometimes it freezes right after booting the system.
>
> I found out, that sometimes the MagicSysRQ (R-E-I-S-U-B) works and let me
> shut down the system, sometimes not. I don't know what makes that
> difference. In the system log I can't find any unusual entries. But I foun
> that the system log is still runing, so shuting down the wifi with the
> notebooks hardware switch for example is logged. Also the Wifi network
> connection to my router is not interrupted.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
> Package: linux-image-2.6.32-22-generic 2.6.32-22.33
> Regression: No
> Reproducible: No
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
> Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic x86_64
> AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
> Architecture: amd64
> ArecordDevices:
>  **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
>  card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
>   Subdevices: 2/2
>   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
>   Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
> AudioDevicesInUse:
>  USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
>  /dev/snd/controlC0:  florian    1689 F.... pulseaudio
> CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
> Card0.Amixer.info:
>  Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xd4900000 irq 17'
>   Mixer name   : 'Intel G45 DEVIBX'
>   Components   : 'HDA:111d7603,103c1722,00100202
> HDA:11c11040,103c3066,00100200 HDA:80862804,80860101,00100000'
>   Controls      : 23
>   Simple ctrls  : 14
> Date: Wed May 26 11:03:07 2010
> EcryptfsInUse: Yes
> Frequency: Once a day.
> HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=24088f3d-7be1-4efd-a05a-d1fac42086df
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
> MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP ProBook 6440b
> ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic
> root=UUID=ac1bccdd-e231-45c3-bfde-991ae9549f0f ro quiet splash
> ProcEnviron:
>  LANG=de_DE.utf8
>  SHELL=/bin/bash
> RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.34
> SourcePackage: linux
> dmi.bios.date: 01/27/2010
> dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
> dmi.bios.version: 68CDD Ver. F.04
> dmi.board.name: 1722
> dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
> dmi.board.version: KBC Version 29.2B
> dmi.chassis.type: 10
> dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
> dmi.modalias:
> dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68CDDVer.F.04:bd01/27/2010:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPProBook6440b:pvr:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn1722:rvrKBCVersion29.2B:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
> dmi.product.name: HP ProBook 6440b
> dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/585765/+subscribe
>