Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

ReedWood · 2011-03-01 16:26:17

Hallo all,

I have a fresh Arch Linux installation on a MacBook (not Pro) 7,1 Unibody. I am using the nvidia proprietary drivers from the repo for the nvidia graphic card. System is up-to-date. Acpid is running. Laptop-Tools are not running.
The maschine freezes 1-2 times per day. Nothing in the logs.

I appreciate any hint and help. If needed, I am happy to provide additional information.

Thank you for your help.
Cheers Wolfgang

litemotiv · 2011-03-01 19:01:19

Freezes can be difficult to debug sometimes, which wifi driver are you using?

Grinch · 2011-03-01 19:45:54

I read earlier of someone else with the same problem, he said it was something with the NVidia drivers and that the problem disappeared when he installed the Nvidia-beta drivers.

edit: this seems to be a recurring problem with .37, so this solution likely only applies if you are running that version of the kernel.

Last edited by Grinch (2011-03-01 19:49:58)

ReedWood · 2011-03-02 19:18:26

Hi,

@litemotiv:
The wifi card is a Broadcom BCM43224 802.11./b/g/n (rev a2).
The driver I am using is the brcm80211

@Grinch:
I am using the .37 kernel. At the moment the .2-1 update comes in and I will try the nvidia beta drivers. Thanks for the information.

I keep you updated if I can figure out the reason for the freezes.

Cheers, Wolfgang

Grinch · 2011-03-02 19:29:33

ReedWood wrote:

I keep you updated if I can figure out the reason for the freezes.
Cheers, Wolfgang

Please do, chances are there's others with the same problem. Good luck!

ReedWood · 2011-03-02 20:05:42

I have now installed the nvidia-beta drivers (nvidia-beta, nvidia-utils-beta) from AUR [1]; now awating the next freeze. Hopefully, this wait-time will approach infinity.

If this seems to be the cure I will post it.

P.s.: There have been some download errors while installing the drivers, but just ignore them and then continue with the installation leads to a working system. Should this be reported to the nvidia-beta packager?

[1] http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=15152

litemotiv · 2011-03-02 23:10:56

Yes, any issues specific to the installation of the package are best posted on the AUR page.

Grinch · 2011-03-03 23:07:48

So what's the verdict? Are you still experiencing system freezes?

ReedWood · 2011-03-06 21:06:46

Hi all,

the system freezes are still there. I think by now that not the nvidia driver, stable or beta, is the problem but the wifi driver. As per [1] and dmsg the driver (brcm80211) is still not stable (stagging tree). The post in the suse forum also describes frequent freezes.

Now I have installed the broadcom-wl driver from AUR. The card comes up fine. Lets see what I can gain on the crash side. I will let you know.

[1] http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get- … ost2238826

Last edited by ReedWood (2011-03-06 21:33:26)

Grinch · 2011-03-07 05:51:25

Ok, here's hoping the broadcom stuff fixes it for you then! I've read of alot of freezes with the .37 release so it would be good to pinpoint the exact problem.

ReedWood · 2011-03-07 23:30:05

One day _without_ a freeze. A bit too early to conclude, but I have a good feeling.

pano · 2011-03-09 10:52:46

I am suffering from freezes too, and I also use the proprietary NVidia driver and the brcm80211 driver…
My freezes only occur when I wake up from stand-by though.
Does your system freeze too after waking up from stand-by?

my system is up-to-date as of today.

Last edited by pano (2011-03-09 10:55:38)

ReedWood · 2011-03-18 13:50:41

Hi,

sorry for not responding.

No, my system does not freeze any more.
The only hint I can give you is to try out the broadcom-wl from aur. Using e.g. bauerbill makes installing aur packages a cake walk. My system and my network wake up fine.

Onother thing I have experienced is that if the system is on battery after ca. 2 sec of inactivity the mouse pointer can not be moved until a mouse button is pressed. This button press however is evaluated as a valid user action. I think that the system stops to poll the usb port when on battery, but I only know this behaviour from the MacBook. My Lenovo does not act this way. Laptop-mode-tools are tourned off by the way.

andy.christianson · 2011-05-02 13:34:24

I have experienced very similar issues on my Macbook Pro 6,2.

I actually suspected network drivers before coming here because it froze twice right after getting failed DNS lookups while using pacman/ping. I will try out the broadcom-wl driver now to see if that helps.

andy.christianson · 2011-05-02 23:46:41

It looks like the broadcom-wl driver did fix my freezing issue. However, when I use that driver, I have problems connecting USB devices (Samsung Intercept) with errors like this in my dmesg output:

[ 181.150061] usb 2-1.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9
[ 181.648840] usb 2-1.3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 182.114478] usb 2-1.3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 182.297241] usb 2-1.3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10
[ 182.729588] usb 2-1.3: device descriptor read/64, error -71

Arch Linux

#1 2011-03-01 16:26:17

Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#2 2011-03-01 19:01:19

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#3 2011-03-01 19:45:54

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#4 2011-03-02 19:18:26

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#5 2011-03-02 19:29:33

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#6 2011-03-02 20:05:42

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#7 2011-03-02 23:10:56

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#8 2011-03-03 23:07:48

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#9 2011-03-06 21:06:46

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#10 2011-03-07 05:51:25

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#11 2011-03-07 23:30:05

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#12 2011-03-09 10:52:46

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#13 2011-03-18 13:50:41

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#14 2011-05-02 13:34:24

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

#15 2011-05-02 23:46:41

Re: Freeze on a MacBook 7,1 Unibody

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