[ale] suddenly finding computer 'seized-up'....

[Steven A. DuChene]

If the box is still running, have you tried accessing it via ssh/rsh/telnet
from anoter system prior to just pulling the plug for a hard reset?

-----Original Message-----
>From: Courtney Thomas <cc.thomas at earthlink.net>
>Sent: Mar 20, 2006 2:26 PM
>To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
>Subject: [ale] suddenly finding computer 'seized-up'....
>
>Recently several times I've left my computer downloading for extended 
>periods to return to a frozen machine, i.e. not working are the mouse, 
>keyboard or monitor but the box itself is still running; and, of course, 
>the only way to resume is...a hard reset. Fortunately, this has not 
>resulted in disaster. I've fsck'd all the partitions before rebooting 
>and, seemingly nothing critical has been lost.
>
>I should mention that often but not always, when I try to print from 
>Mozilla 1.7.7 [not Firebird, but rather Mozilla/5 Gecko 20051115] I get 
>a core dump. This usually occurs after Mozilla has been running awhile, 
>not when first started. I wonder if all this is from a Mozilla memory 
>leak and if so, how can I tell ? Or should I just upgrade Mozilla [HOW 
>?] to remove this suspect, or is the recent version equally likely to 
>repeat.
>
>I also ran memtest86 and discovered nothing.
>
>I'm intermittently getting a stream of sio [sio1, irq=3] overflows,  the 
>mouse is on com1 and modem on com2.
>
>Nevertheless, clearly, I need to resolve this ASAP.
>
>A suitable algorithm [or a pointer to same] pertaining to hard&soft-ware 
>resolution...would be appreciated.
>
>Gratefully,
>
>Courtney