Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

Yrz0 · 2014-12-04 17:41:20

Hi all,

I recently switched from Windows to Arch Linux for good and it's been an enjoyable experience so far. My only problem is system freezes that sometimes occur when putting load on the system.
Mostly I'm having the problem that games I'm playing will inevitably freeze at some point, might be 5 minutes after launching them, might be 2h. It isn't exclusive to games though, once or twice Chrome crashed when having a couple of tabs open and opening another YouTube tab or something like that.

Here's how it happens:
- My frame rate (in games) drops over a couple of seconds until I only see a slide show, then it's only a matter of seconds until the system (X?) freezes completely.
- simultaneously the sound begins to stutter and stops as well
- if I see it coming and manage to Alt+F4 out of the game it goes back to running normally, otherwise it freezes completely and my only option is to reboot or Alt+SysRq+R, Alt+SysRq+E which brings me back to my login manager.

About my system:
- latest Arch, upgraded a couple of times which didn't change anything
- Intel i5 CPU, Nvidia GPU with proprietary drivers
- Openbox as WM, no DE, but I had the same problem with GNOME and KDE before as well

Games I played on this system (and all crashed):
- CS:GO, Prison Architect, WoW on Wine

If someone could give me any hints how I could go about diagnosing/removing this problem I would be very grateful!

P.S. I didn't have any problems like this at all on Windows (7)

WorMzy · 2014-12-04 17:52:08

If someone could give me any hints how I could go about diagnosing/removing this problem I would be very grateful!

The journal should be your first port of call. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sy … al#Journal

Check the entries for the times when you experienced this behaviour, and see if there is anything that would indicate a cause. e.g. segfaults, lockups, read errors, etc.

Yrz0 · 2014-12-04 18:18:56

Dec 04 18:48:39 archie dbus[239]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service failed to load: No such file or directory.
Dec 04 19:08:33 archie kernel: SysRq : Keyboard mode set to system default
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie kernel: SysRq : Terminate All Tasks
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd-journal[155]: Journal stopped
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd-journal[9737]: Permanent journal is using 232.0M (max allowed 4.0G, trying to leave 4.0G free of 63.2G available → current limit 4.0G).
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd-journald[155]: Received SIGTERM.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd-journal[9737]: Journal started
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie dhcpcd[299]: received signal TERM from PID 0, stopping
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie dhcpcd[299]: enp2s0: removing interface
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie dhcpcd[299]: exited
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie lightdm[5302]: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session closed for user ricardo
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie dhcpcd[9725]: dhcpcd not running
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie lightdm[5302]: pam_systemd(lightdm:session): Failed to release session: Connection reset by peer
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie pulseaudio[5357]: Unable to read or parse data from client.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie pulseaudio[5357]: PulseAudio information vanished from X11!
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[272]: Stopping Default.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[5316]: Stopping Default.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[272]: Stopped target Default.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[5316]: Stopped target Default.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[272]: Stopping Basic System.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[5316]: Stopping Basic System.
Dec 04 19:08:36 archie systemd[272]: Stopped target Basic System.

Thanks for the hint, didn't know the journal yet. Just had another crash. The journal unfortunately doesn't seem to show anything fruitful concerning the crash. (which occured between the first two entries)

lucke · 2014-12-04 19:29:48

How much memory do you have? Do you have a swap partition/file?

starbreaker · 2014-12-04 20:17:51

Could your machine be overheating? If it uses an Intel CPU, thermald might be helpful as a stopgap.

Yrz0 · 2014-12-04 21:31:38

lucke wrote:

How much memory do you have? Do you have a swap partition/file?

4 GB. And no swap partition.

starbreaker wrote:

Could your machine be overheating? If it uses an Intel CPU, thermald might be helpful as a stopgap.

I don't think so. I checked once after rebooting the machine and the CPU had very normal temperature values. I will definitely check that one more time, though.

lucke · 2014-12-04 21:38:21

Read https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=190247.

If the freeze happens, see if Alt-SysRq-f helps.

Yrz0 · 2014-12-04 21:53:47

lucke wrote:

Read https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=190247.
If the freeze happens, see if Alt-SysRq-f helps.

Thanks, that looks very promising. When the next freeze happen's I'll try to find out if it's a memory problem. Or create a swap file anyway.

//I created a swap file (4GB) and I haven't experienced any further crashes yet. Looks like that was the problem.

Last edited by Yrz0 (2014-12-07 16:43:41)

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-04 17:41:20

Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#2 2014-12-04 17:52:08

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#3 2014-12-04 18:18:56

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#4 2014-12-04 19:29:48

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#5 2014-12-04 20:17:51

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#6 2014-12-04 21:31:38

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#7 2014-12-04 21:38:21

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

#8 2014-12-04 21:53:47

Re: Unavoidable system freezes when playing games

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