Random freezes and reboots

fantasmalazar · 2021-02-15 12:05:09

Hi, guys.

For a few days my computer has restarting on its own sometimes and others it crashes right after boot or at random times.

When it crash after booting, before it loads the desktop normally, I can see my items on the desktop and the panel, but suddenly the mouse and keyboard stop working and the entire screen freezes, and I also can't access the tty terminal. The only way I can get around this is to restart by force.

At first I thought the problem started after an update to the nvidia driver via graphics-drivers PPA, but I reversed this and the problems continue.

I use an installation of Xubuntu 20.10 (started with 20.04 and updated) for about 10 months, with Xfce 4.16 (updated by Xubuntu QA Staging PPA) and I only started having these problems probably in the last 4~5 days.

I tried to investigate it through the .xsession-errors file and journalctl, but I don't have much experience with that, so I don't know exactly what to look at. can anybody help me?

Last edited by fantasmalazar (2021-02-15 12:12:30)

ToZ · 2021-02-15 15:54:10

fantasmalazar wrote:

I tried to investigate it through the .xsession-errors file and journalctl, but I don't have much experience with that, so I don't know exactly what to look at. can anybody help me?

Are you able to post the contents of both ~/.xsession-errors and ~/.xsession-errors.old as well as:

sudo journalctl -b -1 --no-pager

...after recovering from a crash/reboot?

fantasmalazar · 2021-02-15 16:58:44

ToZ wrote:

fantasmalazar wrote:
I tried to investigate it through the .xsession-errors file and journalctl, but I don't have much experience with that, so I don't know exactly what to look at. can anybody help me?
Are you able to post the contents of both ~/.xsession-errors and ~/.xsession-errors.old as well as:
sudo journalctl -b -1 --no-pager
...after recovering from a crash/reboot?

Ok, I will try to do this as soon as I experience a crash/reboot. Thanks, ToZ.

mint4all · 2021-02-15 17:30:54

fantasmalazar wrote:

Hi, guys.
For a few days my computer has restarting on its own sometimes and others it crashes right after boot or at random times.
When it crash after booting, before it loads the desktop normally, I can see my items on the desktop and the panel, but suddenly the mouse and keyboard stop working and the entire screen freezes, and I also can't access the tty terminal. The only way I can get around this is to restart by force.
....
can anybody help me?

Greetings!

Fwiw: I've run into your/this problem on a small "test" installation of Xubuntu 16.04 on a 10GB ext4 partition. The cause: after a number of updates and installing other software, the partition's "free" space dropped below 500MB. The system would randomly boot ok, but freeze later; or get stuck during the boot phase; or freeeze in xfce4 (v4.10) with only the mouse cursor active ...

The quickest check: boot into grub2's "recovery" mode, and check your partition for enough free space (ime, at least 2x your installed RAM). If it fails to mount (read: boot partition is "dirty"), first repair the partition, and then free up space.

Cheers, m4a

fantasmalazar · 2021-02-19 08:48:54

After days without the problems mentioned, I had a reboot now right after boot up. Here's the .xsession-errors file and journalctl output. Strangely, there is nothing in .xsession-errors.old this time.

ToZ · 2021-02-19 11:52:04

There is nothing in the log files that shows some sort of crash that can pinpoint the issue directly. However, I notice that you have nomodeset enabled and aren't using the nvidia or nouveau driver (using VESA instead).

What happens if you remove the nomodeset kernel parameter? There is a possibility this is related to the video driver.

fantasmalazar · 2021-02-19 13:15:22

I'm actually using nvidia's proprietary driver, but I activated nomodeset in grub config file because the splash screen didn't appear. Anyway, I removed the nomodeset parameter to see how the situation looks.

Last edited by fantasmalazar (2021-02-19 13:16:44)

mint4all · 2021-02-19 23:50:21

Thanks for posting those logs. I could not spot anything out of the ordinary that would give a hint as to your random rebooting & system freezes problem. There are some small theming issues with your pulseaudio and powermanager and systray plugins, but they wouldn't cause your main problem.

However, something else comes to mind that I have observed on 5-6 aging systems (8-15 year old laptops): a failing harddrive. In a recent post @ https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=14659 I've discussed how to look into this problem and spot an about-to-fail harddrive issue.

This could be as benign as a loose main board connector, or a thermal failure (cpu / gpu / disk overheating), or extensive dust & lint buildup inside a desktop/ tower / laptop, or a defective AC cable or a non-charging battery / powerblock...

Worth a try, what do you think?

Cheers, m4a

fantasmalazar · 2021-02-21 00:25:35

Again, I just had a crash right after boot and had to restart forcibly. Here's the .xsession-erros file and journalctl output. Still, no .xsession-errors.old. I emphasize that nomodeset is disabled since yesterday.

mint4all, thank you very much for you comprehensive and attention wise answers. I will certainly check your tips to be able to investigate if there is something problematic in my hardware setup. As soon as I have more information, I'll update you.

fantasmalazar · 2021-02-21 23:29:09

mint4all wrote:

The quickest check: boot into grub2's "recovery" mode, and check your partition for enough free space (ime, at least 2x your installed RAM). If it fails to mount (read: boot partition is "dirty"), first repair the partition, and then free up space.

Done, I guess. Is that right? (btw, I have 8gb of RAM)

mint4all wrote:

However, something else comes to mind that I have observed on 5-6 aging systems (8-15 year old laptops): a failing harddrive. In a recent post @ https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=14659 I've discussed how to look into this problem and spot an about-to-fail harddrive issue.

Okay, I followed your directions to check the health of my harddrive (hope I did everything correctly). The result is here.

Edit. I've found this (I forgot to comment, but I had some kernel panic too, on a few occasions). It seems that many users are experiencing the same problems as me on versions of nvidia's proprietary driver above 455... Interesting.

Edit 2. Reverting the nvidia driver version made no difference at all, as the computer keeps crashing randomly. Here's the latest xsession-errors file, xsession-errors.old (finally) and journalctl.

Edit 3. I had another crash this morning and I believe I finally got to see something relevant in the journalctl:

fev 25 11:53:45 desktop kernel: mce: [Hardware Error]: CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank 0: b227c00000000175
fev 25 11:53:45 desktop kernel: mce: [Hardware Error]: TSC 17a36c8e5f5 
fev 25 11:53:45 desktop kernel: mce: [Hardware Error]: PROCESSOR 2:100f52 TIME 1614264824 SOCKET 0 APIC 0 microcode 10000db
fev 25 11:53:45 desktop kernel: Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal local machine check
fev 25 11:53:45 desktop kernel: Kernel Offset: 0x6e00000 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range: 0xffffffff80000000-0xffffffffbfffffff)
fev 25 11:53:45 desktop kernel: ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal local machine check ]---

So there must be a problem with the CPU?

Last edited by fantasmalazar (2021-02-25 15:07:43)

mint4all · 2021-02-26 17:01:34

My apology for not responding sooner (life intervened).

Thanks for your examples. Looks like you're getting somewhere -- it all points at a hardware problem, either with your CPU, or your memory modules, or ypur main board's memory bus channels. Here's a cogent explanation @ https://www.advancedclustering.com/act_ … ns-or-mce/

I am puzzled, though, by your system's BIOS screen: CPU information lists "3x2200MHZ" -- there's no tri-core CPU I know of, so perhaps one of the cores in a 4-core CPU is intermittently failing?

Cheers, m4a

fantasmalazar · 2021-03-01 14:54:39

This weekend I opened my computer and checked inside. Besides the dust, I noticed that the processor's thermal paste has dried. I'll take care of this as soon as I can, anyway I did a superficial cleaning on the other components and will continue to look at what may be causing the problems.

mint4all wrote:

I am puzzled, though, by your system's BIOS screen: CPU information lists "3x2200MHZ" -- there's no tri-core CPU I know of, so perhaps one of the cores in a 4-core CPU is intermittently failing?

I know it's atypical, but this CPU (AMD Athlon II X3 400e) really does have those specs. It's an old model, as far as I know.

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#1 2021-02-15 12:05:09

Random freezes and reboots

#2 2021-02-15 15:54:10

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#3 2021-02-15 16:58:44

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#4 2021-02-15 17:30:54

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#5 2021-02-19 08:48:54

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#6 2021-02-19 11:52:04

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#7 2021-02-19 13:15:22

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#8 2021-02-19 23:50:21

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#9 2021-02-21 00:25:35

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#10 2021-02-21 23:29:09

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#11 2021-02-26 17:01:34

Re: Random freezes and reboots

#12 2021-03-01 14:54:39

Re: Random freezes and reboots

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