fedora 7: system freezes

I upgraded from fedora 3 to core 7. I'm experiencing some intermittnat
hard system freezes. Display freezes, No keyboard or mouse response, no
response to ping or ssh. Occurs most often with screen savers. I
experienced this same problem with FC 3 but not as often. I suspect
that my motherboard (Intel with Pentium 4 1.7Ghz) may need a bios
upgrade but I don't know what the model is or how to do that.

1. Is there some way to determine the motherboard model so I can look
for any upgrades?
2. Are there some known issues with FC 7 freeze as I have described?

mike thatcher

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:24:18 -0700, Mike Thatcher wrote:
[color=blue]
> I upgraded from fedora 3 to core 7. I'm experiencing some intermittnat
> hard system freezes. Display freezes, No keyboard or mouse response, no
> response to ping or ssh. Occurs most often with screen savers. I
> experienced this same problem with FC 3 but not as often. I suspect
> that my motherboard (Intel with Pentium 4 1.7Ghz) may need a bios
> upgrade but I don't know what the model is or how to do that.[/color]

I had similar intermittent "freezing" problems with my old system when I
ran Fedora Core 3 and 4. I uninstalled the screensaver and the system
lockups stopped. I surmised the screensaver was badly written or there
was some kind of system interrupt conflict.
[color=blue]
> 1. Is there some way to determine the motherboard model so I can look
> for any upgrades?[/color]

First, just look on the motherboard itself for a model number or serial
number, etc. Or see if you can find the manual. ;-)
[color=blue]
> 2. Are there some known issues with FC 7 freeze as I have described?[/color]

Can't say for sure. I'm still running FC6 64-bit on my new system that I
build in January of this year. Waiting for 8 before I upgrade due to
some problems I've read about with 7. However, there have been few.

Also, FWIW: The "Core" has been dropped starting with 7. So, now, it's
just Fedora 7.

Stef

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:24:18 -0700, Mike Thatcher wrote:
[color=blue]
> I upgraded from fedora 3 to core 7. I'm experiencing some intermittnat
> hard system freezes. Display freezes, No keyboard or mouse response, no
> response to ping or ssh. Occurs most often with screen savers. I
> experienced this same problem with FC 3 but not as often. I suspect
> that my motherboard (Intel with Pentium 4 1.7Ghz) may need a bios
> upgrade but I don't know what the model is or how to do that.
>
> 1. Is there some way to determine the motherboard model so I can look
> for any upgrades?[/color]

You could open the case directly or use commands:
lspci
dmesg
cat /proc/meminfo
cat /proc/cpuinfo
etc.
[color=blue]
> 2. Are there some known issues with FC 7 freeze as I have described?[/color]

Comments below.[color=blue]
>
> mike thatcher
>[/color]
Caveat: I am not running FC7

What video chipset is used by your hardware? I have noticed some issues
with freezing on systems with Intel's 915 video chipset. To me, this looks
like a kernel/X deadlock issue. I can't tell which is more likely to be
at fault. I read the changlogs (post 2.6.21.5) for the kernel, which are
very long, but no fixes directly address this issue (yet), AFAICT.

I see that Fedora 7 uses a linux kernel version, 2.6.21.x. It also uses an
X.org, version, 7.1.x. That is similar to Slackware 12, which is what I am
using. Yesterday, I compiled X.org 7.3 which included a new hardware
driver for Intel video chipset. No lockups so far. I will probably be
compiling 2.6.23 soon.

--
Douglas Mayne

> On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:24:18 -0700, Mike Thatcher wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> > I upgraded fromfedora3 to core 7. I'm experiencing some intermittnat
> > hard system freezes. Display freezes, No keyboard or mouse response, no
> > response to ping or ssh. Occurs most often with screen savers. I
> > experienced this same problem with FC 3 but not as often. I suspect
> > that my motherboard (Intel with Pentium 4 1.7Ghz) may need a bios
> > upgrade but I don't know what the model is or how to do that.[/color][/color]

I think it is a video driver problem. what video card / chipset do you
have ?

George Saliba wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
>> On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:24:18 -0700, Mike Thatcher wrote:[color=darkred]
>>> I upgraded fromfedora3 to core 7. I'm experiencing some intermittnat
>>> hard system freezes. Display freezes, No keyboard or mouse response, no
>>> response to ping or ssh. Occurs most often with screen savers. I
>>> experienced this same problem with FC 3 but not as often. I suspect
>>> that my motherboard (Intel with Pentium 4 1.7Ghz) may need a bios
>>> upgrade but I don't know what the model is or how to do that.[/color][/color]
>
> I think it is a video driver problem. what video card / chipset do you
> have ?
>[/color]


ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 PF/PRO AGP 4x TMDS

mike@rohan]# /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset
Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP
Bridge (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 05)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801BA IDE U100 Controller
(rev 05)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1
(rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM SMBus Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1
(rev 05)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM AC'97
Audio Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 PF/PRO
AGP 4x TMDS
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM
Ethernet Controller (rev 03)
02:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video
Capture (rev 02)
02:0a.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture
(rev 02)
02:0c.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AIC-7892A U160/m (rev 02)
02:0d.0 Communication controller: Ambient Technologies Inc HaM
controllerless modem (rev 02)