CONSTANT mandrake freeze

[jimmybob479]

I have never had mandrake 10 go smoothly for probably more than half an hour. The first time i booted, after i went through the survey it froze. And then installing gaim it froze, and then it froze after a reboot at the login screen. I have been getting CONSTANT freezes were nothing is responsive (i cant even ctrl + alt + backspace) and i have to hold in the power button on my computer. This is happening half the time, and is so bad i cant even run updates or use linux without it freezing in a few minutes! I thought it was maybe KDE, but i used ICeWM , and i came back and it was frozen. Help!
My system-

CPU: Amd athalon xp 2500
motherboard: Asus a17n8x-x
ram: 512MB DDR3200
graphics card: Sapphire 9800 pro 128MB
power supply: 420watt

Please, is there any way to stop these constant freezes? its really annoying, and i cant even do anything in linux. This was right after the install, so i didnt even really mess with anything yet. (i'm a linux noob).
i'm on windows right now typing this.

ANY help GREATLY appreciated!

[Muser]

do you have the correct video card driver installed? that could be your problem!

[jimmybob479]

I have left everything default, and have not gotten to download any "propiatary" ati linux driver. ATI released a new one a few weeks ago, i'll download it and put it on a cd then (try) to get into mandrake long enough to install it.

[jimmybob479]

I tried getting the new drivers for ATI, version 3.9 or w/e for Xfree86 4.3, but when i try installing them i get some error saying ...../lib/libGl.so.1.2 from install of fglrox-4.3.0-3.11.1 conflicts with file from pack libxfree86 4.3.30....


so STILL constant freezes and i've had to reboot my computer about 10 times today just because of trying to get into mandrake for about 30 min total.

[stathisx]

maybe it's a temperature problem..one of my friends had the same problem and added some more fans to the system to avoid overheating..

[jimmybob479]

No, i have plenty of system fans. Its not overheating.

[mitchelln]

I'm getting this as well on my Fujitsu laptop. It has a mobile ATI 9700. Mandriva 2005 just randomly freezes exactly the same way. I have installed the XOrg updates that appeared earlier this week. Also, when you log out of a session I just get random noise on the screen - clearly the video chip has lost all control. Switching to a console via CTRL-ALT-F1 results in a blank screen. You also get a blank screen during shutdown. Mandrake 10.1 was fine. There must be an issue with the fglrx ATI driver with the 2005 distribution.
It is, quite frankly, unusable.

[ebsbel]

Yup! Got the same problem on a normal PC. Startup and X run fine. Problems occur when I leave X. Random noise occurs. Ctr-Alt-F3 gives me black screen and two inch letters, so I can log back in and startx. Any solution?
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