I get reproducible system hangs within minutes, apparently under high load. There's no message left in the logs or under X, sound plays repeatedly the same 1-2 seconds of music, and the computer doesn't respond anymore (not even to short pressing the power button, which normally triggers a clean shutdown), but I got the following displayed in a text console, as I was trying to perform a backup there with rdiff-backup:
BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 61s! (kswapd0: 26)
Process kswapd0 (pid: 26, ti=f7214000 task=f713bf70 task.ti=f7214000)
Stack:
Call trace:
Code: c1 fa 66 66 90 66 90 89 c8 e8 68 36 b6 ff 90 5b 5d c3 8d 74 26 00 55 89 e5 53 0f 1f 44 00 00 89 d3 e8 90 36 b6 ff 90 89 d8 50 9d <66> 66 66 90 5b 5d c3 8d 74 26 00 55 89 e5 0f 1f 44 00 00 ba ff
The message repeats roughly every minute, just the "Code:" part being different, but the computer doesn't answer in any way whatsoever. This is relatively easy reproducible: start music (from Internet radio in Rhythmbox), load a flash video in Firefox, then switch to a console and do a "find . -type f -exec cat {} > /dev/null \;" (this makes it happen immediately - normal usage with Firefox, Rhytmbox, Evolution and PDF viewing in Evince or loading an OpenOffice Writer document also make it hang within maybe 10 minutes, without disk-intensive operations like find or rdiff-backup).
I can reproduce this behavior with both 2.6.35-23 from Ubuntu 10.10 and 2.6.35-24 from proposed-updates. I also tried 2.6.35.9 from mainline, but the WiFi USB stick doesn't work with that version, and I could only do "find", which didn't trigger the hang (couldn't really generate high loads without a network connection). However, by booting with 2.6.32 (leftover after upgrading from 10.04, I guess), I have an absolutely stable system: I can't get it to hang, no matter what I do (not even a single hang, despite testing for almost a week under high load, including the steps mentioned before).
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic 2.6.35-24.42
Regression: Yes
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-24.42-generic 2.6.35.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-24-generic i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0: meike 1813 F.... pulseaudio
/dev/snd/controlC1: meike 1813 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
Card hw:0 'IXP'/'ATI IXP rev 2 with ALC655 at 0xfe029000, irq 17'
Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC655 rev 0'
Components : 'AC97a:414c4760'
Controls : 41
Simple ctrls : 26
Card1.Amixer.info:
Card hw:1 'Device'/'USB VoIP Device at usb-0000:00:13.2-3.2, full speed'
Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
Components : 'USB05e1:2010'
Controls : 4
Simple ctrls : 2
Date: Sun Dec 12 14:06:52 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=eb6f761a-06fa-459b-bf01-8554b84d0cc1
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-24-generic root=UUID=d69674a5-188d-445d-a4e8-6e779690f937 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
LANG=en_US.utf8
SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.38
RfKill:
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
dmi.bios.date: 02/13/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
dmi.bios.version: 6.00 PG
dmi.board.name: RS482-M
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologies,LTD:bvr6.00PG:bd02/13/2006:svn:pn:pvr:rvn:rnRS482-M:rvr:cvn:ct3:cvr:
I am getting an very similar bug. Error message is nearly the same, except....
Process kswapd0 (pid: 26, ti=f7390000, task=f712bf70, task.fi=f7390000)
I think that it's been happening to me for a while, as I have had problems in gnome for several weeks. I assumed it was flash or some such, with the machine locking for about a minute, after which is recovers. Today, when logged into a console, I realised that it is probably much lower level than this.
Sadly, I was running ecrypt-migrate-home at the time, so it's likely that that the consequences are going to be a trashed machine/or home space.
Running 10.10. Can't give more diagnostics for obvious reasons.