Random System Freezes on Relatively New Install

[Yumi]

I just installed Linux Mint 13 x64 Cinnamon yesterday.
As such, it's a pretty fresh install, with a few applications installed on top, but I've been getting random freezes every so often.
I can't identify any particular thing which causes the freeze - it seems to be fairly random. If I were to make a guess, it does seem to happen only when I'm interacting with the machine - that is, I can leave it doing a task for a few hours and it won't freeze up.
I've also just been using Windows 7 in VirtualBox (running on top of LM) for quite a while and not had any issues - so it _seems_ that the issue may be something to do with interacting with stuff in the Linux environment.

By "freeze" I mean a complete system lock up. The mouse won't respond, the numlock/capslock/scroll lock LEDs won't toggle on the keyboard when the respective key is pressed. Key combinations like Ctrl+Alt+Del, Ctrl+Alt+F2, Alt+SysReq+I etc have no effect. The system won't respond to USB drive insertions or the power button being pressed, so I need to hold down the power button to get the machine to turn off.
If music happens to be playing in the background, the last ~0.5 secs will just constantly keep looping whilst frozen. (but music isn't the cause as this has occurred when no music player is open)

My hardware is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4GHz
RAM: 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4
Drive: 240GB SATA3 SSD (LM is installed on a 40GB ext4 partition on this drive, the rest of this drive is currently empty; there are some other hard disks installed, if that has any effect)
Graphics: using built in Intel HD4000
Sound: Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio PCI-Express
Other: SATA DVD Burner, Internal SD card reader, ComproDTV TV Tuner

I haven't done anything with drivers as the default install seemed to have everything working in-tact. I have installed VirtualBox (non-free) and Wine, so I don't know whether these have any effect.

I've run Memtest for about half an hour with no errors. Although I haven't been putting the system under any particular load when the freezes have occurred, I've tried putting load on the CPU for a few minutes (running cpuburn), and this hasn't caused a freeze up.

Here's some output after rebooting from a crash.
dmesg: http://pastebin.com/647diqbw
syslog: http://pastebin.com/dNdgjAvm

Please indicate if I should provide any more information.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!

[remanufactory]

This will not help you, but I step in to inform that the same things used to happen on my laptop with Ubuntu 10.04 installed. Same - exact - problems. The weird thing is that it used to happen between last february and june, and then it never happened again.
I searched in every forum, but could not find any single hint.
Memtest and system log did not show anything remarkable.

[DasFox]

I made a post here for some feedback, lockups too;

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=103992

Two total lockups in less then a week for me on 13 x86...

All I can say is Cinnamon is not stable...

[Yumi]

Thanks for the responses.
Glad to know that I'm not the only one!

If it's with Cinnamon, do you think the MATE version won't have these issues?
Or does it exist in Ubuntu 10.04, and lie elsewhere?

[braz_melb]

I have installed Linux Mint 13 x32 Cinnamon and the system freezes on a regular basis - requires a full reboot. Most problems seem to occur in Libreoffice and so far all documents have been recovered.
There is a bug somewhere in there, but there is no discernible pattern.
I hope it gets resolved soon. It does not look like a memory issue.

The system in use is
Processor : 2x Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU E3400 @ 2.60GHz
Memory : 2026MB (639MB used)
Operating System : Linux Mint 13 Maya

-Display-
Resolution : 1366x768 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : Mesa DRI Intel(R) G41 x86/MMX/SSE2
X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation

ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse
-Printers (CUPS)-
MG5200LAN : <i>Default</i>
-SCSI Disks-
ATA WDC WD5000AAKX-0
ATA SAMSUNG HD753LJ
ATA SAMSUNG HD753LJ
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS70

[wfp]

Having the exact same issue on a Mint13 Cinamon. Linux Mymint 3.2.0-23-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:41:14 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux. Everything will be working fine then boom complete system lockup. I have to hard boot, which i really do not like to do. Amd +4200 Nvidia 6150se.

[davidvj]

Having exactly the same problem with Cinnamon. Getting lock-up of total system with loss of cursor for no particular reason.

I do often find that the problem occurs when I am NOT directly working on the system and have turned my back doing something else for a couple of minutes. It may even (in my case) be associated with screen saver trying to start but being blocked by something. I may try turning off the screensaver and see if that solves the problem.

Problem occurs with a variety of programs running ... it is not specific.

I left M$ over this type of problem (amongst other things) and have never had this kind of nonsense with Linux over 5 years .... this needs to be fixed fast. I seriously hope that somebody is listening!

Older 32 bit HP Pavilion .. very ho-hum.

David

[Altered Walter]

Add me to the list.

I'm not sure, but I'm wondering if there is something about Skype that might be causing this. The system only seems to lock up on me if Skype is running.

The reason I notice this is because I don't have Skype in my Startup Applications and so must start it manually and it is after Skype starts that it happens.

Anybody else running Skype when this happens?

BTW, I'm still running 11 Katya, so this isn't exclusive to any particular Mint version.

[davidvj]

No relationship to Skype on my system.

Not had a problem so far after changing my screensaver setting to OFF

[Altered Walter]

That's interesting as I'm not running a screen saver.

It never seems to happen if I'm not running Skype.

Do you run Skype by chance?

[davidvj]

Just had a freeze without screen saver enabled ... so not that
I have skype installed on this system but not using it or starting it

Bloody nuisance! Really needs a fix

[Honest Mistake]

By "freeze" I mean a complete system lock up. The mouse won't respond, the numlock/capslock/scroll lock LEDs won't toggle on the keyboard when the respective key is pressed. Key combinations like Ctrl+Alt+Del, Ctrl+Alt+F2, Alt+SysReq+I etc have no effect. The system won't respond to USB drive insertions or the power button being pressed, so I need to hold down the power button to get the machine to turn off.
If music happens to be playing in the background, the last ~0.5 secs will just constantly keep looping whilst frozen. (but music isn't the cause as this has occurred when no music player is open)

My hardware is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4GHz
RAM: 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4
Drive: 240GB SATA3 SSD (LM is installed on a 40GB ext4 partition on this drive, the rest of this drive is currently empty; there are some other hard disks installed, if that has any effect)
Graphics: using built in Intel HD4000
Sound: Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio PCI-Express
Other: SATA DVD Burner, Internal SD card reader, ComproDTV TV Tuner

That's pretty much exactly what my problem was, the only difference being I'm running LMDE. I fixed it by installing newer kernel (If I had to guess, I'd say that Ivy Bridge graphics drivers in kernel 3.2 are the problem). On LMDE I just installed liquorix kernel, but I'm unsure what your options are on the main edition.

[merkurial]

My hardware is as follows:
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.4GHz
RAM: 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4
Drive: 240GB SATA3 SSD (LM is installed on a 40GB ext4 partition on this drive, the rest of this drive is currently empty; there are some other hard disks installed, if that has any effect)
Graphics: using built in Intel HD4000
Sound: Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio PCI-Express
Other: SATA DVD Burner, Internal SD card reader, ComproDTV TV Tuner

Hi Yumi,

could youd send me an acpidump of your system?

You need to have installed the package acpidump and get the dump doing:

sudo acpidump > acpidump.bin

I also have an Ivy Bridge motherboard and have a different issue which might
come from the same root cause. I am pretty sure I can find out some fix once
I have the dump.

[teilnehmer]

I had simiilar problems with a Xubuntu install and was told to start the system with the boot parameter "nomodeset".
Apparently, the newer kernel wants to do stuff with the graphics card that it can't, over which it freezes. Touchy kernel, doesn't cope well with boundaries.

Anyway, I don't know if this is a similar issue, but it's easy to try. Sorry I can't provide links right now (I'm on my mobile), but if you websearch "grub nomodeset" you should get somewhere.

[watertavi]

Seems like I'm having a similar probelm to teilnehmer, with XFCE & KDE on mint 13. Computer becomes unresponsive, audio repeats, graphics hang.

Windows partition does not seem to repeat the problem
Memtest86 passes for 12 hours.

Processor: i7-3770s
Mb: gigabyte ga-z77x-ud5h
mem: 32gb ddr 3 1600 mhz

Does anyone have any ideas on how to proceed? Update the kernel?

EDIT:

I can provide any system diagnostics. Just let me know which ones would be most helpful.

[phlebas]

I'm having random lock ups aswell on Linux Mint 13 Xfce. Graphics and keyboard are unresponsive for a few seconds but then it comes back to life. No need for a reboot for me.

This does not happen on my Debian or Windows partitions.

[RRRR]

I'm having the same issue, just installed linux mint 13 (cinnamon) on a Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe with 4x8GB Corsair low profile ram and AX850 PSU.
Installed on a Vertex 4 SSD with some other HDD for data...
RAM is good and tested and I've had random graphical lock up with looping sound and the reset button not even working.
How would we go about loging the crash? I'm suspecting either the video or sound driver or the ssd ...

The reset button won't even answer, I have to hold power...

[watertavi]

For those of you who run into a similar problem.

Ivy bridge and kernel 3.2 seem to be the problem. I've upgraded to kernel 3.4 using the instructions posted below and I've had 0 problems.

http://www.upubuntu.com/2012/06/how-to- ... 44-in.html


Post back if you can confirm this solution.

[mephisto]

I reported a similar problem here a couple of days ago on XCFE.
viewtopic.php?f=57&t=113273

I just upgraded a wubi Xubuntu install I still had, it upgraded the kernel of it I noticed and a couple of minutes later it hung, same symptoms, cursor stuck no way out but a hard reboot... although I'm not on Ivy Bridge (old AMD 64 bit). Xubuntu however exited to the command line and there I noticed a couple of hardware errors being mentioned. I never had any problems with WIn XP on the same box so I doubt that it is my hardware. And Xubuntu had never done this before the upgrade.

Oddly enough, after reporting the problem with my MINT Maya XCFE here, it seems to have stabilised, it still happens occasionally but not quite as often as before... sigh.. fortunately. My system was no longer useable.

So, is there a problem with kernel 3.2 then? SInce I have it on XCFE and others have it on Cinnamon and ....

@ watertavi Is that link for the 3.4 kernel also good for 64 bit?
EDIT: the answer is yes... I checked the code.

EDIT 2: upgraded the kernel, with a pounding heart... I'm way out of my league here, being a Linux noob,
had a couple of errors with/about nvidia drivers, but managed to install a working driver after reboot. Let's wait and see now if this fixes the problem.
Also had an error about locale US_en.utf8 not being available that I have to look into.

[mephisto]

@watertavi: is there any (special) reason why you didn't upgrade to 3.5.4 instead of 3.4 .4 ?
I'm new to all this stuff so I hope you don't mind me asking.
If anybody else can answer the question, please go for it