From owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 30 08:45:24 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B7DC416A4D0 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 08:45:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail2.mail.iol.ie (mail2.mail.iol.ie [193.95.141.54]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 75DFE43D39 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 08:45:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from lists@mcdermottroe.com) Received: from 213-202-137-39.dsl.esat.net ([213.202.137.39] helo=mcdermc.mcdermottroe.com) by mail2.mail.iol.ie with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #9) id 1B8MMd-0006Qu-00; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:45:23 +0100 Received: by mcdermc.mcdermottroe.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 5C64920D0; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:45:20 +0100 (IST) From: Conor McDermottroe To: Bob McDonald In-Reply-To: <1080656281.406981992c8ab@t4ac.com> References: <1080656281.406981992c8ab@t4ac.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <1080665119.4260.36.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:45:20 +0100 cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Toshiba Satellite Freezing Problems X-BeenThere: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Mobile computing with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 16:45:24 -0000 On Tue, 2004-03-30 at 15:18, Bob McDonald wrote: > 1) When I play video (both MPlayer and xine) the display will sometimes get a > seemingly random bright colored pattern on it and the machine will stop > responding. This seems to be more likely to happen as the machine has been > used for a longer amount of time, and particularly if a video has been played > before. I'm not sure if it is related but with the same things increasing > likelihood the player will sometimes put up a bright green screen with letter > shadows on it and play only the sound. > > 2) If I leave the machine on at night it will sometimes freeze up on a screen > saver or blank screen, and the machine will not respond. > > both of these problems require me to switch the power off an on again. > > Anyone have any ideas? On my Fujitsu A1010 (P.O.S. :-/) I had a similar problem to your problem number 2. I found that anything that used significant amounts of RAM would trigger the problem, so I watched top carefully and noticed that it always happened when I ran out of RAM, before FreeBSD swapped anything out. After banging my head on the wall for a while I had an idea that it might be to do with the RAM shared by the video card. I set MAXMEM to 192MB (I have 256MB) and the problem never happened again. If you have the same problem it might also explain problem number 1. Bear in mind that my fix for my problem is based on guesswork. I don't have sufficient knowledge of either the problem or how the OS and video card "share" RAM to accurately solve the problem. But, It Worked For Me[tm]. HTH -Conor