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
