Restarts when I'm working of or online using 12.04

Question

1) Unit shuts down and restarts!

2) Mouse freezes

3) Keyboard locks-up

4) Audio loops - about one half second (like a skipping record - if there is anyone there old enough to know what a vinyl record is!)

5) The computer shuts down and restarts without a cold boot.

All the above happen, not in sequence, but in a random manner. I have tried several clean reboot commands these are :

a) CTRL+ALT+F2 then run top/killpkill,

b) ALT+SYSRQ+R then CTRL+ALT+F2,

c) CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE,

d) ALT+SYSRQ+R then ALT+BACKSPACE,

e) ALT+SYSRQ+R then CTRL+ALT+DEL,

f) CTRL+ALT+DEL,

g) ALT+SYSRQ+R+E+I+S+U+B (reisub)(forces a clean reboot),

but none of them work.

This problem only happens when running video through my browsers.

I've tried three different browsers, all with the same result.

I've tried a new video card. The problem persists so it is not the hardware.

Please note... I have played DVD videos and movies on the computer's CD/DVD drive whithout any freeze-up or crashes.

Can you help me?

Answer 1

I experienced similar issues with a new laptop and the following solved my problems completely:

If your computer has new hardware, it possible that the Linux kernel in 12.04 (3.2) is a bit behind and has some compatibility issues with the hardware. This is known to cause occasional computer freezes and alike. You can easily upgrade to the newer kernel (3.5) that is included with newer Ubuntu releases, and if that is not the problem you can easily go back. Here it how you do it:

1) In terminal window type:

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-quantal

2) if asked whether to install all necessary packages enter Y

3) reboot to use the newest kernel

4) you can still boot with the old kernel through your GRUB boot menu (to get to it, hold Shift during boot)

Hope that helps!