screen flickering, kill off users to clear

[Jerry Jaynes]

We have had a repeated problem of unix boxes, from C200 to C3600 since moving to HPUX 11.00 and Intralink 3.0.

The screen begins flickering and we have no option except to attempt to kill off all the user processes one by one till it stops. It generally means rebooting.

I mentioned Intralink, because that is when the problem first manifested itself. It happened to me the other day. I was not using Intralink or ProE. Just netscape 4.79.

netscape is the ONLY common application that is used by all users. I am stumped and I am hoping someone has a clue.

The system is not topped out nor are file systems full.

Any suggestions?

[harry d brown jr]

have you installed the latest patch bundle or patches for X??

When you say "moved to hpux 11.00" do you mean you used the upgrade option or installed 11.00 from scratch (aka cold install or virgin install) ??

Could it be a POWER issue??

live free or die
harry

[Jerry Jaynes]

We have perhaps not the latest, I am going to CPM them for my box today, but fairly late, (APRIL 2002)

It isn't power, because they are on UPS and it has happened at multiple sites.

It was a virgin load, via ignite. I built a golden image for each class and that is what I have used.

Frustrating, and totally non-reproducable.

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

what cards have you in your box and what io slot is the graphics card in.

During the flickering, what does the lcd display..

Later,
Bill

[Jerry Jaynes]

We have fx2 to fx6, but mostly fx4's. I did look up "flicker" on the patches and found one reference to the refresh rate.

I have reset my machine to 1280 by 1024 85hz.

I'll try it but as I said it doesn't happen often. So it's going to be a crap shoot.

As far as the lcd, I didn't look. I will the next time it happens and I will also try resetting the refresh rate to attempt to clear the problem.

[Will Couillard]

If TCOE is installed, how recent is the "Graphics and Technical Computing Software" B6268AA? I've seen similar behavior with Rev B.11.03, on our workstations. On stations with Rev B.11.05, we haven't seen this problem.

ctrl>shift>break (restarting X) is the method I use to stop it.

[Alex Glennie]

Flickering ? Are we talking colormaps and the technicolor effect on application windows or is the entire screen flashing ?

netscape is known to be a color hog you may like to try using netscape with a -install option ?

fyi try using to kill things ... it will kill CDE/Xserver ungracefully but is not as drastic as a reboot.

Lastly have you tried checking /var/dt/Xerrors or altered the default visual via sam : sam from Truecolor to Pseudo if applicable : see also /etc/X11/X0screens ... that's assumming this is hp/ color map related.

If not I'd continue looking for clues ... maybe see what processes are running , check users $HOME/.dt/errorlog, that kind of thing ?

Getting the latest Graphics & Technical computing bundle & associated patches etc is also a v.good idea if you are using fx-2,4.6's