Computer keeps freezing up

[YouthGoneWild23]

Last week, I formatted my computer and installed Linux Mint 11. Previously, I had Ubuntu and had no major issues. Ever since I installed Mint, the computer occasionally freezes up and I have to power it down each time with the power button. Before it froze the first time, the screen turned all sorts of various colors and shapes. It was a big jumbled mess. It eventually went away but 5-10 minutes later the computer just froze. I believe I was using Google Chromium at the time. The second time it froze I had Chromium open but was navigating through the network places folder.

One time, it froze up when using Firefox. Since I also keep seeing weird scrambled colors on the screen, I wonder if it's a video issue. How would I troubleshoot this issue? I had Ubunu for months without any issues at all. Thanks in advance.

[MikeTbob]

Sounds like a video driver issue. Do you know which card you have? Post the output of

sudo lspci -knn

You can post only the relevant parts if you know how.

[jayd512]

When you downloaded Mint, did you verify the md5sum before burning the disc?
What graphics card do you have? Post the output of:

lspci -knn

heh... Mike beat me to it!

[pentopad]

Did you figure it out? I'm a newb to Linux, sort of, it's been about 20 years since I first tried it. Because of that I went with the newb systems, the Mint is the version I am currently using, however, I also tested out Ubunto XUbunto as well, both installed, & prior, originally, running the Ubunto & XUbuntu off of a pen-drive.

The major benefit of course to using the Ubuntu series is that, much like Red-Hat, it is also a corporate sponsored platform so it has some advanced capabilities that have brought the system into new areas, at a cost, if not directly.

Mint as I understand it is based off of Ubunto, and while in theory you would think they would natively work out of the box differently I can tell you that Ubunto worked the least stable on my Dell 1012, XBunto, which is essentially Ubunto with Xfce as I understand it, actually was quite a bit more stable, however, both required a good amount of manual set-up; especially to add the wireless card.

This, vs. the installation of Mint most recently, also version 11, I will wait for the bugs in 12 to surface! Version 11 allowed me to set it up without any trouble, including better native 3rd party support. I'm not sure if you have a custom built PC, or if it is a brand, however, I would suggest, if it is a brand, to google the specifics of your model as compared and contrasted to mint and other linux versions before you get into troubleshooting your particular problem.

The reason I would do this, personally, would be to avoid the 'lemon' type problem, where you constantly have conflict with hardware or support that requires you to custom modify. If you choose any of the Ubuntu lines I would gather your less interested in heavy code work, than say, if you were trying to get into certs and red hat or fedora.

Even if you want to use the terminal and coding, I would imagine you would have more fun messing with cooler stuff than constantly trying to get the basics up and running on a new system. It may be that all of that is a moot point, but would hate to see you get bogged down if it was not a moot point.

Good luck.

[YouthGoneWild23]

Yes, I did verify the m5sum before installing it.

Output:

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82915G/P/GV/GL/PL/910GL Memory Controller Hub [8086:2580] (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82915G/P/GV/GL/PL/910GL PCI Express Root Port [8086:2581] (rev 04)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
	Kernel modules: shpchp
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2582] (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: intelfb, i915
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation 82915G Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2782] (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0179]
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2660] (rev 03)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
	Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:2662] (rev 03)
	Kernel driver in use: pcieport
	Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 [8086:2658] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 [8086:2659] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 [8086:265a] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 [8086:265b] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:265c] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller [8086:266e] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: Intel ICH
	Kernel modules: snd-intel8x0
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FR (ICH6/ICH6R) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:2640] (rev 03)
	Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt, intel-rng
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller [8086:266f] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
00:1f.2 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FW (ICH6/ICH6W) SATA Controller [8086:2651] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: ata_piix
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:266a] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel modules: i2c-i801
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1677] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Dell Optiplex GX280 [1028:0179]
	Kernel driver in use: tg3
	Kernel modules: tg3