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Hi,
about a week ago, i installed a Vega64 GPU in my Desktop machine. (Before, i was using the built-in iIntel graphics.) Since then, my X server crashes randomly while playing a game, namely while playing Life is Strange. The reason i'm asking for help here is because the logs show nothing happening around the time of the freeze.
Xorg freezes, the last frame is shown, mouse movement or anything is not possible, the game keeps running, continuing to play sounds and dialogues just fine, although it can't get any user interaction any more.
The problem can often be reproduced by trying to tab out of the game, but i have had multiple instances where i thought the problem might be fixed because i could tab out of the game without any problems, started to play it and Xorg froze anyway just a few minutes or even just seconds later.
I'm using Gnome, mesa drivers, everything is up to date. I have already deactivated all themes and plugins in Gnome, the problem still persist.
I can switch to another tty to examine the system. Killing the game process from there doesn't unfreeze the screen, the only thing i can do is kill Xorg and log in again.
Usually i would just google this kind of problem and try to find a solution, but the problem in this case is that there is nothing unusual happening in the logs. I've checked journalctl, i've checked dmesg, the only stuff i can see in there right after the freeze is the messages that appear because i switched to/logged in on another tty. I even ran steam form another TTY so i could look at possible error messages occuring – none.
My main question is: My system is telling me nothing. Is there anywhere else i can look or some hidden flag i could set to get any kind of output that might help? Otherwise… what else can i do to debug this?
Aside from this issue, there seems to be another issue that weirdly *could* be connected to it. I know it's weird and sounds extremely unlikely at first, but please read this to the end: Since installing the new GPU, the game was unable to run with 5.1 sound. speaker test and surround video/audio files play fine. It should be important to note that i am not outputting the sound via the GPU but via a USB sound card, so this should not be related, but it seems to be. When playing with my external sound card set to 5.1 output in pulseaudio, the center speaker is muted and there is no dialogue. Possibly only in cut scenes, i haven't been able to pin that down since Xorg freezes so frequently. Effectively, since i installed a new GPU, i can only play the game in Stereo.
Now, this wouldn't be much of an issue and seem mostly unrelated, but after the GPU crash a different sound issue appears (yes, on the USB sound card). Afterwards, get distorted/crackling sound sounding in a lower tune than it is supposed to be. It affects any sound output by any software. This issue appears if i set the sound card output to 5.1 output and back to Stereo. It does not work with all other options. I tried this multiple times to confirm it. Weirdly, this is the only way to fix it. Even if i reboot (using the reboot command) the problem persists, i still have the sound issue and i have to switch to 5.1 and back to stereo to make it disappear.
To me, this feels a lot like the system (probably just pulseaudio, but could that lead to issues with X?) has some kind of issue with the additional sound interface that the new GPU provides. it also appears on top of the device list in pulseaudio, the sound interface of the previous intel graphics used to appear in a later position. i tried disabling the Vega64 "sound card", even by unloading the module in pulseaudio, but it didn't change the issue. Also, not sure if this might be related: Usually, when i disable a soundcard in pulseaudio (by setting it to no outputs/inputs in pavucontrol) this setting persists. Since installing the new GPU, it looks like the GPU sound device gets always automatically activated again, mostly after reboots, but even sometimes after the crash occured.
I can't test this with other games right now. I've suspected that it might be a power issue and i upgraded my PSU to fix it. It didn't change anything either.
Please help. I'm out of ideas for how i can try to understand what's going on here. Of course, i can't completely rule out that the GPU is faulty, but shouldn't i still get some kind of log output then instead of literally nothing showing up?
I'm thankful for any input.
Here are a few outputs that might help to understand the situation. I would quote logs or error messages, but literally nothing appears at or even close to the moment where the issue appears.
~/ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 07)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 31)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 31)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Q170/Q150/B150/H170/H110/Z170/CM236 Chipset SATA Controller [AHCI Mode] (rev 31)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f1)
00:1d.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #11 (rev f1)
00:1d.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #12 (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation B150 Chipset LPC/eSPI Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family Power Management Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family SMBus (rev 31)
00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V (rev 31)
01:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1470 (rev c1)
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1471
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Vega 10 XL/XT [Radeon RX Vega 56/64] (rev c1)
03:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Vega 10 HDMI Audio [Radeon Vega 56/64]
06:00.0 PCI bridge: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1083/1085 PCIe to PCI Bridge (rev 04)
07:01.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio (rev 10)
08:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1142 USB 3.1 Host Controller~/ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1bcf:0005 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc. Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 145f:0143 Trust
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 045e:0750 Microsoft Corp. Wired Keyboard 600
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hubOffline