Machine Freezes

I am running LinuxCNC 2.7.14 on Debian 7 (Wheezy) on an old Gigabyte motherboard in a desktop tower.
Machine is Pentium 4 at 3.0 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, 150 GB drive.

Installed a few months ago and used sporadically as I got my turret mill operational.
The Debian/LinuxCNC operation was perfectly Ok for me.
Not connected to any networks and no other software installed.
The learning experience was fine and I had started making real jobs.

Recently, started suffering freezes of the cursor, generally after standing idle for some time, but sometimes within minutes of starting.
Cured by cycling the power.

Is it worth troubleshooting, or should I install something else ?

My personal machine is Lubuntu 18 on a new laptop and I would have no problems using the terminal to dig into the Debian installation, if required.

Leadshine drivers from a BOB.
John

Is there anything in the logs that may point to this issue.

Could it be an overheating, CPU heatsink grease may have gone off, or PSU issue ?

Have you tried running memtest from the grub menu, tried reseating the ram and de-dusting the PC ?

Are you using an internal GPU or GPU card, could it be an over heating issue as it could be for the CPU mentioned above ?

Just suggesting some of the basics that you may have already looked at.
I have a similar issue with one of the Dell PCs I own, same CPU @ same speed, but have never really looked into it as there are enough sitting around atm.

electrosteam wrote: Recently, started suffering freezes of the cursor, generally after standing idle for some time, but sometimes within minutes of starting.

Does the machine otherwise work OK?

I had a problem with similar behaviour with my mill. The jobs would complete with no errors, but the UI was frozen.
I tracked it down to a wireless keyboard dongle. That was disconnecting and reconnecting to the USB bus several times per second. (the actual keyboard was turned off)

As an experiment, try disconnecting mouse and keyboard. (though obviously you need to reconnnect to test for a freeze)

Thanks BeagleBrainz, you quite correctly said that I should get off my backside and investigate.
My reluctance was due to having been down this path with an early Lubuntu install, only fixed by upgrading and changing machines.

But, Andy's idea on the USBs will be tried today (morning in Sydney as I write).
This machine has a second data drive that does not need to be there, so that will go.
I should add that the latency times were acceptable, and the mill runs fine.
Never got a freeze in the middle of a run.

Spent time on Debian sites last night, and now have the confidence to open a terminal session.
John.

Hey John another Sydney sider as well

OMG thank you so much for this comment Andy!
I was tearing my hair out!

Had exactly the issue you describe on my lathe, random, intermittent complete UI freezes when running longer looped code.
The system is rock solid otherwise, left on 24/7 never locks up. Manually running code never locks up. But running looped code would sooner or later lead to a complete lock-up and force a restart of the machine. Exactly this issue.

AXIS / LinuxGUI frozen.
No Keyboard inputs accepted.
GCode runs perfectly to end.

Your comment led me to investigate the wireless mouse.
Turns out the wireless logitech mouse had a USB brownout issue that would power cycle the mouse every time the coolant solenoid was activated! I think the usb extension cable that the mouse dongle was plugged into ran too close to the coolant solenoid wiring.

In any case, I changed to a wired mouse and the issue seems to be completely fixed!

Gotta watch out for wireless peripherals power cycling, apparently!