Ubuntu issue

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Ok guys, here's one for you. The Ubu forums don't seem to know anything about it, or I'm searching with the wrong parameters. Willing to believe it might just be me, but someone else ought to have had this problem before.

First, specs:
BIOS
Date 07/31/2009
Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
Version 6.00 PG
Board
Name N61PB-M2S
Vendor BIOSTAR Group
Input Devices
Power Button
Power Button
Macintosh mouse button emulation
Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 1000
Chicony Saitek Eclipse II Keyboard
Chicony Saitek Eclipse II Keyboard
HDA Digital PCBeep
Processors
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ 1000.00MHz
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ 1000.00MHz
Memory
Total Memory 1931104 kB
Free Memory 735920 kB
Buffers 13652 kB
Cached 815044 kB
OpenGL
Vendor NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer GeForce 6150SE nForce 430/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
Version 2.1.2 NVIDIA 185.18.36
Direct Rendering Yes
Version
Kernel Linux 2.6.31-21-generic (i686)
Compiled #59-Ubuntu SMP Wed Mar 24 07:28:56 UTC 2010
C Library GNU C Library version 2.10.1 (stable)
Default C Compiler GNU C Compiler version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu9)
Distribution Ubuntu 9.10
Current Session
Computer Name Michada
User Name tobias (Tobias K. Sobel)
Home Directory /home/tobias
Desktop Environment GNOME 2.28.1
Misc
Uptime 1 day, 12 hours and 35 minutes
Load Average 0.93, 0.47, 0.20

All data from HardInfo.

My question: Why does the rutting thing freeze up on me, completely at random? Average length is 12 seconds, then it's business as usual. I have system monitor running in my toolbar, and as soon as the system unlocks it shows there was a 50% jump in processor use. The lock is most frequent while running Totem, I've currently got v. 2.28.2., but it does lock on other things as well, such as browsing text-only websites.

While locked, any sound play continues without hiccup. The screen itself is frozen save the mouse, which I can move freely about the screen. If I do something like click pause on the video, it will pause once the computer frees itself.

I've had this trouble with Ubuntu 9.04 and 10.04, I just don't much care for the newer version. Stubborn like that. Anyway, if any of you could help me, that'd be brilliant. Let me know if you need even more info.

It would seem to me that some or other process is taking up all your CPU usage causing the system to freeze. If it's completely frozen, you can press CTRL ALT F1 to switch to a terminal. Once in the terminal, log in as usual and then at the command prompt type top at the command prompt to display something similar to the task manager in windows and just press CTRL C to stop top and get the prompt again. You can kill processes by typing pkill followed by the name of the process but I wouldn't recommend that unless you know what you're doing. Finally, you can alway switch back to graphical mode by pressing CTRL ALT F7.

Read up on this.

See if it works the next time it freezes.

Not a single person who responded here could be bothered to take the time to fully read my original post. The system does NOT freeze up permanently, it 'hiccups' for an average of 12 seconds, then goes back to what it's doing. I know what an X crash is, I have very rarely dealt with one, often because of something I did. If this was a simple X crash I could figure it out. What is happening is a MOMENTARY lock of the system. There is no added process, no sudden jump in any process that is running. There's merely a 50% increase in processor usage.

Before anyone thinks I'm being a little... snappy, well, you're right. This is very irritating to me, even potentially dangerous. I do online banking through this computer, am working on my novel... if this system were to crash and data was lost, it would not be a good day. So let's not pretend we know the answer when we don't.

With all that speed and power you should not be slowing down.

It sounds to me like defective firmware or hardware.
(Either a rare hack or a power surge blew up some chips)
If that's the case, is it new under warranty?
Or in any case, did you do anything very unusual when it first happened?

Does it work better booting from a live CD? - Maybe bad HD.