Arch Linux

Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Complete system freeze

Hi,

I'm having a bit of an issue. I'm assuming it is harware related, because I have had the same error (at least it looks the same) on Windows, Ubuntu, and now Archlinux. I always thought it had something to do with my dual boot, but now I finally switch over to a solo-Arch boot, and the problem persists.

After working for around 5 min (it varies, but not much) the system will completely freeze (I use openbox btw). The only thing I can do at that time is a hard reboot. After this reboot I can work as long as I want without any freezes whatsoever. But when I shutdown my laptop and wait around an hour I think, the process will repeat itself.

I have no idea where to start looking for a cause. I have browsed around some log files, but I don't even know what I'm looking for... How should I go about fixing this?

Thanks

demian

Member

From: Frankfurt, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 709

Re: Complete system freeze

The first things I'd check are system temperatures and the memory.
Next I'd probably stress the GPU to see if that's the cause.

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crankyadmin

Member

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 117

Website

Re: Complete system freeze

memtest86 that machine would be my first point for call

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Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Re: Complete system freeze

Well, memtest checked out fine, not a single error. Conky doesn't show any extreme temperatures at all. Occasionally my laptop will get pretty hot, usually when I'm using it in my bed or something, but this never triggers the freezes... I'm not sure how I could stress my GPU, but I have noticed that when I start up a game or a heavy graphical program, the freeze seems to occur faster.

demian

Member

From: Frankfurt, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 709

Re: Complete system freeze

You need to run memtest more than 2 hours. Let it run over night. Memory still steems most likely.

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Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Re: Complete system freeze

Ok so I let it run overnight. Here are the stats:

Wall Time:  12:14
Pass:         6
Errors        0

So good news and bad news I guess:/

demian

Member

From: Frankfurt, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 709

Re: Complete system freeze

It strikes me as a little weird that your system freezes within 5 minutes of work inside an operating system but not during Memtest.
Anyway, it means that Motherboard, Ram and CPU are fine.

Is it a ThinkPad laptop? Maybe the graphics chip on the motherboard is strained (flexing).

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no place like /home
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Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Re: Complete system freeze

It strikes me as a little weird that your system freezes within 5 minutes of work inside an operating system but not during Memtest

I wouldn't be to sure of that. The reason it doesn't freeze during memtest (I think) is because my laptop already froze once in linux. I don't suffer from anymore freezes as long as I don't power off longer then 20 minutes or something... If you think it would be informative I can power down for an hour and the start memtest. I'm pretty sure it would freeze after a few minutes.

Thanks for the effort btw!

Edit: It is an asus laptop btw, geforce G105M graphics card, running proprietary nvidia drivers

Last edited by Gargamel1 (2010-06-17 14:35:14)

soloport

Member

Registered: 2005-03-01

Posts: 442

Re: Complete system freeze

Just a long shot, try both kernel commands at once: noapic nolapic

Ronin-Sage

Member

Registered: 2008-10-24

Posts: 153

Website

Re: Complete system freeze

I was encountering a hardfreeze, which seemed to be an issue related ACPI. The disabling ACPI altogether and some other solutions seemed overall too crude, so I ended up just building my own kernel-2.6.35-rc*. Works fine, now.

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Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Re: Complete system freeze

Well, I tried everything, noapic, nolapic and acpi=off but no cigar... The freezes still persist. I was thinking that if I stayed in the console instead of opening an X-session, it would give me some feedback on what's happening, but it doesn't. The prompt keeps flashing but I can't type anything... Could there be any log files that contain some more information that would be usefull maybe?

Thanks

Last edited by Gargamel1 (2010-06-18 12:47:16)

soloport

Member

Registered: 2005-03-01

Posts: 442

Re: Complete system freeze

There might be some indicators in a finer granularity of messages:
* cold-boot and before freeze...
* enter: udevadm control --log-priority="debug"
* wait for freeze and do HW reset
* review /var/log/messages.log and /var/log/kernel.log

Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Re: Complete system freeze

Well, the log files don't mention anything special. I'll post them if you would like but I'm pretty sure there's nothing there, just the normal startup procedure... Does the graphics card keep a log file or something? I still have a feeling it might have something to do with it.

Thanks!

davidm

Member

Registered: 2009-04-25

Posts: 371

Re: Complete system freeze

Definitely pull out the GPU and check it for visible burnt out resistors or leaking/bulging capacitors.  I recently had mysterious hard crashes like you for months and could not figure out what it was.  One day I noticed strange error messages in syslog after experiencing an odd crash and discovered that I needed to switch from the nvidia binary blob to nouveau just to be able to run X.  The next day even nouveau would no longer boot X.  I pulled my Video Card and found two completely open capacitors which were leaking out fluid.  After replacing the Video card with a back up my system has been rock solid for over a month.

I notice few people ever check for this sort of thing and not many people tell others that the Video card itself might actually be causing the problem beyond simple overheating.  See this message to see my story with this and what error messages eventually started appearing in the logs during the latter stages: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=96986

If you find no evidence on the video card then also check any other cards you have as well as the motherboard itself.

Last edited by davidm (2010-06-19 17:24:13)

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Gargamel1

Member

Registered: 2010-03-23

Posts: 14

Re: Complete system freeze

Well, I think I better just bring it to the shop then, since it is a laptop, and to remove the video card I have to remove the warranty sticker, so maybe that's not such a good idea Thanks anyway...