I have read every single post about system freezes, but cannot find my exact problem.
Basically, Ubuntu 11.10 is randomly freezing. When it happens, I cannot do anything, not even move the mouse. Everything is locked up, even the keyboard is not responding (num lock does nothing). I noticed that the CPU fan starts to spin faster when the system freezes, but I verified that the CPU temp is OK just a moment before the freeze, so it's not that.
My system was working OK one week ago, after using it for more than two months. Now, suddenly, I started getting this problem, it happens several times a day. Seems to me that it was just after installing some ubuntu updates, that included the 3.0.0-16-generic-pae kernel, flash plugin, and some other packages.
What I did to try to troubleshoot:
- Looked in the different logs, none reflect anything at the time of the freeze.
- Used the previous kernel version selecting it from Grub; the freezes still happen.
- Uninstalled firefox as I initially thought it was related (it was acting weird). Still happening.
- I ran the memTest86, it passes (executed only one pass).
- Used Windows 7 for several hours just to see if there's any problem there. No freezes or crashes at all.
- I tested during one entire session without opening any web browser, just to not use Flash or anything. Still freezing.
I say it's random because I don't seem to find any sequence of steps that lead to a freeze. It can be on battery or plugged, while doing something or while doing nothing. Got the freeze while watching a flash video. Got the freeze while using Eclipse or while using gedit (to look at the logs!). Anything basically, does not seem to matter.
How can I further troubleshoot? The logs don't seem to help, I guess nothing is getting logged.
This problem is really frustrating. While everything else (including drivers, programs, Unity) works flawlessly, this is making the system almost unusable, I know I can lose my work at any point.
Thanks for any help!
