Frederick Bruckman wrote:

> To me, it sounds like heat. What kind of CPU is it? I would verify
> that the chip fan is running, check the airflow in the case, maybe
> re-apply the heatsink compound to the heatsink or replace the CPU.

I too experience sudden, complete lock-ups on my IBM T20.  I got this
machine last May and started using it with the 1.6.1 release; it's now
up to 1.6.2_RC4.

In my case, the lock-ups appear to be independent of CPU activity.
I've never had one happen while doing CPU-intensive activity, such as
rebuilding large numbers of packages.

The lock-ups have almost always happened while using galeon, usually
when doing something as simple as moving the pointer into an existing
galeon window.  A very few times, the lock-ups have happened while
using gimp-1.2.5.  The machine instantly becomes completely
non-responsive.  I've let it sit for as long as a few minutes, but
nothing happens (no panic, no changes on the display, ...).  The
machine also fails to respond to any network activity.

The lock-ups have happened while using the T20's built-in fxp0, and
they've also happened while using wireless cards.  The frequency of
lockup has been anywhere from twice within an hour to once a month or
so; typically around once every two or three weeks.  I use galeon
daily, and gimp-1.2.5 almost as frequently.  I've updated galeon and
mozilla a few times since starting to use this machine.

I expect I'll try kgdb at some point to see if it reveals anything.


Bill Chiarchiaro
wjc@cleartech.com