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Date:      Fri, 20 Aug 1999 19:15:31 +0200
From:      Fredrik Carlen <fredrik.carlen@telia.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Cc:        d93-awe@nada.kth.se, primary@cowmob.nu
Subject:   Computer running FreeBSD 3.2-RELEASE freezes completely
Message-ID:  <99082019241400.00282@entityone.leonissystems.com>

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Question from Fredrik Carlen <mailto:fredrik.carlen@telia.com>

  Hello! I have a really annoying problem, and I can't seem to be able to
find an answer to it on the Net. I recently "bought" and installed FreeBSD
3.2-RELEASE. I have been using it for a couple of weeks, and it's a very
pleasant experience, except for the fact that *every* *single* *day* the system
*freezes*. Hangs. I've been told not to reinstall, so, still painfully
ignorant in the field of UNIX, I am humbly asking for more knowledgeable help.

  This is what happens:
1.I log in on my usual, every-day account.
2.I start X up.
3.I start doing the normal stuff, nothing fancy (e.g. reading mail, writing
notes).
4.The system freezes. Every input device stops working. The mouse cursor
disappering is the first indication. The system is *not* reading from the hard
drive, at least as far as I can see and hear. No matter how long I wait, the
system won't respond. It's a complete denial-of-service! The only option
left is to reboot the hard way. Which doesn't exactly make things better!!!

  It happens *frequently* in the following circumstances:
A. When I try to change something in "preferences" or "options", in
any program (epecially Netcape). Sometimes it works, sometimes the system
freezes.
B.When I am trying to do something in two programs simultaneously,
e.g. surfing and writing small notes. (By goood I hope it doesn't happen
right now, please, please, my dear OS, just let me finish this freakin' mail!)
C. Sometimes without any action from my part whatsoever.

And: Once it happened when I disconnected my PPP connection when Mozilla was
still downloading a webpage. My experience is that if I have been using X for
an hour or so, it *will* freeze.

This is my system, in a nutshell:
Intel Pentium, 166 MHz.
Motherboard:PA-2007 with VIA VP2/97 chipset
Video card: S3 trio64V+
Sound card: Soundblaster compatible (ESS ES1868)
HD: 4 gigs
RAM: 32 megs
+I've installed the old object format, aout, to be able to use Netscape.

Both my everyday user account and my root account is left as-is, no fancy stuff
there. 

This is the output of "$ uname -a":

FreeBSD entityone.leonissystems.org 3.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 3.2-RELEASE #0: Tue
May 18 04:05:08 GMT 1999 jkh@cathair:/usr/src/sys/compile/GENERIC  i386   

(leonissystems.org is my fake domain...go ahead, laugh if you want to...)

I am sorry if I have missed some section of the FAQ, or "the Complete
FreeBSD handbook" I really should have checked, but I am almost *certain*
there's nothing there that relates to my problem. I haven't got a clue as what
to do, except maybe reinstalling and *not* choosing stuff from compat22...(the
aout) Apart from this hassle, I *really* like FreeBSD, and since I am soon
working as a security administrator, I can't have this sort of thing happening
when I am promoting FreeBSD as the UNIX of choice for PC:s, right? If you
could help me, I owe you a big one.
Thank you for your time.
/Fredrik Carlen, Sweden. mailto:fredrik.carlen@telia.com


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