System randomly freezes

easylearn · 2023-08-10 18:35:26

My system keeps randomly freezing. When that happens, my mouse won't move, any music I listened to stops. I literally can't do anything but push the power button my on tower to shut it down.

I've tried:
- System updates
- De-dusting the inside of the tower. Taking out single pieces, de-dusting them & putting them back in.
- Re-applying the thermal paste on my CPU
- Upgraded my bios to the latest version
- Bought a new SSD drive
- Reinstalled Arch on said new drive
- Checked SATA cables leading to SSD drives
- Expanded my RAM from 8 GB to 24 GB in total

My hardware is old. I bought my tower (with hardware inside) 2nd hand for $50 (it worked perfectly fine for 10 days then the freezes started). I then did the things I mentioned above to try fix it. After I got a new SSD drive, a freeze didn't happen for 5 days. Today I experienced a freeze again. I'm lost. I have no idea why my system does that. My suspicion is that it might be some hardware issue. Maybe the RAM, as I upgraded it. Maybe the 2 new ram sticks aren't compatible with the system/the other 2 sticks? I have no idea..

I'm wondering if there's a way to check systemwise if maybe something lead to the freeze?

My specs:
- Mainboard: ASUS P8Z77-V LX2 (latest BIOS version: 2501)
- CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 650
- RAM: 2x4 GB Samsung M378B5173DB0-CK0 DDR3 DIMM
- RAM: 2x8 GB G.Skill F3-1600C11-8GNT DDR3 DIMM (Upgraded)
- OS drive: Intenso Top Performance (1000 GB, 2.5")
- OS filesystem: ext4

seth · 2023-08-10 18:54:09

- keep "dmesg -W" running in a terminal
- try a completely different sw stack (live distro like grml, knoppix, etc.)
- run memtest86+ (over night) - maybe remove the original 8GB of RAM
…though:

Maybe the 2 new ram sticks aren't compatible with the system/the other 2 sticks? I have no idea..

So this was not only a mitigational effort, you don't know whether the situation existed w/ only the original 8GB?

easylearn · 2023-08-10 19:11:18

seth wrote:

- keep "dmesg -W" running in a terminal

Will do! I'll reply to this thread should I freeze again and see if it says something

seth wrote:

- try a completely different sw stack (live distro like grml, knoppix, etc.)

Not sure if that's an option for me. The last time it took 5 days before a freeze.

seth wrote:

- run memtest86+ (over night)

Will do!

seth wrote:

So this was not only a mitigational effort, you don't know whether the situation existed w/ only the original 8GB?

Correct. I do not know whether the orignal 8 GB RAM may be causing errors. When I bought this tower, I de-dusted it and then added 16 GB RAM to it. I've actually thought about removing the old, original 8 GB and use the new, freshly bought 16 GB . I just haven't tested it yet. I will see what the memtest says, see if dmesg -W says anything if it freezes and then try to remove the 2x4 GB sticks. Thank you for your advice. I will update this thread if there's news

easylearn · 2023-08-31 20:22:07

seth wrote:

So this was not only a mitigational effort, you don't know whether the situation existed w/ only the original 8GB?

Ignore this quote. This quote is simply so you get a notification.

I ran the memtest. Everything worked correctly. See https://imgur.com/a/T91aRND

I experienced a freeze today at around 21:44 local time. I did as you said and had dmesg constantly write a log with the command "sudo dmesg --follow -W >> /home/$USER/tmp/dmesg.log". Sadly there are no errors in it. Here are the last 18 lines of the dmesg.log https://pastebin.com/Rsy02BnL

Here's also the last 50 lines of the command "journalctl --since=today" https://pastebin.com/737v5VXQ

seth · 2023-08-31 20:39:31

memtest86 (btw. memtest86+ is the GPL version) is just one cycle, right?
That doesn't say much, you want to run at least half a dozen cycles, 10 cycles w/o incident is considered sufficiently reliable.
(Yes, that means running it a full day at least in your case - "over night" would be 16h in office terms)

Did you try the behavior w/ the original 8GB only?

I btw. get notifications for all new posts, no special quoting required

easylearn · 2023-09-01 10:38:22

I did just one cycle. Didn't know I was supposed to do more than one.

I didn't try it with the original 8 GB only. I do a lot of work in VMs so I need my 24 GB RAM. I'm thinking of abandoning the 8 GB sticks and buying another 2x 8 GB RAM sticks so I have 4 of the same. Lets hope that fixes it. Thank you for your assistance so far seth

Last edited by easylearn (2023-09-01 10:38:42)

seth · 2023-09-01 11:11:48

At least set the RAM timings to the most conservative values possible in the BIOS/UEFI

Arch Linux

#1 2023-08-10 18:35:26

System randomly freezes

#2 2023-08-10 18:54:09

Re: System randomly freezes

#3 2023-08-10 19:11:18

Re: System randomly freezes

#4 2023-08-31 20:22:07

Re: System randomly freezes

#5 2023-08-31 20:39:31

Re: System randomly freezes

#6 2023-09-01 10:38:22

Re: System randomly freezes

#7 2023-09-01 11:11:48

Re: System randomly freezes

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