Ubuntu: Xmame causes my computer to shutdown

[Boris Morozov]

Very odd. Never did this before. My computer will shutdown while playing a game under xmame. Anyone have a particular reason as to why it is doing this? The computer does not shutdown when I am doing anything else.

Ubuntu Feisty
AMD Sempron
512mb RAM

 

[bersl2]

What kind of "shutdown"? Sudden reboot? Delayed reboot? Freeze? Crash to console & kernel panic? Power-off? Screen goes black and monitor goes into standby?

If the machine doesn't power down or reboot or otherwise return to a usable state on its own, can you get to another computer that is networked to the one in question and try to ssh into the crashed box (if applicable)?

 

[Boris Morozov]

Oh hi.

Shutdown as in power off. The computer will turn off and the monitor will go into standby. I only have this computer on my network. Oh and oddly enough, a couple of hours after creating this thread, the computer turned off while I was using the internet.

 

[Boris Morozov]

Bump.

Ack, this is irritating. Can't play a game without it shutting down in the middle of the game I'm playing. Should I just uninstall and then reinstall xmame???

 

[Boris Morozov]

So nobody knows.... T_____________T

I'll see if I can figure it out later. Thanks for reading!

 

[nweaver]

tbh, it sounds like it might be hardware, if it's suddenly shutting off (no crash)

 

[Boris Morozov]

I too assumed that. Another Windows box I had would randomly shutdown no matter what I was doing. The computer could just be sitting there and it would turn off.

Anyways, this computer turned off only once from doing something else other than xmame. It's a little irritating that this computer's behaviour is becoming like another POS I used to use. >=(

Perhaps its just time for an all new computer rather than just using the scraps in my closet to build one.

 

[Boris Morozov]

OH MY GOD this computer is insane!!1 O.O

Ok so I just got yet another random shut down. Except, this time, the shut down menu randomly popped up. I know for a FACT I did not even move my mouse up there and clicked the shut down icon. Anyways, I clicked cancel, and what do you know. Computer shuts down.

So now I have a feeling that something might be telling this crappy computer to shut down. -_-
time for a new computer or waht????? Ugh >=(

 

[bersl2]

If the shutdown is sudden, it's a hardware problem. Get a known-good power supply and see if that isn't the problem.

If the shutdown is orderly (Ubuntu does show some diagnostic info on a normal shutdown, right?), that is completely bizarro and makes no sense at all.

 

[Boris Morozov]

Aha it was indeed a hardware problem. One of my sticks of RAM took a crap. I pulled one stick and left one in. After turning the computer back on, Ubuntu did a test and the word FAIL was in red. Don't remember what it was pertaining to since I wasn't paying attention (rebooted right after I turned around) so it was obviously talking about the ram. I let it reboot, ran xmame, and of course the computer shutdown.

Pulled the stick out, put the other one back in, no FAIL, and xmame ran without shutting down. ^-^

Ok so I just got yet another random shut down. Except, this time, the shut down menu randomly popped up. I know for a FACT I did not even move my mouse up there and clicked the shut down icon. Anyways, I clicked cancel, and what do you know. Computer shuts down.

Regarding this shutdown, it wasn't orderly. Menu came up, I clicked cancel and it immediately shut down. Also, the diagnostics never showed any errors. It wasn't until I pulled out the working RAM stick that it showed a hardware problem. ^-^

It seems I have bad luck with RAM though. A Powermac G4 I used to have disposed of 2 RAM sticks, and this one disposes of 1. O.O

Thank you bersl2 and nweaver!!