Problem: my desktop system hangs. Question: what to do next

[William Park]

My guess is heat and power (in that order).  Check your CPU
fan/heatsink for dust or loose contact.  Then, check your power
supply.
-- 

William



----- Original Message -----
> From: Mel Wilson <mwilson-Ja3L+HSX0kI at public.gmane.org>
> To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 7:25:50 AM
> Subject: [TLUG]: Problem: my desktop system hangs.  Question: what to do next
> 
> I have a desktop system that can't get through a build of gdb-7.4.1
> without locking up the desktop, and, apparently, all other processing.
> 
> System is MSI G41M-P26
> memory 3.9 GB, dual-processor Intel Pentium 4 3.20GHz
> 
> O/S  Ubuntu 10.04, kernel 2.6.32-41-generic-pae, GNOME 2.30.2
> 
> I check that it's running with a system monitor window on top, and
> watching the crawl of the CPU usage graph.  After the crawl stops, the
> system also stops responding to the mouse and keyboard.  The last run I
> also had an ssh process open from another machine, and it froze at the
> same time everything else did.  Pinging the dead system claimed that the
> destination was unreachable, and that persisted until the hung system
> had been rebooted.
> 
> Memory doesn't seem to be a problem, usually only about 10% gets used.
> 
> After the reboot, I can't find anything in syslog or messages that look
> like trouble, but I could be failing to recognize something.
> 
> I wonder if it couldn't be an over-temp problem.  The build makes heavy
> use of both processors, and often (though not always) hangs with both
> CPUs pinned at 100%.  The retailer says the system is fine, but it
> occurs to me that he has very pleasant air conditioning in the shop, and
> I have none here at home.  Any good packages for monitoring CPU
> temperature?  Tomorrow I'll be able to say whether doing the build at
> night helps (No.  Tried again at 5AM.  Toronto Island said 19C. Same story.)  
> ISTR seeing ./configure options somewhere that would limit
> the number of simultaneous processes forked by the build, but I don't
> see anything like that as an option for this gdb build.
> 
> The system usually seems rock solid doing light work like reading news,
> web surfing, or drafting email.
> 
> All hints appreciated.
> 
>     Mel.
> 
> 
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