Arch Linux

vlast777

Member

Registered: 2015-02-10

Posts: 57

Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

Hey there,

I had Arch Linux installed on this Machine (Acer Aspire ES1-512-p2GK) some time ago and it ran without ANY issues. Now I had to use Windows for some time but now I am back to Arch.
The problem is, from time to time my system freezes and I can't do anything except pressing the powerkey, until the notebook shuts down (sometimes I can switch to another terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Fx Key).

It seems like it does not matter which applications Iam running or what I am doing.

It  doesn't matter wether I use MATE, Gnome, Plasma 5 or i3 as WM, it just happens to occur randomly.

I tried to get it by reading in the journalctl --since today but it has so many line I can't figure out what happened during the crash.

That is really annoying especially because I need this Notebook for University.

Anyone got any Idea?

Thanks alot.

fdservices

Member

From: France

Registered: 2012-02-06

Posts: 413

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

Try downgrading your linux to 4.2.2-1. It worked for me.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=204215

Andrew

vlast777

Member

Registered: 2015-02-10

Posts: 57

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

It worked now for 2 days, but with 4.2.4-1 and 4.2.5-1 I had both freezes today. Still haven't figured out why.

fdservices

Member

From: France

Registered: 2012-02-06

Posts: 413

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

Please confirm 4.2.2-1 works OK

Any upgrade from that causes problems.

Please post all the details of your PC/set up.

I assume that there are no errors in your logs

Andrew

vlast777

Member

Registered: 2015-02-10

Posts: 57

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

Acer Aspire Notebook
Pentium N3540 CPU
Intel HD 4000 On Board Graphics
500GB SATA HDD
4 GB DDR3 RAM 1333Mhz
Broadcom BCM43142 Wireless Network Card

My logs seem to be okay. I can't post them right now, because I am on another machine. Till Kernel 4.2.2 Arch worked fine for months on this machine.

vlast777

Member

Registered: 2015-02-10

Posts: 57

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

Okay, I thought of trying the linux-lts Kernel instead, as I read, it should be 4.1.12-1 (and 4.2.2-1 worked good for me).

EDIT: Running the LTS Kernel since half an hour. No freezes so far.

Last edited by vlast777 (2015-11-01 20:38:36)

cadilhac

Member

Registered: 2012-04-27

Posts: 19

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

You do confirm that you have no more freezes?  I'm on an Acer TravelMate and I get painful such freezes, that only hard reboots can stop.  Nothing in journalctl, not a single log showing a glitch, and using 4.1.15-1-lts.

fdservices

Member

From: France

Registered: 2012-02-06

Posts: 413

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

I had freezes occurring from time to time with no apparent cause until I added

intel_idle.max_cstate=1

to my kernel parameters.

This link explains the problem: Bugzilla

The fix causes problems with battery life and also affects some compositor effects.

Andrew

cadilhac

Member

Registered: 2012-04-27

Posts: 19

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

I think this is the perfect pointer indeed, fdservices!  Thanks very much, I'll keep lurking the bug report there.

More keywords for referencing: TravelMate B115, random freezes, youtube, GPU, no log

fdservices

Member

From: France

Registered: 2012-02-06

Posts: 413

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

Seems to be working on 4.3.3.2 without this parameter

Andrew

cadilhac

Member

Registered: 2012-04-27

Posts: 19

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

That seems to conflict with what the people at Bugzilla are saying.  Can you dissect to the change that made it work?

fdservices

Member

From: France

Registered: 2012-02-06

Posts: 413

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

I simply updated to Linux 4.3.3.2

Andrew

marmoser

Member

From: Vienna, Austria

Registered: 2015-12-02

Posts: 13

Website

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

This looks very similar my problem, described here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1594509  .
In my case the freezes almost completely disappeared after switching from the b43 to the broadcom-wl wifi driver. Since this looks like a power management issue, maybe the 2 drivers handle power managment for the wifi device differently?

Last edited by marmoser (2016-01-12 11:20:19)

vlast777

Member

Registered: 2015-02-10

Posts: 57

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

This looks very similar my problem, described here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1594509  .
In my case the freezes almost completely disappeared after switching from the b43 to the broadcom-wl wifi driver. Since this looks like a power management issue, maybe the 2 drivers handle power managment for the wifi device differently?

so you can confirm the problem totally disappeared, after you switched you WiFi drivers?
I was using the broadcom-wl-dkms wifi drivers and had the freezes.

marmoser

Member

From: Vienna, Austria

Registered: 2015-12-02

Posts: 13

Website

Re: Arch randomly freezes on Acer Aspire

the problem STILL appears up to this day, but less frequently since I switched drivers.
The only workaround that is currently known is to add the intel.max_cstate=1 flag to the kernel parameters. This does not qualify as solution since it is a battery drainer.

Some people argue that things improved with the 4.6 kernel. I can't confirm that, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. I upgraded to 4.6, let's see what happens...