Re: system freeze older iMac Debian 11

["Robert F. Crochelt" <rfc56@fastmail.com>]

On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 08:24:57AM -0800, Bob Crochelt wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 26, 2022, at 18:14, Felix Miata wrote:
> > Bob Crochelt composed on 2022-01-26 17:25 (UTC-0800):
> > 
> > > inxi output attached.  
> > 
> > Your iMac's BIOS date is about a month earlier than mine. Likely the only
> > difference between ours is you have G92M [GeForce 8800M GTS] while I have
> > RV630/M76 [Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT/2700]. If yours is anything like mine, it
> > generates a lot of heat. Has yours ever had an internal cleaning? It may need its
> > heat sink compound on CPU and/or GPU replaced. System freezes are a common symptom
> > of overheating. Also, RAM is subject to failure with age and overheating. Have you
> > tried running memtest86?
> > -- 
> > Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
> > based on faith, not based on science.
> > 
> > Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
> > 
> > Felix Miata
> > 
> Hi again Felix,
> I've thought about cleaning the machine, and watched videos of opening one of these up, and am intimidated by it.  Looks beyond my abilities.  Redoing the heat sink compound probably is.  I've lived in small rural communities that don't have computer services readily available.  I could look for an apple place or take it to the nearest apple store, since that is closer to where I live now.  hard drive is old too so would probably change that out too.  
> Machine ran without difficulty overnight, and got through a teams meeting this morning without problem, running gnome on Wayland.  Perhaps that is the way forward.
> Tried to run memtest86 from the grub menu but it just seemed to sit there, will try that again today.  
> thanks
> Bob Crochelt

Hi Felix,
thought you might like a little more followup.
I wound up trying:
apt remove nvidia*
and I still have graphics, and the system is running much cooler.  No freezes with fvwm, though gnome is still buggy for me, and I have trouble with it coming back to life after the screen blanks.
I  know your system has different graphics than mine.
Best,
Bob Crochelt