Please help a noob with intermittent lockups

[benjt]

Hello and thanks for reading. I'm pretty new to Linux, but I do know a thing or two about computers. I don't want to ask anyone to do the work of troubleshooting this for me but if you could point me in the right direction that would be great.

Here is the problem. I have Ubuntu running on a Compaq desktop. Version 9.04 ran great but since upgrading to 9.10 it intermittently locks up. There is no rhyme or reason to the timing. Sometimes it is immediately after logging in but usually it is after the system has been running awhile. Sometimes it happens when I'm actively using it and sometimes when it is idle. It has never happened at the login screen, no matter how long I leave it.

Note that it is not a complete lockup. The mouse cursor moves, but no longer functions (i.e. you can't click anything). The keyboard does not work at all. For example Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and Ctrl-Alt-F5 do nothing. Disconnecting and reconnecting the mouse and keyboard does not help. Also, I can still access the system over the network using SMB and SSH, which leads me to believe that X or Gnome is where the problem lies.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I have done so far. As I said I can access the system using SSH, so I logged in and ran "top" to view CPU utilization. I found no process using more than 1% of the CPU. Also I examined the messages log and found "segfault" errors related to libc (?), USB and my keyboard, so as a test I traded my fancy wireless keyboard for a generic one. That has not helped.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I've examined other logs but it is all Greek to me. There are entries that sound as if they could be errors but I'm not sure and the times of the errors don't match the times of the lockups anyway.

If you can suggest any other troubleshooting steps or provide any other tips I sure would appreciate it.

[Irithori]

Does your machine, by any chance, have a intel graphiccard?
There is a bunch of new kernelmodules for that, and I heard, that they can cause these lockups.

Edit:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rg-video-intel

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Execute this in Terminal :

sudo lspci | grep -i vga

Post output here. Post the contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf file here.

[mehdar]

Hello ;

I would also like to remind you if you are running any specific or customized applications on the server, maybe you should check if the new upgrade has some sort of conflicts with the update.

You can use VirtualBox as a simulator for your linux and see if you can reproduce the problem on a fresh install of 9.04 then update to 9.10

Thank you