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#1 2011-04-19 15:00:21

McFlow
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 58

[SOLVED]Random system freezes

Hello,
My Dell Studio 1558 runs ArchLinux with XFCE. Everything is fine except two problems: Random system freezes and slow wlan download speed. I think that those problems might be related.
Since some updates ago my Laptop will just randomly freeze. Unfortunately I cannot remember exactly when it started. The freezes will randomly appear without any regularity or possibility to reproduce. Sometimes it freezes immediately after booting, sometimes after some hours. Heating should be no problem as it also freezes when the Laptop is cold (what a joke big_smile)
Sometimes it will freeze several times in a row, sometimes it won't freeze a whole day. It seems that it only freezes if there is Wireless LAN connection available. (I use wicd if that is of any importance.). It feels like the highest freeze rate is while downloading packages for system updates...
lspci tells about the wireless chip:

04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

uname -a
Linux mydell 2.6.38-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Mar 30 08:47:36 CEST 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU M 330 @ 2.13GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

So, according to the wiki page I use the broadcom-wl driver from AUR. I also tried the DKMS one which, of course, changed nothing. My modules array concerning broadcom looks like

MODULES=(!b43 !ssb !lib80211 !brcm80211 lib80211_crypt_tkip wl)

I ran memtest over several hours to make sure it's no memory problem. No errors in 5 passes. It has an ATI Chip which is powered by catalyst right now... Could be the source of the problem but I guess I'd have to test that further.
Additionally I suffer slooooow download speed over wireless LAN since some periond (can't remember the exact starting point too...). It's not related to my AP, happens in other networks too. I tried several servers too. Max download speed: 148 kb/s :S
I suspect that the freezes and the slow download speed are releated. Maybe a driver issue? I have no clue. I was unlucky to find error reports in the logs after the freezes. Besides, I have no real idea what to search for in the logs. I placed a desklet on my desktop now, to see the exact time and seconds when the freeze appears. I hope I'll be lucky.

Can someone help me or give me some ideas what to do?
Edit:
There was another kernel upate and at least the low speed is gone... strange. Hope the same is for the freezes :S

Edit 2:
Downgrading pm-utils to 1.3.0 did the trick for me. No freezes anymore.

Last edited by McFlow (2011-05-07 15:26:54)

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#2 2011-04-24 17:46:34

McFlow
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 58

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

So, the freezes are still there. I also tried the open source ATI driver. My laptop will still freeze randomly. The highest freeze rate was during operations with pacman/clyde. I think this might point to either WLAN or HDD.
I placed a desklet clock on my desktop and I could finally see the exact time when my laptop froze! smile But I cannot find anything interesting in the logfiles.
This should be the last lines that were written before the freeze occurec in everything.log.

Apr 22 16:49:46 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Successfully called chroot.
Apr 22 16:49:46 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Successfully dropped privileges.
Apr 22 16:49:46 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Successfully limited resources.
Apr 22 16:49:46 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Running.
Apr 22 16:49:46 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Canary thread running.
Apr 22 16:49:46 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Watchdog thread running.
Apr 22 16:49:47 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Successfully made thread 3582 of process 3582 (/usr/bin/pulseaudio) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Apr 22 16:49:47 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Apr 22 18:49:47 localhost kernel: [   42.385322] eth1: no IPv6 routers present
Apr 22 18:49:53 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:53 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0

Last lines from messages.log

Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI action undefined: ADP1
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost kernel: [   28.860026] r8169 0000:09:00.0: eth0: link down
Apr 22 18:49:34 localhost kernel: [   28.860452] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
Apr 22 18:49:37 localhost kernel: [   31.674805] r8169 0000:09:00.0: eth0: link down
Apr 22 18:49:37 localhost kernel: [   31.674822] r8169 0000:09:00.0: eth0: link down
Apr 22 18:49:37 localhost kernel: [   31.675249] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
Apr 22 18:49:39 localhost polkitd[3456]: started daemon version 0.99 using authority implementation `local' version `0.99'
Apr 22 18:49:44 localhost kernel: [   39.143241] fuse init (API version 7.16)
Apr 22 16:49:47 localhost rtkit-daemon[3587]: Successfully made thread 3582 of process 3582 (/usr/bin/pulseaudio) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
Apr 22 18:49:53 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0
Apr 22 18:49:53 localhost logger: ACPI group/action undefined: processor / CPU0

My laptop sometimes hangs at boot with this screen. I cannot take some usful information from it. But it seems, that it's also related to networking stuff? But I am not sure if that's the cause for my problem.
I am lost. I have no real idea what to do. I think of using some other distribution in order to see if the freezes will occur there too. I hope this is "just" a driver issue...

Last edited by McFlow (2011-04-24 17:48:27)

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#3 2011-04-25 22:38:29

METZGERR
Member
Registered: 2010-07-14
Posts: 28

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

I encounter random system freezes with the 4313.

Please connect your postings to this thread: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=923608
The developer of the brcm80211 driver also reads and responds there, hopefully we will be able to find a solution.

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#4 2011-04-26 11:26:13

McFlow
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 58

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

Thanks. I saw that thread but it's about the bcrm driver. According to the wiki page it's not suitable for my card. I will try it though...

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#5 2011-04-28 02:11:06

chamilis
Member
Registered: 2011-04-28
Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

I've got the same laptop with broadcom 4313 insted of 4312. I'm getting random freezings only when running on battery. They all happen seconds/minutes after boot.
I've been having the same problem on Debian with kernel 2.6.38. I think it's related to it, I also have kernel 2.6.32 installed (on Debian) and I wasn't able to reproduce the freeze.

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#6 2011-04-30 09:44:18

McFlow
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 58

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

chamilis wrote:

I've got the same laptop with broadcom 4313 insted of 4312. I'm getting random freezings only when running on battery. They all happen seconds/minutes after boot.
I've been having the same problem on Debian with kernel 2.6.38. I think it's related to it, I also have kernel 2.6.32 installed (on Debian) and I wasn't able to reproduce the freeze.

Seems to be exactly the same issue as:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1632459

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#7 2011-05-01 23:32:47

chamilis
Member
Registered: 2011-04-28
Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

Are you uisng kernel26-kamal from AUR?
(The patched kernel to solve brightness control issues)

EDITED:
Based on what I read in the links you share above, I disabled laptop-mode-tools control over wireless power (by editing the files in /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d,), just to see what happens.

Last edited by chamilis (2011-05-03 02:02:17)

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#8 2011-05-04 19:26:34

McFlow
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 58

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

Are you uisng kernel26-kamal from AUR?
(The patched kernel to solve brightness control issues)

Not yet, I will try this wink
I downgraded pm-utils to 1.3.0 some days ago and the freezes are gone since then. Hopefully smile

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#9 2011-05-05 00:28:27

chamilis
Member
Registered: 2011-04-28
Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

You must have ati graphics, because with intel graphics and no kamal-kernel you would have lost your eyes long time ago!!!!!
Disabling wireless power in laptop-mode didn't work. Disabling the whole laptop-mode tools seemed to work for the time I tested it.

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#10 2011-05-07 15:26:05

McFlow
Member
Registered: 2010-04-17
Posts: 58

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

I have an ATI graphics chips, running with fglrx, as I said in the first post.
But I don't have real trouble with it for now.
I am still running my ArchLinux 64Bit with pm-utils 1.3.0 and there were no freezes since then. 1.4 will make my system freeze. So, I will mark this topic as solved for now.

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#11 2011-09-01 22:43:01

carlp101
Member
Registered: 2011-08-23
Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED]Random system freezes

Hi,

I have been having problems with my Dell Studio 15 freezing intermittently when on battery for months. I have read many, many posts on this topic and tried many different tweaks to no avail. Reverting to an earlier version of pm_utils worked, but I lost the ability to put my laptop on standby, so that was no good. I decided it was time for me to do some analysis and try a few tweaks of my own. Well, it looks like I have come up with a successful work around that should work for any type of wireless card.

I run Mint 10 and have the latest version of pm-utils installed - 1.4.1. tailing /var/log/pm-powersave.log reveals that /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/wireless is called to put the wireless card into powersave mode when the power cord is removed. I found the specific section of code that makes that change is at the end of the script:

case $1 in
    true) wireless_powersave on;;
    false) wireless_powersave off ;;
    *) exit $NA ;;
esac

I simply changed it to:

case $1 in
    true) wireless_powersave off;;
    false) wireless_powersave off ;;
    *) exit $NA ;;
esac

This results in the card never being put into powersave mode and has stopped the freezing. This change does not appear to affect the power consumption either. So, all is well and I have said goodbye a very frustrating problem. I hope it works for you too.

FYI, my wireless card is a Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

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