x11 gnome-shell display freezes every minute for 25 seconds

Question

I use gnome shell in Fedora 18 x86_64 on an emachines E725 notebook. For the last month, every 60 seconds the display locks up for 25 seconds. Sometimes it does this for 10 minutes, and sometimes all day. The mouse cursor still moves, and sound still plays without skipping. Also, progress bars jump forward when it unfreezes as they never froze. I have stopped all cron tasks and restarted many times. The exact second the clock stops on varies each time I restart the system. I have also noticed a small increase in network use right before it freezes. It sometimes starts freezing before I open any apps, and it still freezes after I close all apps. Please let me know if there is any additional information I should post. I have done many convoluted google and stackoverflow searches over a long period of time and have found no similar problems posted. Thank you for any help or advice.

Answer 1

Probably off topic, but I'd suggest trying a CD/USB linux distribution (i.e. one that runs off the CD rather than having to install it).

If that has problems, you are probably looking at a hardware issue.

If a CD distribution works, then yep, it's something wrong with your installation.