Frequent system crashes/freezing

[spiralvoice]

Hi,

first of all I do not know much about how to debug this, the main question here
I would like to ask is how to get more debug information when the PC is crashing?

Situation (emerge --info follows):

My PC is frequently crashing, either freezing but mostly rebooting itself during
normal Gentoo usage. Normal here means no gaming, no 3D stuff, just normal
coding, browsing, mail - nothing freaky.

I did already a memtest86+ check for 24h without any errors.
The tempature of my CPU is at 50°C, also within its specs.
I am using a Windows install on another partition which does not crash when
used for hours, in contrast Gentoo sometimes works for hours when compiling
emerge -e world without touching the keyboard and/or mouse. But when I
interact with the PC it can crash immediatly, or works for several hours.

But mostly it crashes about once per hour, before writing this post it crashed
once, I rebooted, started Konqueror, opened a website, clicked on link and,
voila, happy rebooting... So, the crashes are infrequent, but often.

[spiralvoice]

Portage 2.1.2_pre3-r5 (default-linux/x86/2006.1, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.5-r0, 2.6.18-gentoo-r1 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.18-gentoo-r1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.5
Last Sync: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:50:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present]
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.30
dev-lang/python: 2.4.3-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r6
dev-util/confcache: [Not Present]
sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1
sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.60
sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils: 2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.13-r4
sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22
virtual/os-headers: 2.6.17-r1
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fno-enforce-eh-specs"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo http://gentoo.inode.at http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/down ... too-mirror http://gentoo.osuosl.org http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www. ... org/gentoo http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
LANG="de_DE.utf8"
LC_ALL="de_DE.utf8"
LINGUAS="de"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 3dnow 3dnowext X aac acpi alsa arts asf automount berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cairo cddb cdparanoia cdr cli cracklib cups dbus dlloader dri dvd dvdr dvdread elibc_glibc ffmpeg firefox flac fontconfig fortran ftp gdbm gif glitz gmp gnokii gpm graphviz gs gtk gtk2 hal idn ieee1394 imagemagick imap input_devices_joystick input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse isdnlog jbig joystick jpeg jpeg2k kde kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility kernel_linux lame lcms libg++ linguas_de lzo mad matroska mbox mhash mmx mng mozilla mozsvg mp3 mpeg mplayer musepack ncurses nls normalize nptl nptlonly nsplugin nvidia ogg openexr opengl pam pcre pdf perl pic png ppds pppd qt qt3 quicktime readline real realmedia reflection samba session slp sndfile spl sse ssl svg tcpd theora threads tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb userland_GNU v4l vcd video_cards_nv video_cards_nvidia video_cards_v4l vorbis win32codecs wmf wxwindows xine xinerama xml xorg xv xvid zlib zvbi"
Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[spiralvoice]

When I first started to type this the machine froze again...

I already replace nvidia-drivers

[ebuild R ] x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-1.0.9625 USE="dlloader" 13,078 kB

with the nv one, no improvement. I tried IceWM instead of KDE-3.5.5, it also crashes.

Most crashes are related to using

[ebuild R ] www-client/mozilla-firefox-1.5.0.7 USE="java xinerama -debug -gnome -ipv6 -mozdevelop -xprint" LINGUAS="de -ar -bg -ca -cs -da -el -en_GB -es -es_AR -es_ES -eu -fi -fr -ga -ga_IE -gu_IN -he -hu -it -ja -ko -lt -mk -nb -nb_NO -nl -pa_IN -pl -pt_BR -ro -ru -sk -sl -sv -sv_SE -tr -zh_CN -zh_TW" 34,882 kB

when scrolling a page or opening new pages it crashes.

[elgato319]

Is the Gentoo Live-CD(or any other Linux Live-CD) crashing as well or do you have those problems only with this installation

[padoor]

have u installed any plugins for the browser firefox and konqueror?
install atleast flash .
find by emerge -eav firefox
does it want to emerge ssl and such security items.
may be u r blocking wanted popups.
crashes with browsing happens with extensions and plugins.
run a revdep-rebuild for clearing any dependencies.
if u r sure ur mem is ok then it should not freeze often.
how much of ram u have?
also i see is ur profile is little old for 2.5 glibc
have u updated kde ? 3.5.5 seems to be more stable than previous 3.5

[drwook]

My advice would be to drop -fforce-addr and -ftracer, rebuild world, and see if your problems disappear....

Also are you using any hard masked packages & what's in your overlay?

[spiralvoice]

have u installed any plugins for the browser firefox and konqueror?
install atleast flash .

Yes, flash is installed, also Sun Java 1.5

does it want to emerge ssl and such security items.
may be u r blocking wanted popups.

Yes, SSL is also installed along with Adblock plugin.

crashes with browsing happens with extensions and plugins.

Ok, but my system also crashes while using KDE konsole and console apps like Midnight
Commander, without any browser in use.

run a revdep-rebuild for clearing any dependencies.

Did this many times, everything is ok.

how much of ram u have?

1 GB, 2 x 512MB SDRAM modules from Infineon, no no-name stuff.
Board is ASUS A7N8X-X with latest BIOS.

also i see is ur profile is little old for 2.5 glibc

Thx for the tip, I will update it before the next emerge -e world
to /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/2006.1
But these crashes occur for weeks now, also with glibc-2.4.

have u updated kde ? 3.5.5 seems to be more stable than previous 3.5

Yes, during emerge -e world last week I updated to glibc-2.5 and to KDE 3.5.5,
but the crashes appear as often as before.

[spiralvoice]

My advice would be to drop -fforce-addr and -ftracer, rebuild world, and see if your problems disappear....

Ok, I will do this along with updated profile link, thx for the tip.

Also are you using any hard masked packages

/etc/portage/portage.unmask contains

media-tv/xdtv
x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers

System crashes without using xdtv, I use that app seldomly.
I tried several nvidia-drivers ebuilds, 1.0.8774, the masked 1.0.9625, X.org nv-driver,
the crashes occur with all of them. I do not use any other hard-masked packages.
Here is my current xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "dual"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
# Screen 1 "Screen1" LeftOf "Screen0"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/xdtv"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "blank time" "10" # 10 minutes
Option "standby time" "20"
Option "suspend time" "30"
Option "off time" "60"
Option "Xinerama" "false"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "xtrap"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
DisplaySize 400 300
HorizSync 30.0 - 121.0
VertRefresh 48.0 - 160.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
HorizSync 30-50
VertRefresh 60
EndSection

Section "Device"
Option "HWcursor" "true"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "CursorShadow" "true"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "NvAGP" "2"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "false"
Identifier "Card0"
# Driver "nv"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Option "HWcursor" "true"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "CursorShadow" "true"
Option "NvAGP" "2"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-B"
Option "TVOutFormat" "S-VIDEO"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
Identifier "Card1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Card1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

I tried several options for "NvAGP", no improvement. I disabled the TV out port on my card
several weeks ago. I had the impression that this was responsible but the system crashes
as often as before, so this is unrelated.

what's in your overlay?

app-emulation/wine/wine-0.9.23 ebuild to fix this compile bug: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147533
dev-lang/spidermonkey/spidermonkey-1.5-r1 to fix this compile bug: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137526
media-libs/mac/mac-3.99.4.4-r1, needed this package for some conversion issues, has no reverse-dependencies
media-tv/tvbrowser/tvbrowser-2.1, self-written ebuild: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=135554

To me it seems nothing of them is related to the crashes, I use all of them seldomly and none of them
were in use when the system crashed in the last weeks.

The crashes while using Firefox might be unrelated to it because I saw crashes sometimes
without Firefox, but because I very often use Firefox its difficult for me to judge if its responsible.
The second crash today occured after rebooting from the latest crash, the started Konqueror,
no Firefox, opened one web-page, clicked on link, crash...

[spiralvoice]

Is the Gentoo Live-CD(or any other Linux Live-CD) crashing as well or do you have those problems only with this installation

I do not know, currently I am using Knoppix 5.01 CD which has an uptime of 50 minutes, I wrote the
last postings using it, no crash yet, and will continue to use it for the next hours.

[spiralvoice]

how to get more debug information when the PC is crashing?

Any help on this one? Shall I put my kernel .config on pastebin?

[padoor]

i see anyway u r using ~x86 keyword why dont u install firefox 2
make sure u have konqueror all related konq like plugin .
i find kde crashes occur due to konqueror failure even if u r running firefox.
otherwise remove kget if u have installed. keep the tray icons to minmum
i would re-emerge kdelibs kdebase and kdebindings for this kind of problem
i have installed all meta packages of kde.
if u have not installed gnome desktop avoid using gnome based applications even though they have to be installed.
most crashes have occured in my comp either while invoking konqueror or closing it.
see if u can open home directory gui ten on ten times it should be stable.
then mem . even though u have 1gb mem the speed at which it runs also matters.
if hd cannot go at the required speed of ram the problem can come.
check for loose connection in the mains supply.

PS. if u can get PCLINUXOS-0.93 bigdaddy livecd check with it. i have never had a crash with it. we can learn from it what not to install for best stability.

kdm also is resposible for this crash

[nixnut]

Moved from Installing Gentoo to Portage & Programming.
Not about getting gentoo installed, so moved here.

[Progman3K]

Spiralvoice,

Since you already have the Knoppix CD, here is what I suggest you try (if you have not already done this)

- Boot with the Knoppix CD
- When it gets to the kernel-choosing prompt, instead of booting knoppix, type 'memtest<ENTER>'
- Let the memtest run for a good 8-24 hours
- If it marks any of your RAM as bad, replace it.

I was having similar problems with my computer and I went through a number of gyrations like you are doing and in the end it was all because of BAD RAM!

The instant I replaced it with good RAM, everything started working properly and I have not had a lockup since.
Good luck!

[drwook]

if it's bad ram, you might also want to look up the badram kernel patches in case the ram is still usable for you....

[spiralvoice]

- Let the memtest run for a good 8-24 hours

thx for the tip, but

I did already a memtest86+ check for 24h without any errors.

I will try to emerge -e world with new CFLAGS

[spiralvoice]

i see anyway u r using ~x86 keyword why dont u install firefox 2

Because I do not like the new behaviour of tabs

make sure u have konqueror all related konq like plugin .

Its installed, along with others:

[ebuild R ] kde-base/konq-plugins-3.5.5 USE="arts kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility xinerama -debug" 1,624 kB
[ebuild R ] net-www/netscape-flash-7.0.68 997 kB
[ebuild R ] net-www/mplayerplug-in-3.31-r1 USE="divx gmedia gtk quicktime realmedia wmp" 206 kB
[ebuild R ] dev-java/sun-jdk-1.5.0.08 USE="X alsa nsplugin -doc -examples -jce" 48,338 kB
[ebuild R ] media-video/vlc-0.8.5-r5 USE="X alsa arts cdda cddb dvd flac hal matroska mp3 mpeg ncurses nsplugin ogg opengl png rtsp samba stream svg theora truetype v4l vcd vorbis win32codecs wxwindows xinerama xml xv -3dfx -a52 -aalib (-altivec) -avahi -bidi -corba -daap -debug -directfb -dts -dvb -esd -fbcon -ggi -gnutls -httpd -libcaca -lirc -live -mod -optimisememory -oss -sdl -seamonkey -shout -skins -speex -svga -upnp -vlm -xosd" 8,373 kB
[ebuild R ] media-video/realplayer-10.0.8 USE="nsplugin" 6,494 kB
[ebuild R ] app-text/acroread-7.0.8 USE="cups nls nsplugin -ldap" LINGUAS="de -da -es -fi -fr -it -ja -ko -nl -no -pt -sv -zh_CN -zh_TW" 48,214 kB

These ebuilds provide all present Firefox plugins.
But Firefox crashes on sites which do not use any of the plugins, like phpbb2 sites.

otherwise remove kget if u have installed. keep the tray icons to minmum

kget was never installed, normally I do not use any tray icons, my machine crashes even without any tray icons.

i would re-emerge kdelibs kdebase and kdebindings for this kind of problem
i have installed all meta packages of kde.

I do use the split ebuilds and re-emerged packages more than once, last weekend I did
a complete emerge -e world, also some months ago, but this had no impact on the crashes.

if u have not installed gnome desktop avoid using gnome based applications even though they have to be installed.

My machine is mostly KDE, with Firefox & Thunderbird as exception. Gnome is not in use here.
Once the machine crashed immediatly after I clicked the gftp icon to start it, but this app is gtk2, not gnome.

most crashes have occured in my comp either while invoking konqueror or closing it.
see if u can open home directory gui ten on ten times it should be stable.

I will try to do so and report the result back, thx for the tip. Currently I am still on Knoppix, uptime 7h without crash.

then mem . even though u have 1gb mem the speed at which it runs also matters.

I use 2 x 512 MB DDR-400 Infineon modules at 333 MHz, my board does not allow more.

if hd cannot go at the required speed of ram the problem can come.

This the test called from Knoppix on the Gentoo root partition

# hdparm -t /dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb1:
Timing buffered disk reads: 110 MB in 3.03 seconds = 36.27 MB/sec
...
Adaptec AIC7xxx driver version: 7.0
Adaptec 29160 Ultra160 SCSI adapter
aic7892: Ultra160 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs
...
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST318438LW Rev: 0003
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03

check for loose connection in the mains supply.

I did, but will do so again before emerge -e world, which I will do tomorrow.

PS. if u can get PCLINUXOS-0.93 bigdaddy livecd check with it. i have never had a crash with it. we can learn from it what not to install for best stability.

kdm also is resposible for this crash

I am using kdm, what do you suggest? I started the download of "PCLINUXOS-0.93 bigdaddy" and will test tomorrow, thx for the tip

[padoor]

unmerge kdm for now. and try using verbose login and startx for kde
the failure rate (crash) of kde is much less than graphical login.
while using slackware i have found this.

it is worth while to check the kernel in use. instead of accepting all kernel capabilities
if we can select what we want only should be compiled with. its making lot of modules which we may not need. whatever can be built in the kernel we must do so not modules. going back to older kernel is worth.
the modular X does not have a xorg,conf it is worth trying to use one. the monitor may be working on its limits for the resolution selected. try other resolutions for screen which may stop the crashes. the fonts etc too. defaults are good to use.

it is time to look for troubles outside kde. what other gui u have installed. icewm twm
blackbox we can try with. invoke konsole firefox konqueror from any of the gui and see if it can run without crashing. which ever app causes crash we can find and repair / remove.

if u have enough hd space available make a new partition and start a new install with latest profile. removal or repair of this install review later from the result of new install bahaviour.

i hope u have not changed the default bios settings for ram speed and processor speed settings. sometimes the sensors also cause crash like lower temp setting fanspeed etc.

and i hope u r not login as root for normal use. check desktop settings . see if default sets run longer without crash.

i have seen keyboard gets disabled prior to crash or panel disappear or launcher disconnected.

[spiralvoice]

emerge -e world finished finally, I updated emerge --info here in the thread to reflect current status.
No crashes so far, but system did not work long. I will keep you updated.

[Gentoo User]

Hello, there!

I used to have similar problems when I had KDE installed on my box. After removing KDE, all the freeze/crash problems disappeared. If you think you can be happy without KDE, just get rid of it and install something lighter like, say, IceWM. Another thing you could try is to compile KDE with debugging support, then just use backtrace to see what happened. Still, removing things like KDE might help you a lot.

Rgds
Gentoo User

[spiralvoice]

I have the same problem with IceWM.
How can I get a backtrace after the machine rebooted itself?
Is there a way to avoid that reboot but display error messages,
like the infamous Windows blue-screen?

[padoor]

Chack in /var/log
Have you emerged and rc-updated syslog-ng?

[Matteo Azzali]

But mostly it crashes about once per hour, before writing this post it crashed
once, I rebooted, started Konqueror, opened a website, clicked on link and,
voila, happy rebooting... So, the crashes are infrequent, but often.

Run revdep-rebuild , if still doesn't fixes,please try to REMOVE flash plugin and anything related.
Test for some hours. If it stopped crashing at least you know the cause.

Also, are you using Konqueror or Firefox to navigate webpages? Some Firefox versions had
similar issues with flash, if I'm not wrong solution was to save bookmarks, delete current profile and
start a new one. But I was crashing every time I tried to enter a page with flash, so this case could be different.

In the end, please recheck that these your settings are really needed, I don't think they help stability:

CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fno-enforce-eh-specs"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict"

Since KDE is running fine for 99,9% of us, there could be something you did to your system that caused it to be
"far from tested machines", just guessing but please try to remember what else "non-standard" you have on your
system. And cause you're using Nvidia drivers please check if your card is still supported by the main drivers or
you need to switch to the legacy ones.

[spiralvoice]

Chack in /var/log
Have you emerged and rc-updated syslog-ng?

Yes, since the beginning but nothing was logged when the crashed.
Here is a selection from grep -B3 "syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting" /var/log/messages

Oct 8 17:26:22 gentoo /dev/vmmon[6821]: host clock rate change request 200 -> 0
Oct 8 17:26:22 gentoo vmmon: Had to deallocate locked 32066 pages from vm driver e3e9c000
Oct 8 17:26:22 gentoo vmmon: Had to deallocate AWE 3375 pages from vm driver e3e9c000
Oct 8 17:31:01 gentoo syslog-ng[5651]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Oct 8 19:07:02 gentoo bridge-eth0: attached
Oct 8 19:07:03 gentoo kde-np(pam_unix)[6724]: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Oct 8 19:10:01 gentoo cron[8334]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 8 20:10:19 gentoo syslog-ng[5385]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Oct 8 21:30:01 gentoo cron[13601]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 8 21:40:01 gentoo cron[13613]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 8 21:50:01 gentoo cron[13627]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 8 23:49:24 gentoo syslog-ng[5557]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Oct 12 13:50:01 gentoo cron[30899]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 12 14:00:01 gentoo cron[7644]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 12 14:00:01 gentoo cron[7646]: (root) CMD (rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly)
Oct 12 14:04:27 gentoo syslog-ng[8671]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Oct 12 14:04:36 gentoo i2c_adapter i2c-4: SMBus Quick command not supported, can't probe for chips
Oct 12 14:04:36 gentoo i2c_adapter i2c-5: SMBus Quick command not supported, can't probe for chips
Oct 12 14:04:39 gentoo kde-np(pam_unix)[9965]: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Oct 12 14:08:34 gentoo syslog-ng[5332]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Oct 12 14:50:36 gentoo /dev/vmmon[5928]: host clock rate change request 100 -> 200
Oct 12 14:50:41 gentoo /dev/vmmon[5928]: host clock rate change request 200 -> 201
Oct 12 14:50:53 gentoo /dev/vmmon[5928]: host clock rate change request 201 -> 200
Oct 12 14:52:27 gentoo syslog-ng[5686]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Oct 13 18:10:01 gentoo cron[14235]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 13 18:20:01 gentoo cron[18285]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 13 18:30:01 gentoo cron[18690]: (root) CMD (test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons && /usr/sbin/run-crons )
Oct 13 18:35:58 gentoo syslog-ng[5656]: syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting

Before each "syslog-ng version 1.6.11 starting" the system rebooted itself out of a sudden
which I was working with it. As you can see no crash-related infos was saved. I did not install
any cron jobs myself

/etc/cron.daily:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2132 18. Okt 01:25 prelink
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 199 17. Okt 16:21 slocate

/etc/cron.weekly:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 130 17. Okt 13:34 makewhatis

The other cron dirs are empty. I use VMWare a lot but I think most crashes are related to Firefox
because the machine crashes without VMWare as often as without, but mostly while I was
actively using Firefox.

[spiralvoice]

Run revdep-rebuild

I did this a lot, mostly once a day after a larger emerge session, so this is not related.

please try to REMOVE flash plugin and anything related.
Test for some hours. If it stopped crashing at least you know the cause.

I will try it, thx. emerge -e world (including kernel recompile) finished yesterday and I did not had time
to work much with the machine. Today I used it for an hour or so without total crashing, only Firefox
closed itself several times which looks like the old crash but without reboot I will use the machine for
some days and report back if it crashed as a whole. If the Firefox crash happens several times I will
remove all plugins and start with a new profile and put things back step by step.

Also, are you using Konqueror or Firefox to navigate webpages? Some Firefox versions had similar issues with flash, if I'm not wrong solution was to save bookmarks, delete current profile and start a new one. But I was crashing every time I tried to enter a page with flash, so this case could be different.

Yes, mostly FF, sometimes Konqueror. Flash works here however mostly well, at least I did not see
seldomly crashes while using Flash sites, but maybe they were opened in the background. I use a
lot of tabs and browser windows while using bookmark folders which open 10+ sites at the same time

In the end, please recheck that these your settings are really needed

I updated my current emerge --info in the second posting of this thread with more conservative settings.
If you like please have another look at them, maybe I still have something bad there.
I removed -fforce-addr and -ftracer from CFLAGS and -fvisibility-inlines-hidden from CXXFLAGS and
did emerge -e world.
According to http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20061 ... letter.xml these options were bad anyway.

but please try to remember what else "non-standard" you have on your system.

Nothing special. I had these crashes before beginning of August when I formatted the Gentoo
partition and installed stage3 from scratch, but the crashes did not went away. But I used the same
freaky CFLAGS back in August which I have just removed, maybe they were the cause.

And cause you're using Nvidia drivers please check if your card is still supported by the main drivers or you need to switch to the legacy ones.

I have a GeForce FX 5200 card

#lspci -v
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 248, IRQ 16
Memory at dd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at de000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [44] AGP version 3.0

# lspci -n | grep 02:00.0
02:00.0 0300: 10de:0322 (rev a1)

# zcat /usr/share/doc/nvidia-drivers-1.0.9626/README.gz | grep 0322
GeForce FX 5200 0x0322

I think my card is supported.

[spiralvoice]

One interesting side-note, current uptime 2.5h of the newly compiled system.
I did emerge -e world not as a whole but during 2 days with emerge --resume
using Knoppix and chroot into the Gentoo partition.

The last 10 out of 600 packages I emerged booting the newly compiled Gentoo.
While doing this I used the already compiled Firefox and the whole machine
crashed like before twice.

After emerging the rest I had no crashes so far after ~4h total uptime
which is a pretty good value compared to past experience. I can not say that
the problem is solved yet, but I would like to tell you what the last 10 packages were:

[ebuild N ] x11-libs/qt-4.1.4 USE="cups gif jpeg mng opengl png xinerama zlib -accessibility -debug -doc -examples -firebird -mysql -nas -nis -odbc -postgres -sqlite" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-python/sip-4.3.2 USE="-debug -doc" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] dev-python/PyQt-3.15.1 USE="-debug -doc -examples" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] app-misc/releaseforge-0.9.9c 0 kB
[ebuild N ] app-cdr/k3b-0.12.17 USE="alsa arts css dvdr ffmpeg flac hal kde mp3 musepack sndfile vcd vorbis xinerama -debug -encode -musicbrainz" LINGUAS="de -af -bg -bn -br -bs -ca -cs -cy -da -el -en_GB -es -et -eu -fi -fr -ga -he -hi -hu -is -it -ja -km -lt -mk -ms -nb -nds -nl -nn -pa -pl -pt -pt_BR -ro -ru -se -sl -sr -sr@Latn -sv -ta -tr -uk -zh_CN -zh_TW" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/kdepasswd-3.5.5 USE="arts kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility xinerama -debug" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/kdm-3.5.5 USE="arts kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility pam xinerama -debug" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/kdesktop-3.5.5 USE="arts kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility xinerama -debug -xscreensaver" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/kdebase-startkde-3.5.5 USE="arts kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility xinerama -debug" 0 kB
[ebuild N ] kde-base/kviewshell-3.5.5 USE="arts kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility xinerama -debug" 0 kB

Especially interesting should be the core KDE packagages shown above. Maybe this helps debugging.