How to find out why my laptop freezes?

Markus00000 · 2011-10-29 09:25:47

Edit: Text like this described possible causes that were likely not to be related.

On most days my laptop (Dell E6520, Sandy Bridge) freezes. That has been this way for, I think, months. I would like to learn how I can find the cause of the problem and finally fix it.

I have the (largely unsubstantiated) feeling that it is somehow related to hibernation and freezes occur sometime after returning from it. For future freezes, I will take note if I hibernated before or not.

There are no errors (EE) in /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old.

dmesg contains this suspicious line which has been there since day one but a web search made it sound harmless:

sdhci-pci 0000:0a:00.1: Invalid iomem size. You may experience problems.

memtest86+ found no errors.

Anything else I should do? Any log files I should post and have a look at? How to even start if I have not the slightest idea what the cause is?

Last edited by Markus00000 (2011-11-05 15:50:04)

JazzPotato · 2011-10-30 08:00:56

Freezes? what do you mean? Like on boot or whilst youre watching a video or playing a game?
(And just out of curiosity, have you got that scrumptious 15" HD touch-screen working? :-)

Last edited by JazzPotato (2011-10-30 08:06:12)

Markus00000 · 2011-10-30 12:45:06

I should have been a little more specific, sorry. It freezes in X (xmonad). I do not see any relation to a specific task or program.

(No touch-screen here. )

Last edited by Markus00000 (2011-10-30 12:45:21)

eldragon · 2011-10-30 14:07:29

i have this same module used for my sdcard reader....and INDEED it freezes my system after a suspend / hibernate cycle. (random)

blacklist sdhci and sdhci_pci in /etc/modprobe.d/

i was thinking on trying to debug this but since it was an isolated case on a device that has other problems (on my notebook), i didnt bother.

Markus00000 · 2011-10-30 15:28:02

eldragon wrote:

i have this same module used for my sdcard reader....and INDEED it freezes my system after a suspend / hibernate cycle. (random)
blacklist sdhci and sdhci_pci in /etc/modprobe.d/

Wow, I did not expect this answer. I will blacklist these modules and see if the freezes are gone for good.

Thank you!

I will mark this thread [SOLVED] if there are no more freezes in the next couple of days.

Last edited by Markus00000 (2011-11-04 20:49:26)

Markus00000 · 2011-11-04 20:50:30

Unfortunately, my laptop still freezes even with those modules blacklisted.

Any hints for debugging are greatly welcome...

cybertorture · 2011-11-04 20:58:12

well try to disable "mmc_core" also and pray it will works O.o

eldragon · 2011-11-04 21:06:35

Markus00000 wrote:

Unfortunately, my laptop still freezes even with those modules blacklisted.
Any hints for debugging are greatly welcome...

i hope you made sure the modules were not loaded

hmmm a thread you can pull from, maybe google can help you further

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:ACPI_suspend_debugging

Markus00000 · 2011-11-04 21:11:58

@cybertorture: I have now blacklisted mmc_core, thanks. (And disabled the media card in the BIOS.)

@eldragon: Yes, I made sure the blacklisting worked. Thanks for the link, I will see if it helps.

JazzPotato · 2011-11-04 22:31:32

Hmm, i do remember having this problem with my dell laptop when i had natty narwhal installed, i no longer have that laptop so i can't run some tests on it... sorry i cant be of more help.

Markus00000 · 2011-11-05 08:19:30

Complete freeze just a few minutes after booting (not resuming). I had only launched Firefox (it was "idling" then) and was using rsync to backup to a USB drive.

This means it was:

* not after suspend/hibernate,
* probably not related to the card reader (off in BIOS, mmc_core/sdhci/sdhci_pci not loaded),
* probably not related to the USB drive as freezes happened before when it was not connected.

JazzPotato · 2011-11-05 10:22:44

I had the exact same routine of jumping straight to firefox after boot. I found that if I did something different, like opening up libre or updating my packages instead before going to firefox, the crashes happened less.

Markus00000 · 2011-11-05 10:31:42

It's just that I regularly have Firefox running for, let's say, 8 hours without freezing my computer. Nevertheless I could do a Chromium day or two.

Discouraging to make guesses into the dark instead of seeing some log entry and fix the issue...

cppkhartna · 2011-11-05 13:57:17

Hi! I had the same very problem(xmonad, freeze and no logs), and as far as I can see, there are two more topics related to this:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=128841 and https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=129439
I solved it by downgrading the kernel, but it's only a temporary solution though.

Markus00000 · 2011-11-05 15:40:11

Thanks a lot. I didn't notice these threads. Seems more likely to be the cause than Firefox.

By the way, I had these freezes before kernel version 3.0.6.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-10-29 09:25:47

How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#2 2011-10-30 08:00:56

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#3 2011-10-30 12:45:06

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#4 2011-10-30 14:07:29

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#5 2011-10-30 15:28:02

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#6 2011-11-04 20:50:30

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#7 2011-11-04 20:58:12

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#8 2011-11-04 21:06:35

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#9 2011-11-04 21:11:58

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#10 2011-11-04 22:31:32

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#11 2011-11-05 08:19:30

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#12 2011-11-05 10:22:44

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#13 2011-11-05 10:31:42

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#14 2011-11-05 13:57:17

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

#15 2011-11-05 15:40:11

Re: How to find out why my laptop freezes?

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