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My pc is about 8 years old. Back then, it had an amd Sempron 64 bit processor, and 1GB of RAM. I dual booted it with Windows XP and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Ubuntu worked fine for few minutes, and then suddenly just froze (The screen broke and looked like static on a TV screen). Nothing would work. The mouse pointer wouldn't move. Hotkeys wouldn't respond. I tried rebooting, but the problem still persisted.

enter image description here

I then realised that it may be because of my low amount of RAM.
I then factory reset my pc, and upgraded it to 2GB of RAM.
This time, I dual booted Windows 7 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
Ubuntu, as usual, worked fine for a few minutes, and then froze again.

I thought that maybe it was a problem with the version. I downgraded to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but it still kept happening. I'd previously asked the same question on this forum, and many users suggested that I try using XFCE or LXDE. I did, but the problem still persisted.

One day, I accessed recovery mode from the GRUB menu, and ran my pc on failsafe graphics mode. Till today, I've been using it on failsafe graphics mode, and the problem has never occurred. The only problem, is that it's rather slow and laggy.

Is this problem because of a not good enough graphics card? (I don't know what graphics card I have)?

The last few lines from /var/log/syslog are:

Mar 28 23:15:49 Nik pulseaudio[2992]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
Mar 28 23:15:53 Nik NetworkManager[1524]: <info> (eth0): IP6 addrconf timed out or failed.
Mar 28 23:15:53 Nik NetworkManager[1524]: <info> Activation (eth0) Stage 4 of 5 (IPv6 Configure Timeout) scheduled...
Mar 28 23:15:53 Nik NetworkManager[1524]: <info> Activation (eth0) Stage 4 of 5 (IPv6 Configure Timeout) started...
Mar 28 23:15:53 Nik NetworkManager[1524]: <info> Activation (eth0) Stage 4 of 5 (IPv6 Configure Timeout) complete.
Mar 28 23:16:00 Nik kernel: [   72.156001] audit_printk_skb: 39 callbacks suppressed
Mar 28 23:16:00 Nik kernel: [   72.156006] audit: type=1400 audit(1490723160.375:25): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf" pid=3255 comm="apparmor_parser"
Mar 28 23:16:00 Nik kernel: [   72.156014] audit: type=1400 audit(1490723160.375:26): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=3255 comm="apparmor_parser"
Mar 28 23:17:02 Nik CRON[3499]: (root) CMD (   cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Mar 28 23:20:35 Nik x-session-manager[1827]: GLib-GIO-CRITICAL: g_dbus_connection_call_internal: assertion 'object_path != NULL && g_variant_is_object_path (object_path)' failed
muru
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Caramello
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  • Can you post the output of cat /var/log/syslog at http://paste.ubuntu.com ? – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Mar 28 '17 at 16:56
  • I've pasted the output : http://paste.ubuntu.com/24269107/ – Caramello Mar 28 '17 at 17:53
  • Was the memory upgrade a complete replacement? Or adding a 1 gb module to the existing memory. It may be worth running memtest to check the stability of the hardware – Douglas Leeder Mar 29 '17 at 06:44
  • I completely replaced the RAM with a new 2GB RAM – Caramello Mar 29 '17 at 06:53
  • Please post the output of lspci -nn | grep -i vga. – Andrea Lazzarotto Apr 14 '17 at 08:47
  • @AndreaLazzarotto 00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] [10de:03d6] (rev a2) – Caramello Apr 14 '17 at 16:58
  • So you have a NVIDIA card, I see. Are you using the proprietary driver or the open source one? – Andrea Lazzarotto Apr 24 '17 at 21:46
  • @Andrea Lazzarotto By default, I saw that it was using the open source driver. I changed it to the proprietary nvidia driver, and it said "Using recommended driver". But when I reboot and login, the screen is black, and I can only see my desktop folders. I can't move the mouse or click anything – Caramello Apr 26 '17 at 04:41
  • Unfortunately, the recommended driver is not always a "one size fits all" approach. Ubuntu should show you a couple of difference driver versions. So now you cannot use it anymore? Or did you try booting in safe graphics mode to revert the change? – Andrea Lazzarotto Apr 26 '17 at 22:12
  • @Andrea Lazzarotto I can't boot in safe graphics mode. It just shows a black screen. But, I was able to switch back to the open source driver using a tty – Caramello Apr 27 '17 at 13:46
  • Good. I know it's going to be annoying, but can you try the other versions of the proprietary driver (not the recommended one)? – Andrea Lazzarotto Apr 27 '17 at 15:43

1 Answers1

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Most f my Linux problems are with graphics cards or their drivers. I would suggest you look inside, and if it is a full pci-e x16 graphics card, to replace it with something like a GTX 460 or even a GTX 570 if it has a good power supply, and then see if it works then. I bet you have an even older graphics card than like a 460 due to your processor and low amount of ram, and Gnome is very demanding of a graphics card and such a small amount f ram. If your motherboard supports more ram, especially if it running ddr2 ram, do yourself a favor and run dual channels of 4GB total or more, but first thing is first, test another graphics card.

Tyler Pluim
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