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I'm not sure how much background to give. If it's too much or too little, I'll edit the post later.

(Also, it seems that bug-report questions - possibly including this one - might not get answered here. If true, where should I post this?)

I have Ubuntu 12.10 set to dual-boot with Windows XP. This morning, Ubuntu hung badly. I could move the mouse, but I couldn't do anything else. I had Google Chrome up when it hung; I couldn't click on my other tabs, I couldn't click on anything on the dash; it just didn't respond, it froze up.

This has happened to me twice before; the first time, I waited nearly half an hour, and it didn't unfreeze. So, I had to do a hard reboot, which worked both times. So I hard rebooted again - held the power button down till it turned off - and when I turned it back on, it didn't even get to the login screen. When I try to log into Ubuntu, it flashes an underscore cursor on a command line of sorts for a while, and then the screen goes COMPLETELY dead. Even this one dead pixel in the middle of my screen turns off.

It's possible I have a virus, but it could also be some process that broke the computer when it hard rebooted.

I can still log into Windows - that's where I'm posting this from now - but I am so far out of my depth it's not even funny. Help!

CalvinCopyright
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  • I don't see any reason to suspect a virus. This is not typical viral behaviour. It sounds more like hardware failure. Did you do anything before this happened? (updateing stuff e.g.) – Nanne May 06 '13 at 14:22
  • I haven't updated anything really fundamental; I updated some OpenGL libraries, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. Rather, it could have been a function of how many tabs I had open (over a dozen) and the fact that I had Minecraft running with OpenJDK 7 in the background. Hardware failure? Possibly the computer didn't have enough resources, and hung? – CalvinCopyright May 06 '13 at 14:30
  • Could be, but it would have restarted resource-issues in itself will not lead to permanent failure. Issues could be heat related though (more work = more heat = possible failure), which could take down a machine. But a couple of tabs and minecraft doesn't sound to much. Could be harddisk failure. PSU (power) is always a suspect in any and all hardware trouble situation. You could test with some livecd, but I still think it's hardware related – Nanne May 06 '13 at 14:46
  • When you get to the black screen with a dash... can you move to one of the tty terminals? Ctrl + Alt + F1 or F2 – Brandon Bertelsen May 06 '13 at 14:56
  • It doesn't look like I can. I rebooted it twice, trying it; I bound the function keys to their alternate actions when I first got the computer, so I tried it with and without hitting the Fn key before the F1 key - no soap. I also tried Alt-Ctrl-F1; still nothing. When I relogged into Windows, however, it had me check the disk, using what seems to be a standard procedure. IT found a bunch of errors and said it corrected them; but I still can't log in to Ubuntu. – CalvinCopyright May 06 '13 at 15:48
  • I have been struggling with similar problems and my issue is caused by my old ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650. My belief is that the sporadic behavior of my computer (it can and has crashed three different ways: purely video hang [mic and cam still work, but can't go to VT1], kernel hardlock, and a kick back to the login screen). Just my two cents. The reason I believe it is my video card is that sometimes when I restart it kernel panics with an error related to firegl_sig_notify (a call to the ATI graphics library). I know you're having issues, but I have never got a virus running Ubuntu FWIW. – Chuck R May 06 '13 at 21:27
  • On a side note, please check this on what to do when Ubuntu freezes. Hard reboot should be your very last resource. – carnendil May 06 '13 at 21:46

2 Answers2

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It looks like more a problem with a disk than a virus to me.

It doesn't look like I can. I rebooted it twice, trying it; I bound the function keys to their alternate actions when I first got the computer, so I tried it with and without hitting the Fn key before the F1 key - no soap. I also tried Alt-Ctrl-F1; still nothing. When I relogged into Windows, however, it had me check the disk, using what seems to be a standard procedure. IT found a bunch of errors and said it corrected them; but I still can't log in to Ubuntu.

I don't think you should use Windows to check disk since the partitions in Ubuntu are not NTFS.

You could try to check and fix it using fsck from a Live USB (maybe present in Gparted Live USB).

TheBugHunter
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  • If it is the disk (and I have reason to believe it's not), in addition to an fsck, they should add the parameter to do a badblocks check. To this this, run the command e2fsck -cc [partition] rather than fsck. It may take quite a while longer, but might be worth it in the long run if it is, in fact, a disk problem. – Chuck R May 06 '13 at 21:25
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It happened something similar to my machine some time ago. It was a poor cooling of the video card (Nvidia). It didn't happen in windows (dual boot) but when using Ubuntu. The solution was to open the case, remove the video card, clean the card cooling fan and check the card heat sink (have thermal compound at hand), also, it'd be wise to clean the CPU fan. Good luck!

user123492
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