System Specs before starting:
Fedora 43
KDE Plasma
Wayland
i7-6700K
GeForce GTX 1660 super
32 GB memory (unsure if ddr3 or ddr4)

Hi! Recently I convinced my partner to make the switch to linux, specifically, Fedora. However, sometimes her computer will just completely freeze, and requires a hard reboot, I haven’t gotten the chance to test if reisub works while it’s frozen. Also, very, very rarely, it will come back to life, or show some signs of life; today, it froze, but I could still hear her over our call, and then it slowly advanced the display over the next couple minutes- as in the mouse was moving very slowly according to how she was moving her mouse when it froze- before stopping again and requiring a reboot.

I’m pretty sure this has been happening since day 1, fresh install, so I don’t think it’s anything we did/installed that broke things.

My gut tells me that it’s an issue with her memory, but it seems like the majority of the time, it happens while using graphically intensive apps/games, but that’s not always consistent. This leads me to think it’s actually an nvidia issue, we’ve tried both the neuveau and proprietary drivers, but it happens on both.

Does anyone have any ideas about this?

  • who@feddit.orgEnglish
    6·
    17 hours ago

    it froze, but I could still hear her over our call, and then it slowly advanced the display over the next couple minutes-

    This means the system is not entirely frozen. The kernel is probably still running, but something is interfering with the display or some other subsystem(s). If SysRq key commands (reisub) worked on this system before the freeze, there’s a good chance they will still work after it happens.

    as in the mouse was moving very slowly according to how she was moving her mouse when it froze-

    I have seen behavior like this caused by a buggy video driver. You might want to experiment with different Nvidia driver versions.

    If that doesn’t bear fruit, you might experiment with different kernel versions.

    Edit 1: Also consider watching for kernel log messages when the problem happens (sudo dmesg --follow) or noting the time when it happens and then reviewing syslog/journalctl from that time after rebooting.

    Edit 2: Also take note of anything that consistently happens shortly before the problem turns up, like the screen going to sleep and waking up. Some devices have trouble with power saving features.

    • guynamedzero@piefed.zeromedia.vipOPEnglish
      1·
      17 hours ago

      If SysRq key commands (reisub) worked on this system before the freeze

      Yeahh, I only got SysRq commands working like an hour ago, because I didn’t realize that fedora had it off by default.

      different kernel versions.

      Assuming you literally just mean different versions of the kernel, it’s highly unlikely this would help, this issue has persisted over multiple kernels and even after upgrading from fedora 42 to fedora 43.

      reviewing syslog/journalctl from that time after rebooting.

      Ahhh, for some reason I had it in my head that rebooting cleared the syslog

      I’m not sure if changing the nvidia driver version would help, because like I said, it happens on both neuveau and proprietary.

      • hallettj@leminal.spaceEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        Ahhh, for some reason I had it in my head that rebooting cleared the syslog

        To see logs from only the previous boot run,

        journalctl -b -1
      • who@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        17 hours ago

        Assuming you literally just mean different versions of the kernel,

        I do.

        it’s highly unlikely this would help, this issue has persisted over multiple kernels and even after upgrading from fedora 42 to fedora 43.

        It could help if you’re experiencing a kernel bug that has not been present forever, or was fixed upstream more recently than the kernels you have tried. If you establish that the problem does not occur when using a much older or newer kernel, it greatly narrows down where a developer would have to look for the bug.

        For what it’s worth, I’m not just throwing random ideas out there. I have some experience in this area. ;)

        In any case, good luck.