Laptop with Kubuntu becomes non responsive.

Hi all.

I have a laptop:
   ASUS K61IC-JX013V
   Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 @2.2 GHz
   4GB DDR2 800 MHz
   Nvidia GeForce GT 220M 1GB DDR2

On it I run Kubuntu 9.10

My problem is that Kubuntu sometimes enters a state where it is very non responsive.

In this state I'm not able to start any new programs, such as a terminal window, firefox or kate. If i try to do so then the mouse shifts to the bouncing icon of whatever program I'm trying to start, and the application shows up in the taskbar. But besides from that nothing else happens. Specifically no window will appear, and after some time the application will also disappear from the taskbar.

At a few occasions I manage to open a non-functional terminal window. This happens mostly when I try to open such a window immediately after my laptop has entered this non-responsive state. But the terminal window i non-functional because it only says "/bin/bash has crashed" written in red. It won't accept any commands.

I'm not even able to enter a terminal session by pressing for instance Ctrl+Alt+F1. The screen just goes black when I do so.

Trying to reboot or logging out by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't help. If I even get a window when I press does three buttons and make any choice, then the window disappears and nothing else happens.

My only option for safely shutting down the laptop has always been Ctrl+Alt+SysRq+REISUB.

When I've rebooted and open up /var/syslog, I always see two lines that appear before the laptop enters the described state. the lines say:

   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454893] invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454899] last sysfs file: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A03:00/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full

After that there's always a stacktrace, that says something like

   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454902] CPU 0
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454904] Modules linked in: cryptd aes_x86_64 aes_generic snd_hda_codec_nvhdmi snd_hda_codec_realtek binfmt_misc ppdev ipt_REJECT ipt_LOG xt_limit xt_tcpudp xt_state ipt_addrtype snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec snd_hwdep snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm arc4 snd_seq_dummy snd_seq_oss ecb ip6table_filter snd_seq_midi ip6_tables snd_rawmidi ath9k snd_seq_midi_event uvcvideo snd_seq mac80211 videodev snd_timer nf_nat_irc v4l1_compat nf_conntrack_irc ath asus_laptop snd_seq_device v4l2_compat_ioctl32 nf_nat_ftp nvidia(P) snd nf_nat led_class psmouse soundcore nf_conntrack_ipv4 cfg80211 nf_defrag_ipv4 i2c_nforce2 nf_conntrack_ftp snd_page_alloc nf_conntrack serio_raw lp iptable_filter parport ip_tables x_tables r8169 mii video output
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454951] Pid: 3077, comm: konsole Tainted: P 2.6.31-21-generic #59-Ubuntu K61IC
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454954] RIP: 0010:[<ffffffff81010000>] [<ffffffff81010000>] set_personality_64bit+0x0/0x30
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454964] RSP: 0018:ffff8800b89bbd90 EFLAGS: 00010246
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454966] RAX: ffff88010e5e96c0 RBX: ffff8800dc1be000 RCX: ffff8800b8110000
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454968] RDX: 00000000ffffffff RSI: ffffea0003b04a00 RDI: 000000008005003b
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454970] RBP: ffff8800b89bbe58 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454972] R10: ffff8800284015c0 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff8800da92e880
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454975] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff8800b89bbf58 R15: 0000000000000001
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454977] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88002801f000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454980] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 000000008005003b
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454982] CR2: 00007fd047fd271c CR3: 00000000b8999000 CR4: 00000000000406f0
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454984] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454986] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000ffff0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454989] Process konsole (pid: 3077, threadinfo ffff8800b89ba000, task ffff8800b8110000)
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454991] Stack:
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454992] ffffffff811675b6 000000000000000a ffff8800dc1be000 00000000000001f8
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454995] <0> 00007fffffffea65 000000000000000a ffff8800dc1be000 ffff8800b89bbde8
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.454999] <0> ffffffff810f936f 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffff8800b89bbe28
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455003] Call Trace:
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455009] [<ffffffff811675b6>] ? load_elf_binary+0x396/0xed0
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455013] [<ffffffff810f936f>] ? get_user_pages+0x2f/0x40
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455017] [<ffffffff81125377>] search_binary_handler+0xe7/0x2b0
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455020] [<ffffffff8112720b>] do_execve+0x22b/0x300
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455024] [<ffffffff81010575>] sys_execve+0x45/0x70
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455027] [<ffffffff8101255a>] stub_execve+0x6a/0xc0
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455028] Code: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 80 00 00 00 <ff> ff ff ff ff ff 00 01 38 a2 10 d7 00 01 38 a2 10 d7 f0 fc cf
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455059] RIP [<ffffffff81010000>] set_personality_64bit+0x0/0x30
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455063] RSP <ffff8800b89bbd90>
   May 14 23:11:08 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6166.455066] ---[ end trace 7cf55d55841d747f ]---

At most occasions when the laptop enters this state, multiple stack traces are printed, but in this particular example there was only one print. After that the syslog shows lines that are concerned with my desperate Ctrl+Alt+SysRq+REISUB command.

   May 14 23:11:41 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6199.123890] SysRq : Keyboard mode set to system default
   May 14 23:11:42 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6200.604080] SysRq : Emergency Sync
   May 14 23:11:42 PureMainFrame kernel: [ 6200.608904] Emergency Sync complete
   May 14 23:11:44 PureMainFrame kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.

And then a reboot commences.

This is obviously a bug. What I would like to know is what is the best procedure for reporting it on launchpad?

Thanks for reading.

Best Regards, PureRumble.