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#1 2016-04-04 19:38:22

acrypter
Member
Registered: 2015-07-05
Posts: 8

Arch Installation freezes randomly

Hello guys,

first let me say I don't even know if I am posting in the right category right here, because I simply can't identify the problem at all. I use Arch since a few months on my desktop and school laptop and I really like it. Usually. But right know I am not sure if I will keep Arch Linux because this problem pretty much destroys my ability to get any work done and I don't even know how to identify the problem.

So first things first here is my setup:
I own a latitude 3450 Dell Laptop and run a 64 Bit Arch Installation without dual boot. My DE currently is xfce4.
The problem started appearing a few weeks ago and it never happened as often as now and I am simply unable to get any of my work done. So what is the problem exactly? Out of the blue my GUI just freezes completely and by completely I mean that I am not even able to switch tty anymore. I have already tried a few things to debug this problem, first I started the ssh service and waited until it happened and then tried to connect to my laptop but I was even unable to ping it. After that I tried using (configuring) the sysreq shortcut but that also did not work at all. In this case I am not sure if I used the right keyboard shortcut but I looked it up and followed the instructions. After these two steps didn't get me any closer to a solution I viewed the journal with journalctl -b and let a friend take a look who knows a lot more about Arch than I do. But unfortunatly it didn't mention anything useful at all.

So at this stage I hope someone can help me fix my problem or it would probably better to say identifiy the cause first because I am unable to do that. Thanks for your help in advance.

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#2 2016-04-04 20:24:58

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,739

Re: Arch Installation freezes randomly

Are the keyboard LEDs blinking when this happens?  (Caps Lock, Num Lock)
Is this an Intel processor?  Have you installed and configured the microcode patches for your processor? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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#3 2016-04-05 19:00:13

acrypter
Member
Registered: 2015-07-05
Posts: 8

Re: Arch Installation freezes randomly

So I updated the microcode and so far so good. I will make a few tests in the next days if I find time between my work. Thank you a lot!

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#4 2016-04-06 10:58:18

acrypter
Member
Registered: 2015-07-05
Posts: 8

Re: Arch Installation freezes randomly

So unfortunatly the problem still occurs. I have some further information regarding the problem. @ewaller Upgrading the microcode didn't change anything.  The processor is a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz. The power led is on and I can not change the state of the caps lock led by pressing the key. I also found out that the freezes most likely happen during the use of VMWare Workstation and Gummi (LaTeX Editor). I also have a swap partition configured so I maybe think the whole thing has something to do with my swap partition because the freezes seem to occur when I use something resource heavy.

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#5 2016-04-07 19:57:33

wkd
Member
Registered: 2016-04-04
Posts: 23

Re: Arch Installation freezes randomly

I've only seen this kind of behavior twice before and both times it was hardware problems for me. The first time was bad RAM, identified with memtest86+ and fixed by removing it.
The second time it was a USB3 hub that inexplicably caused my system to freeze completely when I connected or removed a USB device.

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#6 2016-04-10 04:11:15

HCF
Member
Registered: 2016-04-10
Posts: 29

Re: Arch Installation freezes randomly

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#7 2016-04-25 15:10:28

acrypter
Member
Registered: 2015-07-05
Posts: 8

Re: Arch Installation freezes randomly

Sorry for not replying for such a long time. To keep it short none of the suggested solutions worked, I tried a memtest etc,... Finally I simply downgraded the Kernel to 4.3.3 and now it doesn't occur at all. I still have no idea what causes it so sadly I can't file a proper bug report. Thank you all for your help.

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