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I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 on a Dell Vostro 220s with Intel Pentium.

I am trying to figure out if this problem is normal.. should I wait out the hang.

After a couple hours, I will lose control of the operating system. The CPU sounds as if there is a download and install taking place, but there is no information telling me what is going on and I lose control of the system. The mouse will stagger and quickly lose the ability to click on anything and lose all functionality while the CPU is doing something on its own in overdrive. I am forced to do a hard reboot.

It seems as if my computer is being hijacked but can't tell for sure. At first I thought I may have gotten a bug because I clicked a link on a LinuxFromScratch pdf that is now taken over by a porn site. Since the domain used to be Linux based, I figured they had good motivation to target Linux users so I just decided to do a complete re-install since my install was less than a day old.

The problem still persisted. I then checked my fstab and low and behold, the swap partition was commented out. Huh? I uncommented it and figured that was the answer to my problem. After doing a reboot, the problem still persists. I checked fstab and swap is still uncommented out so should be used when needed.

This is a fresh install from an ISO just recently downloaded. I have also done the updates. I did check the box for third party installs on install.

Is this a current issue with 14.04? I am thinking of using 12.04 which is what I had on my lap top with no issues. However, I would like to stay with a more up to date distro.

Processor: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5300 @ 2.60GHz * 2

Memory: 1.9 GB

Graphics: Intel G45/G43

OS Type: 64-bit

Disk: 16.4 GB

*Swap: 1.95 GB

UPDATE

swapon -s shows the following (However, this is after the latest fix - I learned Swap actually was not previously on): 

/dev/sda5                               partition   2047996 208 -1
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  • While your computer looks indeed a bit underpowered, it shouldn't crash because of that. Does it get excessively hot? Is the internal fan running a lot even during light activity? Then you may need to clean out the dust. Another common reasons for random freezes and crashes is broken main memory, which you can check with memtest86+, which you can start from the Grub boot menu.
    – David Foerster
    Oct 22, 2014 at 19:04
  • Regarding the swap issue: Can you please edit your question to include the output of swapon -s?
    – David Foerster
    Oct 22, 2014 at 19:10
  • try opening a terminal and running top which will give you a look at running processes and help you determine what's causing the CPU to heat up so much.
    – Elder Geek
    Oct 22, 2014 at 23:02
  • @DavidFoerster - The machine runs smoothly up until these incidents occur. However, I haven't ran into the issue yet since my post and correctly turning on swap.
    – earth2jason
    Oct 23, 2014 at 6:23
  • Since you don't have much RAM, you might want to look into zcache (formerly zswap), which tries to compress a portion of your main memory content and through that trades RAM space and disk I/O operations for CPU time. Refer to “How do I use/enable zcache?” to enable it.
    – David Foerster
    Oct 23, 2014 at 14:05

3 Answers 3

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Well i strongly believe that this might be due to memory issue and not with the OS . Please increase memory and check. Also verify whether the download ISO is having any preloaded application like virtual appliance . Where they will bundle application along with OS like a preloaded setup.

try upgrading the libraries

also run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

try increasing the ram to 4GB and check.

regarding that swap issue 

run swapon -a and swapon -s first.
I run GParted to see what was going on with my swap partition.
Then look at fstab and compare it to blkid

the above will help you to get an idea what happened to the swap

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  • This is interesting regarding the swap issue. Running blkid shows a different UUID for swap than fstab does. Also, both swapon executions seem to provide that Swap is not on or not found. There is a reference to /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 that also has type swap in fstab. Oops. This means I have two swaps referenced. Should I remove /dev/mapper/cryptswap1?
    – earth2jason
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:17
  • Here is what it looks like in fstab: /dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0
    – earth2jason
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:17
  • Okay. I used Gparted to successfully do Swapon and it appears to no be on now. I am thinking of just commenting out cryptswap1 for now. I will do a reboot and see if swap is still on. Thanks!
    – earth2jason
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:26
  • @earth2jason good to know that the issue is fixed for you :-)
    – BDRSuite
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:29
  • I finally did get swap to work after commenting out the original UUID of swap (again) and adding the UUID of the swap that blkid referenced into fstab. Not sure why there were different UUID's referenced but now swapon -s shows the swap. Odd thing is that running blkid no longer shows anything. Ohh strange things.
    – earth2jason
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:42
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your computer is not strong enough to run 64 bit ubuntu 14.04 i think, you should consider using ubuntu 32bit, lubuntu or xubuntu if you want to keep yourself up to date.

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  • Okay. Was afraid of that. Do both of these distros stay pretty much on par with Ubuntu? I do Rails development and want to make sure I don't run into problems with packages.
    – earth2jason
    Oct 22, 2014 at 17:55
  • yeah they are exactly the same just the interfaces are different, lubuntu is for low end and old pc's from 2006 etc, xubuntu is much elegant than lubuntu, i'm using it in my acer aspire with coreduo processor and 2gb ram from 2007 and it's just working fine. Also if you like unity interface (cause i do) you can download 32bit version of 14.04 however it can be a little laggy depending on your gpu. and i strongly recommend you to upgrade to ssd, i can't believe my acer booting up around 12sec
    – biozalp
    Oct 22, 2014 at 17:58
  • That's simply not true. While 64-bit software carries some overhead over 32-bit software, it doesn't result in freezes or crashes on healthy hardware.
    – David Foerster
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:23
  • i mean if i install 14.04 on that kind of hardware it might problems, i found the way installing xubuntu, just suggesting. preffered minimum ram for 64bit is 4gb for me
    – biozalp
    Oct 22, 2014 at 18:34
  • Thanks biozalp. I did notice that swap was not working correctly after Vembu's comment. I will test with current setup for a day or so and if problem still persists, I will try an xubuntu install.
    – earth2jason
    Oct 22, 2014 at 19:00
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I am having the same problem. I can use it for couple of hours and then CPU usage suddenly increases and fan starts swinging like its a helicopter fan!! Laptop hangs and I have to power off it forcefully. I then installed windows 7, same problem occurs there too, after using for a while it shows a blue screen with some error.

I'm using Dell laptop with intel i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 1GB ATI Graphics Card.

It's not an OS issue but your Hard Drive or RAM is damaged. This kind of problems occur when there are some bad sectors in RAM or Hard Drive.

I recommend you to run a Memory Diagnostics test, it will tell you if your hard drive or RAM is having bad sectors. To run this test boot your computer, keep pressing F8 key to enter the BIOS, now select Memory Diagnostics and run it. Run a full test, it will take about 30 minutes to be completed.

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  • 2
    A damages hard drive don't cause heat (and consequently more fan activity), but freezes and crashes are possible.
    – David Foerster
    Oct 22, 2014 at 19:06

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