Ubuntu Linux laptop crashes near a certain welding supplier

Very strange. I have a laptop running Ubuntu 8.10. While there are some minor bugs, and inconveniences, it operates relatively reliably, is fully able to suspend, screensaver etc and is a joy to use, nice on battery etc.

When I am on the road I use "Wireless broadband".

Anyway, two times in a row it froze when I parked my truck in front of a certain welding supplier called Wisco (on Western Avenue in Chicago).

First I went there to fill an acetylene bottle, found the laptop frozen with blinking keyboard LEDs, and dismissed freezing as a random bug.

Then the bottle turned out to leak through the top of the valve, so next day I took it there to replace it, and by the time I drove away, the laptop froze again!

WTF???

My only guess is that someone over there runs some sort of a hostile Wifi station that crashes Linux. I am quite puzzled.

Reply to
Ignoramus2817
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Are they doing arc welding there? An arc welder must produce an awful lot of broadband noise which could be picked up by any trace in your laptop not just by the radio components.

Reply to
General Schvantzkoph

Are you competing with yourself for most irrelevant posts?

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

My first reaction is that no, they sell welders but they do not weld regularly. Possible but unlikely.

Reply to
Ignoramus2817

Chicago).

hostile

Is there a microwave link somewhere in the area? Or a radar dish? The electronics on my Discovery were knocked out by a military radar.

AWEM

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

The overheat indicator light on my catalytic converter used to come on every time I drove past a certain radio station.

Reply to
Leo Lichtman

But worth checking -- also TIG. I got some warnings about TIG using high frequencies that will muck up electronics when I took welding (which seems a bit like an old wives tale, but I haven't really investigated).

A hostile WAP that crashes Linux is extremely unlikely.

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

So next time you go there, pull up a block or two away and turn WiFi

*OFF*. Make sure the laptop is in the same place in the truck and preferably with the same applications active and see if it crashes when you park in as near the same place outside the welding supplier as you did last time. If it hasn't crashed when you come back out, but crashes if you sit there and re-enable the WiFi it *might* be an odd WiFi signal, otherwise if it stays running the mystery interference has gone away or if its crashed when you came out its some sort of RFI screwing up some signal on the motherboard or drives.

Also take a medium wave portable radio. Tune it between stations and listen a block away and again when you get close.

If it *IS* RFI, *dont* leave your laptop switched on when you go there!

Reply to
IanM

Hard to say, but they are in a populous area in Chicago, so anything very high power would not be likely found. Just speculating.

Reply to
Ignoramus2817

I TIG weld at home and it does not crash my laptop.

I do not necessarily mean by hostile to say "designed to crash Linux", maybe some buggy WAP that sends malformatted packets.

Reply to
Ignoramus2817

Yep, next time I will try more. I looked in /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages and did not find anything worth mentioning.

Reply to
Ignoramus2817

So do I.

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

| >> Are they doing arc welding there? An arc welder must produce an awful lot | >> of broadband noise which could be picked up by any trace in your laptop | >> not just by the radio components. | >

| > My first reaction is that no, they sell welders but they do not weld | > regularly. Possible but unlikely. | | But worth checking -- also TIG. I got some warnings about TIG using | high frequencies that will muck up electronics when I took welding | (which seems a bit like an old wives tale, but I haven't really | investigated). | | A hostile WAP that crashes Linux is extremely unlikely.

Not a myth at all, at least in my experience. I had to replace a Napco alarm system because my TIG welder would drive it nuts every time I used it. I changed to shielded wire to my keypad, and all the sensors in the area of the TIG machine, but no help. Even tried grounding foil around the keypad, but no help. Finally just replace it with another brand, and problem solved.

Have not had a similar problem with any other electrical device.

Reply to
Watson

I demand that Ignoramus2817 may or may not have written...

Kernel panic. You won't find anything in the log files *but* try switching to a text console (before it panics!) and you may see something useful. You'll want a high-res console, though (append "vga=ask" to the kernel command line if you get fewer than 50 lines of text).

Reply to
Darren Salt

We lost our 30 some year old microwave (finally) - wow programming on keys?! and we got a switcher. My wife or I can tote it anywhere. The old one took a strong one and wanting a cart...

The switcher from what I can determine is so bad that it kills the wireless internet connection - dead.

I have to bring in my scope to measure the wavelength and density.

I wonder if it even passed testing.

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

If its electrically noisy, WAP packets may well get corrupted.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Yes, but a *lot* of work has gone into making the Linux networking stack bulletproof (with a lot of publicity when something has gone wrong, like the Ping of Death a while ago). It isn't the WAP sending malformed packets I'm calling extremely unlikely, it's those malformed packets crashing the laptop.

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

Ubuntu (and, I assume, Linux in general) doesn't always respond as gracefully as Windows does to network problems. I think it's because network access is built into Linux at a much deeper level (and I'm not sure that Ubuntu does the absolute best at setting up Linux to react correctly).

So I'm with the folks that think it's just interference to your wireless broadband (cell phone, I assume) that's messing up your computer.

Have you tried leaving it in that condition and driving away from the place, to see if it'll recover?

Have you considered that it may just be going _really slow_ for all the retries, and given it some space to just be alone for a while?

Have you considered just turning it off before you turn in to the parking lot?

Reply to
Tim Wescott

Luckily I've not had a problem with interference from HF on my TIGs or the current draws. I had an old add-on unit when I moved to the current location and checked with my neighbours to see if it effected their TV and other stuff about 6 ' away through 3 4" concrete walls, no issues. The newer Hitachi HF inverter TIG causes no problems either and if there is any noise radiated back on the mains lines it has never seemed to have any effect on the PCs I have running most of the time.

Reply to
David Billington

| > | >> Are they doing arc welding there? An arc welder must produce an awful | > lot | > | >> of broadband noise which could be picked up by any trace in your laptop | > | >> not just by the radio components. | > | >

| > | > My first reaction is that no, they sell welders but they do not weld | > | > regularly. Possible but unlikely. | > | | > | But worth checking -- also TIG. I got some warnings about TIG using | > | high frequencies that will muck up electronics when I took welding | > | (which seems a bit like an old wives tale, but I haven't really | > | investigated). | > | | > | A hostile WAP that crashes Linux is extremely unlikely. | >

| > Not a myth at all, at least in my experience. I had to replace a Napco alarm | > system because my TIG welder would drive it nuts every time I used it. I | > changed to shielded wire to my keypad, and all the sensors in the area of | > the TIG machine, but no help. Even tried grounding foil around the keypad, | > but no help. Finally just replace it with another brand, and problem solved. | >

| > Have not had a similar problem with any other electrical device. | >

| >

| >

| >

| Luckily I've not had a problem with interference from HF on my TIGs or | the current draws. I had an old add-on unit when I moved to the current | location and checked with my neighbours to see if it effected their TV | and other stuff about 6 ' away through 3 4" concrete walls, no issues. | The newer Hitachi HF inverter TIG causes no problems either and if there | is any noise radiated back on the mains lines it has never seemed to | have any effect on the PCs I have running most of the time.

I using a Lincoln 300/300, purchased new back in the 70s. Doesn't seem to both my shop PC either. In fact, the only problem I have ever had was with the Napco alarm system. My current alarm system is a C&K, and it has never complained either.

Reply to
Watson

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