My system freezes randomly

Question

My system freezes randomly while using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox. Mouse works but I am not able to click anywhere. By pressing ctrl + alt + f1 I can get into command shell but, there I do not find anything other than a login option.

The only option left with me is going for sudo poweroff or reboot.

My system configuration is as follows:

• Core2Duo 2.0ghz
• 3GB RAM DDR2
• 256MB ATI mobility Radeon HD3400
• 320GB sata hard drive
• I am using gnome shell with gallium 0.4 amd on rv620 not the restricted ATI raedon drivers.

---

I have also discovered that while scrolling in Firefox/Chrome the CPU usage of Firefox/Chrome and GNOME-Shell increases a lot around 60-80 percent each depending upon the scroll speed.

Also on typing dmesg in the terminal at the end I found the following :

[  527.824455] software-center[7689]: segfault at 4 ip 08119f10 sp bf9d5690 error 4    in python2.7[8048000+223000] [ 1117.960394] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 3446.888142] CE: hpet increased min_delta_ns to 20113 nsec [ 3682.755118] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4157.184312] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4386.161414] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4458.513696] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4481.456381] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4538.280377] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4565.289503] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 4660.490307] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 5120.940930] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 5191.228400] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 5283.840125] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 5328.562658] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 6565.623439] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id [ 7580.348173] [drm:drm_mode_getfb] *ERROR* invalid framebuffer id

When the system freezes, pressing super button several times the system logs out to the login screen.

Answer 1

There are multiple reasons why this could happen. You can try out the following possibilities the next time the situation occurs (switch back to X with Ctrl+Alt+F7):

• There might be a bug in your browser that somehow prevents all input from reaching any application. Try logging in and typing killall chromium (or killall firefox-bin).
• Have you installed a browser plugin, such as Flash or Java? If so, take note of the
• Your system could experience thrashing. When the problem occurs, what are the last three numbers outputted by uptime? What's the workload on CPU, memory, and disk? (You can find out with htop, which has to be installed, or the built-in top. Quit with Q).
• There may be an error in the X.org server. Run tail /var/log/Xorg.0.log to see the end of Xorg's log.
• There may be a kernel problem. Type dmesg and note the last lines.

In any case, you can try restarting X by executing sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart.

Answer 2

after doing a kernel update by using this ppa:launchpad.net/francisbrwn9/kernels ppa , i am not getting any more freezes i do not know why but it worked.