Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

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nullptr

Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by nullptr »

I just got a new Thinkpad T530 and have LMDE 201204 running on it (my very first install). Periodically it just freezes hard (no mouse cursor movement, no response to ping, etc). I'm having a lot of difficulty troubleshooting this. Since it just freezes, I'm not seeing anything in logs, etc. on boot up. Sometimes it goes hours and hours without a freeze up, and sometimes freezes twice in 5-10 minutes.

Here is the software configuration: Hardware config:
  • Laptop: Thinkpad T530
    CPU: i5-3210M 2.5GHz
    Memory: 8GB (memory tested clean for 5 hours in memtest86)
    Graphics: Intel 4K
    Disk: HyperX 3K 120GB SSD (replaced HD with this myself)
What I've tried:
  • Turned off rapidstart in BIOS (saw it on a forum)
    Change SATA from ACHI -> compatability (I swear this helped for a while, but now it is freezing again)
What I will try:
  • put SSD image onto original HD (waiting for drive caddy to ship)
What I've noticed:
  • Freezes seem somewhat random
    Freezes are intermittent - sometimes not for hours, sometimes twice in a few minutes
    They've never happened under heavy load (bonnie++ ran fine, handbrake ran fine)
    They've never happened when I'm not using the laptop (never after sleep or hibernate - one time 3-4 min after hibernate resume, but only once)
    They always seem to happen under light usage (tinkering in one program or another)
    There is no correlation to any one specific app
    Freezes have occurred in Cinnamon and KDE
    It does not appear related to system temperature
    It has only frozen when using the SSD and never running Live USB LMDE or Windows on HD (granted, I didn't use them nearly as long in that configuration either)
    I can't 100% rule out bad hardware - I only ran Windows on the included hard drive for a very short time.
I'm really struggling here. If anyone either a) has any specific ideas to try or b) a good general strategy for diagnosis I'd much appreciate it. I almost wish it was happening more frequently so I could feel more confident in where something is helping or not. Other this this one painful issue, LMDE 'just worked' (well I did need to use the UP5 wifi firmware deb, but big deal). Far as I can tell, everything else works flawlessly - if only it were stable I'd be very impressed with this distro.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
nullptr

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by nullptr »

Been playing more with this and I *think* (not yet conclusive) the freezing only occurs when I'm on battery. Googling this gets some hits from other distros, so this may be the case (haven't used laptop enough yet to be sure). I suppose some form of power management issue should be high on my suspect list if this is the case. Well hopefully at least I'm making some progress.
nullptr

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by nullptr »

What I've learned:
  • The hangs seem to happen in pairs: if it hangs once then it seems to hang again a 2nd time within about 30 second of rebooting. After that, it may or may not hang again right away. Strange.
    It happens with KDE desktop effects on or off
    It happens on battery and when plugged in
    It happens even if I blacklist thinkpad_acpi and apci_cpufreq
    It happens even on the new UP5 kernel (3.2.0-3)
    Fans kick on when it hangs making me think CPU is in a tight loop?
    I can't seem to get sysrq functions to work when it hangs (maybe I just have the wrong key combo: Fn + Alt + S and then magic key)
I'm afraid I'll soon have to give up on LMDE and try a different distro with a vastly different kernel, etc. versions. I don't really want to but I don't see much of a choice.. I've exhausted everything I know how to do. The only test I'm really curious about yet is switching off the SSD to the HD, but my caddy won't be here until Monday. I'll give it until then and then I give up. :-/
nullptr

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by nullptr »

I finally gave up and switched to Kubuntu 12.04. Everything works great and it has been stable for the last 2 days with zero crashes. I suspect on other systems LMDE works just fine, but it right now is a no go on the Thinkpad T530 as best I can tell (at least in my particular configuration).

It is possible upgrading to UP5 would fix the issue (though the kernel alone didn't fix the issue). I had freezes just in the live CD without the SSD mounted, so that takes it out of the equation most likely. After thinking on this, my best guest is that it is the Intel xorg driver. All my freezes happen when some amount of graphics are being drawn, often when complex transitions were taking place. Remotely using the system via SSH or letting it idle has never produced a crash, only interactive use.

I noticed LMDE uses version 2.18 of the Intel driver and Kubuntu 12.04 uses 2.17 (I think UP5 jumps to 2.19 if I recall). I wonder if there was a regression that causes freezes on Intel 4K video in 2.18? Not sure, but wanted to leave my last clues here for anyone struggling with stability on the T530.

Best of luck to all those using LMDE - it is a nice distro it just didn't work out for me.
ddurdle
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Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 10:03 am

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ddurdle »

Which kernel are you using with Kubuntu?

I suspect it was the particular 3.2 kernel that was giving you issues.

I've had issues on some of my machines (not random freezing) but other types of freezing, like freezing on login etc. The first thing I always try is trying a kernel +1 and -1 (so 3.3 and 3.0 in your case). I've seen some weird issues with some kernels like constant freezing when using a usb keyboard with kernel 3.4.x (but not in <3.4) and constant freezing with esata cardbus cards with 3.2.x (but not in 3.3 or 3.0).
GattaNegra

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by GattaNegra »

i have a t530 and i experienceD the same,exactly the same oh how the same it was you do not want to know.
yes the laptop I blame instead f my incompetence, why not? I have been struggling with it since 6th of september and now is 22th.

I tried solusos but it is a disaster

(i was a SWORN Mint user before gnome3, now i will go back to windows after 7 years of linux desktop experience because of that ****** modern DE abusing the name of Gnome.

I am fed up

and No, MATE is not gnome, it does not feel like gnome, it did not work for me and I spent 2 days fighting with it.
I did not try the cinamon thing as read that it is outdated .
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

Hi,

I am running 12.04 LTS and got the same problem. So far, I could reproduce it by running Filezilla. The machine completely freezes, no mouse, no terminal, not even the magic kernel commands work anymore, and yes, the fan spins up.

Machine T530, Intel i915, FullHD display.

What I tried:
  • Ubuntu 12.04.01 LTS from HDD upgraded from 10.10 via 11.04/11.10
    Ubuntu 12.04.01 LTS from thumbdrive, plain installed from ISO
    Ubuntu 12.10 from thumbdrive, plain fresh ISO
  • Gnome3 3.4 and 3.6
    Gnome3 Fallback
    XFCE 4.10
    Cinnamon 1.6.7
    Unity
  • Compiz
    Metacity
  • With and without external display
I cannot get kernel 3.3 or higher to work on my machine with the installed Ubuntu on HDD. Somehow the graphics fail but I currently have a 13.04 alpha running from thumbddrive and will see if this works ok or not.

Already had a freeze without Filezilla open when I was starting Firefox. Survied an entire day when not using Filezilla, but since I had a freeze without it today, this is rather a lucky incident than system. But at least Filezilla seems to provoke it.

Nothing in any log files, because the system stops instantly. So I suspect the kernel in conjunction with the T530 hardware. Turned of hyperthreading, power management, and so on... all the same. Because it happens with an 3.5 kernel as well, it is not only a 3.2 problem.

Will probably open an Ubuntu defect tomorrow.

Take care, Rene
tanith

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by tanith »

Hey,

sorry for hijacking this thread but I also have a T530 with Debian Wheezy (testing) on it and I have the same problems.
Just a complete lock-up with looping sound, the first time it happened while I was watching some HD video on youtube, the three following times it happened when I tried to start a virtual machine with virtualbox.
My hypothesis was aswell that it might have to do something with the Intel video driver. Sad to hear that a kernel upgrade does not fix the problem.

Also strange since I know other people, one using Fedora and the other one Ubuntu, who also have a T530 and no problems.
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

Just the latest. I added

Code: Select all

i915.i915_enable_rc6=0
to the boot config and was able to solve the random freeze problem.

Later I upgraded to 12.10 and removed the config again. Everything is working fine now. Additionally I moved from the unreliable Gnome Fallback Mode to Cinnamon 1.6.7.
tanith

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by tanith »

ReneS wrote:Just the latest. I added

Code: Select all

i915.i915_enable_rc6=0
to the boot config and was able to solve the random freeze problem.

Later I upgraded to 12.10 and removed the config again. Everything is working fine now. Additionally I moved from the unreliable Gnome Fallback Mode to Cinnamon 1.6.7.
What does that option do?

Currently I am thinking about either upgrading the kernel to 3.7 or moving away from Debian to something else... hmm.
For now I have disabled the Intel video card in BIOS and got Debian to use the NVidia card, I wonder whether this will fix the problem.

Though I am glad that you solved the problem, it gives me at least a bit of hope.
So it's working fine without freezes now? I still have time until Friday next week to return that thing and I am currently unsure.

Please keep us updated. :)
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

This options disabled the RC6 deep state sleep support for Intel Graphics in the Linux kernel. Was enabled for Kernel 3.2 for the first time by default. Seems to have been buggy for some machines or combinations. Later kernels have an improved or fixed support. Read reports that 3.3 or higher works. Seem to work for me with 3.5 or higher. Friend of mine said 3.6 works. So going for 3.7 is a good option as well.
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

Forgot to mention. Yes, finally I am pretty satisfied with my T530, except for the stupid keyboard layout change. Lenovo ruined a perfectly good keyboard.
tanith

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by tanith »

ReneS wrote:This options disabled the RC6 deep state sleep support for Intel Graphics in the Linux kernel. Was enabled for Kernel 3.2 for the first time by default. Seems to have been buggy for some machines or combinations. Later kernels have an improved or fixed support. Read reports that 3.3 or higher works. Seem to work for me with 3.5 or higher. Friend of mine said 3.6 works. So going for 3.7 is a good option as well.
Okay, I just read up on it and I guess it makes sense.
But you said that you have a i915 video card so I guess this only works for these cards and will not work for my intel hd 4k, right?

nullptr also has a 4k and updating to 12.10 seems to have solved the problem so I am a bit confused right now, to be honest.

[edit]
The machine is great! Got it on Friday and used it throughout the whole weekend and was satisfied! And when I used it today the freezes started happening...
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

i915 is the chipset or family and Intel HD4000 the integrated graphics. The driver is still named i915 but already incorporates all other cards and chipsets. Hope someone with more knowledge can help to explain that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HD_Graphics
tanith

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by tanith »

Okay.
I turned on the intel card again but due to what I did when it was turned off there is no 3d acceleration available for it anymore, trying to fix that.
In the meantime I have the following question: I have added i915.i915_enable_rc6=0 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT (basically what was suggested here), is there a way to verify whether it took any effect?
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

Not sure, but Powertop reports GPU modes on the Idle Stats tab, maybe that helps to identify whether or not the mode kicked in.

Code: Select all

PowerTOP 2.1      Overview   Idle stats   Frequency stats   Device stats   Tunables                                     


          Package   |             Core    |            CPU 0       CPU 1
                    |                     | C0 active   8,6%        2,8%
                    |                     | POLL        0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
                    |                     | C1-IVB      7,1%    0,4 ms  0,8%    0,7 ms
C2 (pc2)    2,3%    |                     |
C3 (pc3)    3,6%    | C3 (cc3)   11,0%    | C3-IVB      6,2%    0,7 ms  0,3%    0,4 ms
C6 (pc6)    2,4%    | C6 (cc6)    0,4%    | C6-IVB      0,4%    0,6 ms  0,0%    0,8 ms
C7 (pc7)   28,9%    | C7 (cc7)   64,5%    | C7-IVB     74,2%    1,3 ms 94,7%    4,6 ms

                    |             Core    |            CPU 2       CPU 3
                    |                     | C0 active   9,7%        2,9%
                    |                     | POLL        0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
                    |                     | C1-IVB      7,3%    1,0 ms  0,4%    0,3 ms
                    |                     |
                    | C3 (cc3)    7,1%    | C3-IVB      3,3%    0,7 ms  0,2%    0,3 ms
                    | C6 (cc6)    0,3%    | C6-IVB      0,3%    1,3 ms  0,0%    0,7 ms
                    | C7 (cc7)   67,3%    | C7-IVB     75,8%    1,5 ms 95,2%    5,1 ms

                    |             GPU     |
                    |                     |
                    | Active     44,4%    |
                    | RC6        55,6%    |
                    | RC6p        0,0%    |
                    | RC6pp       0,0%    |
                    |                     |
                    |                     |


zerozero

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by zerozero »

i just noticed this topic now :oops:

the sandy and ivy bridge intel processors (I5 and I7) have an integrated gpu (HD3000 and HD4000 respectively);
early support for these cpu/gpus was added in kernel 3.2 (current debian testing/lmde and mint maya 13/ubuntu 12.04) but as ReneS shared above was/is buggy.
first time i saw this bug was here > http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=112543

at this point (if you are using lmde/debian testing) the only easy option is adding the liquorix kernel http://liquorix.net/ and install it

Code: Select all

zerozero@deb-kde ~ $ inxi -SGx
System:    Host: deb-kde Kernel: 3.7.0-6.dmz.2-liquorix-686 i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.7.2) 
           Desktop: KDE 4.9.5 (Qt 4.8.2) Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 (wheezy)
Graphics:  Card: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           X.Org: 1.12.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1440x900@59.9hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Desktop x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 8.0.5 Direct Rendering: Yes
in the meantime debian is preparing a new kernel update (will migrate to sid shortly) that among a lot of other interesting things will address this i915 issue

Code: Select all

 [ Julien Cristau ]
  * Backport drm and agp subsystems from Linux 3.4.29 (closes: #687442)
    - [x86] i915: Fixes freezes on Ivy Bridge (Closes: #689268)
    - nouveau: Support for newer nvidia chipsets (Closes: #690284)
    - radeon: Support for HD7000 'Southern Islands' chips
    - [x86] drm/i915: add Ivy Bridge GT2 Server entries (Closes: #684767)
    - [x86] drm/i915: Close race between processing unpin task and queueing
      the flip
ReneS

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by ReneS »

tanith, if you do not need to save as much power as possible, because you are always miles (kilometres for the rest of us) away from the next outlet, you can live with RC6 off for a while. It is just about power consumption.

Or you jump on the Ubuntu/Mint wagon and go with a later version and that should work for you.
zerozero

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by zerozero »

ReneS wrote:Or you jump on the Ubuntu/Mint wagon and go with a later version and that should work for you.
why? when there's an easy to use option and compatible with lmde what's the reasoning of such recommendation?
tanith

Re: Thinkpad T530 -> Randomly Freezes

Post by tanith »

[original post]

Unfortunately powertop does not show anything for the GPU on this system.
Oh well, I will just have to wait and see how it turns out.

I will try to keep this thread updated in case anyone wonders though it is probably related to the strange behaviour of the intel cards when they go into that low power consumption mode. Though I am still unsure whether this is the case.

Though it is fixed in the later kernel version, right?
Mhm, maybe I will make a partition for Ubuntu this weekend and try it out.

[edit]
zerozero wrote:i just noticed this topic now :oops:

the sandy and ivy bridge intel processors (I5 and I7) have an integrated gpu (HD3000 and HD4000 respectively);
early support for these cpu/gpus was added in kernel 3.2 (current debian testing/lmde and mint maya 13/ubuntu 12.04) but as ReneS shared above was/is buggy.
first time i saw this bug was here > http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=112543

at this point (if you are using lmde/debian testing) the only easy option is adding the liquorix kernel http://liquorix.net/ and install it

Code: Select all

zerozero@deb-kde ~ $ inxi -SGx
System:    Host: deb-kde Kernel: 3.7.0-6.dmz.2-liquorix-686 i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.7.2) 
           Desktop: KDE 4.9.5 (Qt 4.8.2) Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 (wheezy)
Graphics:  Card: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           X.Org: 1.12.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1440x900@59.9hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Desktop x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 8.0.5 Direct Rendering: Yes
in the meantime debian is preparing a new kernel update (will migrate to sid shortly) that among a lot of other interesting things will address this i915 issue

Code: Select all

 [ Julien Cristau ]
  * Backport drm and agp subsystems from Linux 3.4.29 (closes: #687442)
    - [x86] i915: Fixes freezes on Ivy Bridge (Closes: #689268)
    - nouveau: Support for newer nvidia chipsets (Closes: #690284)
    - radeon: Support for HD7000 'Southern Islands' chips
    - [x86] drm/i915: add Ivy Bridge GT2 Server entries (Closes: #684767)
    - [x86] drm/i915: Close race between processing unpin task and queueing
      the flip
That sounds interesting. I was actually not aware of Liquorix, I will have a look at it.
I guess liquorix is the only easy option since the other one would be to upgrade to sid and hope that the freeze will soon turn into a release and the current sid becomes testing (it would not make the system any more stable but it would "feel" more stable :>).

[second edit]
ReneS wrote:tanith, if you do not need to save as much power as possible, because you are always miles (kilometres for the rest of us) away from the next outlet, you can live with RC6 off for a while. It is just about power consumption.

Or you jump on the Ubuntu/Mint wagon and go with a later version and that should work for you.
Oh I can live without a power outlet. One of the nice things about the T530 was the huge battery life but I guess without real optimus support and that r6 state it's not possible but I can definitely live without it since I am alway using it only a few metres away from an outlet. :)
I just pray right now that it actually works.

Thanks so far guys.
Locked

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