Re: [gentoo-user] Mouse wheel makes firefox hang

[Hervé Guillemet]

Thanks Mick for the suggestions.

> > After a recent system update I get this annoying strange behavior:
> > when scrolling in a firefox or thunderbird window with the mouse
> > wheel, the full X interface freezes for some seconds, then a system
> > beep is emitted and the interface unfreezes, but most of the time the
> > mouse cursor becomes invisible.


> If it is a BIOS beep, rather than a desktop/application sound, then
> you have some hardware problem. The recent update may have
> implemented some hardware acceleration rendering on the browser and
> this is putting pressure on your GPU, RAM, PSU. A single beep points
> to RAM, but I don't know all OEM's BIOS codes.

> I'd start by opening the cover and reseating your RAM modules.
> Oxidisation may have increase contact resistance. Usually pulling
> them out and pushing them back in cleans them enough to restore a
> good electrical contact.

> While you're there try removing all the dust from CPU, GPU, PSU
> coolers and air ducts using a vacuum cleaner (carefully) or a
> compressed air can. Keep holding the chassis at all times with one
> hand or use an earthing strap, some vacuum cleaners I've tried have a
> terrible problem with creating static electricity and a discharge
> could blow your MoBo chipset

> Finally, reseat any SATA/IDE cables. Their contacts can also corrode
> with time and if the browser is caching pages on disk while the
> freeze occurs it might cause a problem, although unlikely to get a
> BIOS beep from it. You wouldn't be able to boot with a hard disk
> failure beep code going off, if this was your problem.

Single beep would mean RAM issue indeed if it's a BIOS beep. But the 
fact that it happens only when using the mouse wheel let me think it is 
problably something more specific that a RAM issue.

I did some cleanup, without success. The system is fanless and thus 
quite stable and remains clean.

I reseated the RAM. No change.
I run memtest86+. No errors.


> > I must restart X to get it back.


> This sounds like a Xorg drivers problem, but if Xorg has partially
> crashed due to RAM or power problems, then this cursor problem will
> go away after you address the hardware issue.


>> Scrolling with scrollbars or arrow keys works. Scrolling with
>> wheels in others apps like terminals works too. No useful message
>> in syslog, dmesg or console.


> What does /var/log/Xorg.0.log reveal?

Nothing either.

In the meantime I found another application triggering the problem (some 
image display software), so this is not specific to Gecko.

-- 
Hervé