[ltp] T61 locking up

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:49:04 +0100
Richard Neill <rn214@hermes.cam.ac.uk> dijo:

> John Jason Jordan wrote:
> > I just spent half an hour writing this message to the Ubuntu forums.
> > After I completed it I hit "send" only to be greeted by "error 303,
> > service temporarily unavailable." The Ubuntu forums are down, and all
> > my writing efforts are lost. Now I get to write it all over again.
> > Grrrrrr.
> 
> On most browsers, if you hit "back", you'll get the form submission 
> page, complete with the text you typed.  Or, you could open a new tab, 
> wait till the site is back up, then reload the tab in which you 
> submitted the original post.

First thing I tried was the back button, but no luck. :(

> Including the latest BIOS? Worth doing that too, if necessary. See 
> thinkwiki - basically you download a bootable CD from lenovo.

I did upgrade the BIOS once soon after I got it, but that was a year
and a half ago. I suspect the BIOS is not the source of the problem,
but thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try.

> > The computer never locks up when I am using it. When I return after a
> > period of time either the screen saver will be running or the screen
> > will be black. In either case, moving the mouse or hitting any key
> > will restore the screen. However, about twice a week I will return to
> > find a black screen and the computer locked up. By "locked up" I mean
> > the mouse and the keyboard cannot restore the screen. The only option
> > is to reboot.
> 
> Has the system crashed completely, or is it just the screensaver?

The system is completely unresponsive. That is, I cannot restore the
screen by moving the mouse or by hitting a key. 

Having said that, I use a bluetooth mouse and as I move it the
bluetooth icon under the screen flashes. I suspect the OS is still
running, but I cannot get back from the screensaver/black screen.

> Can you SSH in? If so, try running "chvt 1; chvt7" and try top/ps/kill, 
> or restarting the gdm service.  Can you ping the machine?

This is my only computer.

> Do any of the following do anything?
> 
> - Ctrl-Alt-F1  then F7
> 	= just switch to text console and back

That was one of the things I tried, but the keyboard is completely
unresponsive.

> - Alt-SysRq-R, then Ctrl-Alt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F7
> 	= force X to return keyboard to raw mode, then switch

Didn't try that, but with a dead keyboard it is useless.

> - Alt-SysRq-S
> 	= sync the disk. Should make the disk activity led flash, and
>           tells you that the kernel is still alive. SysRq cannot be 	
> 	trapped by X.
> 
> - Ctrl-Alt-Bksp
> 	= kill the X-server
> 
> - Alt-SysRq- R, S, E , I, U, B
> 	= Reboot gracefully

Again, the keyboard is unresponsive. I have tried every key and various
key combinations. Nothing gives me a response.

> Try the above, and see if you can diagnose the error.
> 
> One possibility is that some of the screensaver programs have bugs. On 
> my A22p, Euphoria used to trigger a bug in the radeon driver.  In 
> current versions of xscreensaver, some demos don't release the mouse.

The more I think about it the more I think the problem is the
screensaver or the function that makes it go to black screen. Whatever
that is - I still don't understand why the screensaver doesn't just
stay on. Note that I never had a lockup while using the computer, and I
can always restore from the screensaver. It is only when the
screensaver has quit and the computer has gone to the black screen
where I have the occasional problem.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.