[ltp] T61 locking up

[Richard Neill]

> 
>> 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.
> 

That makes testing a pain.

How can we find out if the machine is still alive when it goes 
catatonic? A way you could check is to run a command such as this:
    while : ; do date > date.txt ; sleep 5; done
Start it when you log in, and leave it going. Then, when you next have 
to recover the machine, look at the contents of date.txt, and compare 
with your observation of when the machine crashed.

>> 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.

The SysRq stuff cannot be trapped by X. It goes straight to the kernel. 
So do give these a go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

> 
>> - 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.

Are you using multiple different graphics demos, or have you settled on 
one demo that you like? If multiple ones, perhaps there is one that has 
a bug.

Without a 2nd machine, to debug from, you're going to have to get 
creative. How about running something like the following, as root:
(note - I haven't tested this):

while : ; do
   if [ -a /dev/sdb1 ] ;then
	echo Detected USB key
	echo -e "\a"
	killall -9 gnome-screensaver
	chvt 1
	exit 1
   fi
   sleep 5
done


This *should* do the following:
   - monitor for you to insert a USB memory key (which will get detected
as /dev/sdb1, usually)
   - beep
   - kill the screensaver
   - change Vt to #1    (note - is VT1 enabled on Ubuntu?)


At that point, you *might* be able to discover something.

Another interface the probably still works is the thinklight. The 
following will tell you if the system is still live:

  while : ;do
    echo -n on > /proc/acpi/ibm/light
    sleep 1
    echo -n off > /proc/acpi/ibm/light
    sleep 1
  done



Richard