Hi James - I used to have the same problem - it is most likely a video driver issue (My graphics card is an SiS6386 AGP). I found that changing some of the card options for accelleration and onboard memory reduced it but it did reappear occasionally afterwards. Check the docs for supported options for your card and play with /etc/XF86Config. I think that somewhere X gets into an infinite low-level loop writing to the graphics card (At least the behaviour is consistent with that scenario). Check the memory settings for your card - mine was set up as 8Mb but actually only 4Mb is addressable, I think I ended up using a non-aggressive fifo setting, with no-accelleration.. things like that (didn't really affect the performance of X Apps as it goes). Since I upgraded to X4.01 it has not recurred (fingers-crossed!)
RAM is also a potential source of problems (though les likely in this scenario IMHO). Corruption is possible so check the sticks first, if your sticks are found to be ok and you are using Lilo make sure that you have the correct append="MEM=<value>" line in lilo.conf for the kernel image you are booting. I Don't know how grub does this.
In truth this is one of the most difficult problems I've ever had with a linux box - there's usually a good answer for most things but I'm afraid this one is a bugger. Get tweaking. Cheers Earl
"Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them." Leo Tolstoy *********************************** [earl.brannigan@lindenhouse.co.uk] www.lindenhouse.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1223 834383 (Office) +44 (0)7812 179759 (Mobile) ***********************************
-----Original Message----- From: main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk [mailto:main-admin@lists.alug.org.uk]On Behalf Of James Green Sent: Wednesday 09 January 2002 23:26 To: main@lists.alug.org.uk Subject: [Alug] Something is killing my box each evening, need help