Thanks to everyone for responding to my desperate plea. Apm is off according to the grub splash screen and the /boot/grub/menu.lst file, so it would appear that I haven't been using it, at least with Kanotix which I currently have installed. On the bright side I ran memtest several times both from the knoppix startup splash screen and from an iso image I downloaded and burned from memtest.org, and I consistently get the same error message. I'm going to rotate the ram, and remove the bad one, and see if that helps, before I make good on the lifetime guarantee from crucial.com. To try and respond to some of the other suggestions: I haven't been able to tie the crashes and/or freezes to any particular hardware event. Sometimes they happen while I'm at the computer, sometimes while I'm away, and I haven't noticed any particular pattern to correlate software or hardware to the instability. To me at least, it appears random. Thanks again, ned
--- Eric Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ned: > > You statement says it all: > > I'm using a dell inspiron 8100 notebook, and have > had > > the same problem using various linux distros, > > including libranet, mepis, and kanotix. > > It is unlikely to be a software problem if all these > distro behave the > same way. Yes, they all may be based on "Linux" but > driver updates and > implementation would almost certainly be in > different time lines and > implementations. So what does that leave? Hardware. > Nvidia have been > notorious in the past, no doubt. But we can't rule > out X just being > finicky about the device. > > Also, the fact that it is becoming more and more > frequent can indicate a > piece of hardware is getting tired of the constant > heat up and cool down, > caused by a laptop's density and rebooting. > > You said there was nothing in you syslog messages. > Do you have it set at > *.debug for greater detail? > > Are you using APM? Would your problem manifest it's > self mid-click or > keystroke or once you've stepped away for a moment? > > Cheers; > > E! > > > > > > Hi, I was refered to this list by some of it's > members > > who thought someone might be able to help me. > > I've been having stability problems that are > driving > > me crazy. The most common problem is that I'll be > > working on something and x crashes and takes me > back > > to the logon screen. This happens at least once a > > week, and seems to have started about 6-9 months > ago. > > The other problem is that the computer just > freezes, > > and I have to reboot with the power button. This > > started happening about the same time, but is much > > more frequent now. I haven't found anything > unusual in > > /var/log/messages or using dmesg after a crash, > but > > then again I could have missed it. > > One theory was the Nvidia video card, whose > sometime > > causes problems, but I've switced to the vesa > driver, > > and the problems continue. > > I'm using a dell inspiron 8100 notebook, and have > had > > the same problem using various linux distros, > > including libranet, mepis, and kanotix. I realize > that > > this isn't a info to work with, but I'm not sure > what > > is relevent or not. > > Thanks, > > ned > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > > http://mail.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > > CWE-LUG mailing list > > http://www.cwelug.org/ > > [email protected] > > http://lists.firepipe.net/listinfo/cwe-lug > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > CWE-LUG mailing list > http://www.cwelug.org/ > [email protected] > http://lists.firepipe.net/listinfo/cwe-lug > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ CWE-LUG mailing list http://www.cwelug.org/ [email protected] http://lists.firepipe.net/listinfo/cwe-lug
