RH9: Keyboard/mouse freezing

[AutisticCuckoo]

Hello everyone, new member from Sweden here (please don't hold it against me).

I'm running an ancient Red Hat 9 distro (kernel version 2.4.20-8 ). Every now and then it goes berserk. The CapsLock and ScrollLock LEDs on the keyboard start blinking and the keyboard and mouse both freeze and become utterly unresponsive. I have to shut the computer down the hard way – pressing the Off switch for 5 seconds.

The keyboard is a Key Tronic ergoforce and the mouse is a cordless Logitech PS/2. Neither is connected via USB.

I can't see anything in the system logs that indicate what the problem is.

I don't know if it's related, but sometimes the kernel panics and I'm logged out, and there's an 'Unable to handle kernel paging request' error in the log, indicating that the X server crashed. Although I can log in again, this keeps happening unless I turn off the computer and start anew. Searching the web, I've found that this may be caused by faulty memory. (I've got 1GB RAM and there's usually plenty free.)

I rarely keep the computer switched on for more than a few hours (maybe 14 at the most).

Any insights concerning either problem would be greatly appreciated.

[bigtomrodney]

It does sound like a hardware error, if not faulty memory then perhaps motherboard/bios problems. You could run memtest86 from a livedisc to check the memory if you wish, that should give you a start

Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

[AutisticCuckoo]

Thanks! I've been meaning to download and run memtest anyway, since I suspect I've got memory problems.

[AutisticCuckoo]

Update: I ran memtest86+ and it indicates problems. Until further notice I'll hope that the instability problems are related to the hardware probs.