System crash, then blinking caps lock/num lock

[cephalopoda]

Hi,

I have a Lemur Ultra (lemu3), running Ubuntu 12.04. Recently my computer crashed twice without warning, and upon reboot the num lock and caps lock lights were blinking. There were no error messages.

Could someone please help me diagnose the problem?

Thanks very much.

[tgalati4]

Those lights indicate kernel panic. If you can't boot, take the drive out and put it in a USB enclosure and read the log files (/var/log/syslog) on another machine. Does the laptop have any cracks in the case? Perhaps too much flexing of the motherboard? While you have the drive out, now would be a good time to perform a backup. Also flex the screen, in case there is a short in the screen cable that routes through the hinge. In that case, hook up an external monitor to see if you get any farther into boot.

Can you boot with a Live CD/DVD? If not, then I would suspect a serious hardware problem.

[jbelmonte]

It could also be a heat issue. If the laptop is overheated, a reboot without letting it cool off could result in a kernel panic. Get some compressed air and blow out the vents to make sure they are not clogged with dust.

[cephalopoda]

Thanks for the replies. Both times it happened I was able to reboot. However, now I am getting an error message every time I boot up (I'm not sure if it is related): "Sorry, Ubuntu 12.04 has experienced an internal error."

Any help is very much appreciated.

[jbelmonte]

Can you boot from a Live CD?

[cephalopoda]

Can you boot from a Live CD?

Well now this is really getting bad. I tried to update to 12.10 but the computer froze, and when I restarted I lost the sidebar in unity, so I'm not able to make a live USB using the GUI. Is there a command line method for making a Live USB?

[cephalopoda]

Ok, I managed to get 12.04 on a liveUSB, however when I try to boot into it I get "Machine Check Error" and an automatic reboot. Any suggestions?

[Edward_G_Prentice]

I just got my Bonobo/bonx7 today, and twice tonight I got the same symptom (system freeze, caps & num lock blinking). That's twice in about four hours.

[Edward_G_Prentice]

It has now happened four times in 5.5 hours. Each time the system rebooted OK. I ran fsck to check for errors. I am disappointed with the reliability so far. Let's how System76 support responds.

[isantop]

This sounds like either software corruption (requiring reinstall) or a hardware glitch. If you run from a live disk, does the system still shut down?