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ubuntu 9.10 freezes up, and eventually won't reboot, requiring fresh install

Asked by firebeard

Usually when browsing in Firefox, the page will freeze up. At this point, while the mouse pointer moves, no tabs or icons on the page, desktop, or any toolbar will respond. The only solution is to hard crash the computer and reboot. Usually this works and everything is fine when I reboot. Twice though now, I have been unable to reboot into Ubuntu, and have reinstalled. A command line comes up, but none of the offered commands do anything to recover the system. I run a dual boot system with Ubuntu using 30gigs on my secondary hard drive. Previously I had noted that about 16 gigs of the 30 were still available. I'm new to Ubuntu and I'm sure theres something else I could be doing, just need to know what.
Thanks

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#1

> hard crash the computer
Will make things worse.
Please use MagicSysRq instead.
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-use-magic-system-request-keys-in-ubuntu-linux.html

In case of X freezes, you can restart it with: Alt+SysRq+K

Do you mind giving a little information about computer, age, video card.

In case you're using Wubi
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/477104

If you did install from LiveCD, assume you've checked CD for defects offered in the menu.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall

First option you could do after installation is to run MemTest to diagnose.

CLI:
Make sure partition table is in order.
sudo fdisk -l

Make sure there is enough space.
df -h

Update the system:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Clean up package cache:
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get clean

Reference:
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-terminal/stable/gnome-terminal-get-started.html.en
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/basic-commands/C/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo#Usage

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DrivesAndPartitions

Revision history for this message
firebeard (firebeard) said : 		#2

well, the magic keys certainly did the trick with rebooting without resorting to crashing the system. Thank you Sam!! Thats a relief in itself, but I still don't know why the system is freezing up. My system is a 7 year old Dell Dimension 2400. 2.2Ghz processor, maxed out at 2Gb Ram, Windows XP sp3 on the C drive (320Gb drive that I added recently) and Ubuntu 9.10 on the original 40Gb hard drive, of which Ubuntu owns 30, of which 13 are free. Freezes last night occurred when attempting to run update and cleanup programs.

Revision history for this message
Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

> Freezes last night occurred when attempting to run update and cleanup programs.

Recall, run Memtest (it may take a while) and in addition fsck.
Make sure Ram sticks are ok or in general exclude hardware defects.

This will proceed a filesystem check on next reboot.
CLI:
sudo touch /forcefsck
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SystemAdministration/Fsck

In case it comes up with any errors, like badblocks you may read below or search the web with exact wording of error message.
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yelp/+question/95356

Other solutions, search the web with: ubuntu 9.10 dell dimension 2400
e.g.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1334658

Revision history for this message
Javier (ocean-wave11) said : 		#4

I think I had a similar problem and it doesn't freeze anymore with linuxmint 8. So if ubuntu freezes then try linuxmint 8 which is the base on ubuntu or almost the same.

i tried linuxmint 8 64-bit but the 32-bit worked better on my system.

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