Not sure if I've fixed it, but at the very least slowed down the frequency of lockups. A combination of these options in xorg.conf when using the fglrx driver seem to help:
Option "VideoOverlay" "on" Option "TexturedVideo" "on" Option "AGPMode" "8" ** Description changed: -- Symptoms -- - When using any memory intensive program, such as Firefox 3, VLC, gnash, transferring large files (100GB+) etc. the operating system complete freezes. It will not respond to keyboard, mouse, or SysRq commands; the screen just shows what was on it prior to the freeze. Waiting also is fruitless, the freeze was still present after 32 hours. The crash doesn't occur when the computer is completely idle with just Gnome or KDE running. The crashes seem to happen quicker when using Firefox 3, however the issue still happens with VLC and Firefox 2, so it's not related to these programs. + When using any memory intensive program, such as Firefox 3, VLC, gnash, transferring large files (100MB+) etc. the operating system complete freezes. It will not respond to keyboard, mouse, or SysRq commands; the screen just shows what was on it prior to the freeze. Waiting also is fruitless, the freeze was still present after 32 hours. The crash doesn't occur when the computer is completely idle with just Gnome or KDE running. The crashes seem to happen quicker when using Firefox 3, however the issue still happens with VLC and Firefox 2, so it's not related to these programs. -- Affected Systems -- I've confirmed this error is present in up-to-date installations of Fedora 9, Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Arch Linux, and Debian Lenny. The bug affects both x86_64 and i686 flavors for all the distributions. Also, the same bug and behavior is present on the following computers (tested with all of the above distributions): Compaq Presario SR1303WM Desktop, Compaq 730us Laptop, and a Dell Dimension 2400. -- Possible Resolutions Used -- On all these systems, the memory has been tested with Memtest86+ and has passed with no errors. Also the boot parameters nolapic, noapic, acpi=off, noapm do not help the issue, as all of them have been tried alone and together, in all possible combinations. Furthermore, I've run a system monitor and there is not a process eating 100% of the memory, up until the freeze everything appears normal. Furthermore, disabling powernowd or completely uninstalling it does not help (suggested in other forums) Using the radeon, nv, nvidia, or fglrx XOrg drivers with their respective cards does not fix the issue (3 different ATI and NVidia where tested, for a total of 6 different cards). When using the vesa driver, the lockup still occurred, but the system was willing to accept a ctrl-alt-backspace to restart the XOrg server, the same freezing occurred. The error is present in the 2.6.24 kernels and up, however I don't think it's kernel related as there's nothing useful in the log. The problems started with updates to the distributions around June - July. Prior to those months, all systems where working fine including those with proprietary nvidia and ati drivers. Lastly, there are no useful messages in the system log and attempting to SSH into the frozen computer is not possible (SSH was installed properly and running). KDE and Gnome also produce the same freezing. -- Reproducing the Freeze -- For some reason certain webpages cause the freeze more often then others in Firefox 3. I've found this page: http://sites.target.com/site/en/corporate/page.jsp?contentId=PRD03-002477, to cause it almost always. As stated above, this is not the only webpage and Firefox 3 is not the only program that causes the error. -- Possible Source -- I'm thinking it's some small package that nobody's thought to check, as there are no errors in the system log (Kernel, XOrg, etc) or anything. It's not related to a graphics card as many seem to conclude, due to all the drivers reproducing similar errors and the fact that the systems where working fine up until new updates where released. -- Memory intensive programs cause lockups https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/267836 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
