T400 - freezing / locking up

[roofy]

Hi

I've got a Thinkpad T400 (BIOS: Lenovo 7UET94WW 3.24, P8700 2.53 GHZ, 2GB Ram, 80GB harddrive)

I run linux on it. The problem is that after using it for a brief period it begins to slow down - the cursor moves very slowly, files take ages to load etc and often it just locks up completely. Occasionally it does seem to right itself but mostly it will lock up. I've tried both Linux Mint 15 and Korora 19 and get the same problem

I've checked the load on the CPU using uptime, and when it's running very slowly there is a heavy load on the CPU (e.g. 2.23, 2.13, 1.89), so I'm wondering if this is the problem and what it might mean. I thought it might be the BIOS, but I think 3.24 is the lastest update.

Thanks for any help

[emeraldgirl08]

Just a hypothesis but do you have switchable graphics? If so have you set the 'Graphics Device' to either 'Integrated' or 'Discrete?' AFAIK and the last I heard linux does not have an equivalent program to graphics card 'switch' that Windows has. If you have it set to switchable settings Linux might be getting confused and the slowdown might be a symptom. You might also want to set 'OS detection for switchable graphics' to 'disabled' while you are in there.

Here is a virtual BIOS page from Lenovo. You can practice the instructions I have given you without having to restart the T400 and enter BIOS. When you feel you are ready to actually apply the different settings restart your T400 and enter BIOS. Give this a try and don't forget to press F10 after changing the settings in BIOS.

[roofy]

Thanks for the reply.

My model hasn't got switchable graphics, it's just has an Intel GM45 Express Chipset.

[richk]

It will slow down the CPU if it gets close to overheating. Install something to monitor temperatures. I suggest tpfancontrol

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed

[roofy]

Thanks for the reply.

I've installed Psensor and the CPU core temperatures gets as high as 50+ degrees (sometimes as high as 60) - although the fan does come on (it runs between 1800 and 2100 RPM). So that might be the problem. Sometimes the CPU usage can be 90% which may be indicative of something?

I can't seem to sort out installing tpfancontrol, so I'll probably ask a question in the linux section about getting that running.

[Neil]

Early this year I was having similar problems and learned that it was a bug in the Linux Intel graphics driver that was causing all sorts of havoc. But, I thought that had since been taken care of with a late spring/early summer update. Sorry I can't be more specific, the forum I was on when seeking a work around has been taken down, and I don't remember the details.

[rjwilmsi]

If CPU load is very high then it sounds like a kernel or display driver bug. Have you tried logging out then back in again (log out not reboot)? If you open up System Monitor (KDE, or equivalent in Gnome) are any processes showing high CPU usage? If yes, I would try two things: either a 2 or 3 year old Linux live distribution from a USB flash drive (e.g. Knoppix), or the very latest Linux live USB you can find, to see if there's a version where the bug didn't exist, or has been fixed.

[roofy]

Yes there was this bug that was noted a while back

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/779753

I tried logging out and then logging back in and the system froze completely (that was with Linux Mint 15). I've also tried installing Xubuntu which has the lightweight XFCE desktop and things seem to be better - the cursor can still get slow though, but it hasn't locked up yet. I then tried Knoppix 7.2.0 and that works fine, no slowdown or anything. That runs the linux kernel 3.9.6, although it might be ok because it runs from a live disk rather then being installed.