I'm programming a game in OpenGL. When testing the game, sometimes, really very sometimes, suddenly my computer freezes. Everything freezes: KDE, the music that was playing loops in the soundcard, ctrl+alt+F1 doesn't work anymore, only the reset button works. This can't be reproduced, it just sometimes happens, even when doing nothing special in the game. Since whole linux freezes, its very hard to find out what's going on. Could this be due to a programming error from me in the game, or is OpenGL just not reliable in linux? And isn't it annoying that linux can freeze just as hard or even harder than Windows? I mean, a simple OpenGL program is able to freeze whole linux!

I've never had anything close to this problem. OpenGL has always been rock-solid reliable for me, even when I'm doing stupid things.

Are you running the OpenGL application as root?

Is your video card overheating?

Are the LEDs on your keyboard flashing when the machine goes down? This may indicate a kernel panic -- possibly due to a thermal problem or CPU bug (I used to get kernel panics on my old K6-2 while compiling for long periods of time sometimes).

It sounds a lot like a hardware issue to me because it's random -- does this problem occur at high loads under Windows?

Yep, my guess is a hardware/driver issue. Linux and OpenGL are two peas in the same pod.

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And isn't it annoying that linux can freeze just as hard or even harder than Windows? I mean, a simple OpenGL program is able to freeze whole linux!

Never happened to me in my 4+ years of using linux.

Unstable hardware, and unstable drivers, can freeze any computer system. Linux isn't immune to kernel bugs or driver bugs, any more than Windows NT is. The difference is that there are so many vendors wanting to make a cheap buck in the Windows arena, that you get pretty dodgy drivers at times. Meanwhile, Linux only gets drivers for devices where users who know how to make drivers actually can make them work.

I'm not running it as root, I never run applications as root unless I'm upgrading or modifying my system.

I don't think the videocard is overheating, because it played games well in Windows, but see a bit below for a possible hardware problem.

The LEDS don't flicker, actually they don't respond at all (pressing num lock doesn't change the LED)

It could be a hardware issue, because Windows sometimes gives random bluescreens for no reason, usually with errors indicating a problem with the NVidia drivers, or memory corruption. Even after a fresh Windows installation. I have been looking for a cause for over a year but never found anything.

I use a Geforce3, but only the nvidia-legacy work for me in Linux, not the regular nvidia drivers, for some reason.

Windows also bluescreens from time to time ? What exactly does it say when it happens ?

This doesn't sound like a videocard overheating problem. Those tend to announce themselves with corrupted geometry, funky coloured lines, etc. It sounds more like a RAM issue. How does your current memory configuration look like ? Also, try to slow down memory timing, and see if it helps with stability.

Also, run memtest.

Quote: Original post by 255
Also, run memtest.

Yes -- run memtest! Your RAM might be bad.

I ran memtest for 8 hours, and 0 errors were found, I think the RAM must be healthy.

Could it be the videocard that's bad? Is it possible to test it's RAM?

I never saw weird colored triangles tho, just freezes that happen all of a sudden.