Desktop Freezes Randomly

[Fluffman4]

So, I built a desktop computer and have been running Linux on it ever since I built it (about 3 weeks). However, whenever I am on the internet (that may be watching video, posting on forums, etc.) there are random points at which the computer will freeze [If there's any sound, it will kind of just repeat the same word continually. Additionally, can't move the mouse or type anything, and even the front power button does not work at that point, so I have to turn off the computer using the back switch.] I am running Linux Mint 13, but also had the same problem when I was running Ubuntu 12.04. Sometimes I can do things and be fine for hours, then this problem happens. So I shut down, and then try again with one window running and the problem will happen within seconds. Not sure what the problem is...

I'll list the specs:

ASUS p8z68-v pro/gen3 MOBO
3570K Intel CPU
MODXSTREAM-PRO Power Supply
Agility 3 120GB SSD Drive
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770 Graphics/Video Card
Samsung 22X Dvd/CD drive
8GB (2 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance RAM

Any and all help is appreciated.

[mintybits]

Which desktop are you using? I experienced a similar problem recently on a Dell laptop running Cinnamon. When I selected Gnome Classic at login it worked fine.

[DaJinx]

This same thing has been happening to me me as well, same symptoms as you described. I am not sure how to fix it though.

[traversc]

I have a similar build with the exact same problem you describe. It occurs randomly, whether I'm playing a game (in wine) or just browsing the internet. I'm going to install windows 7 and work from that for a while, to test whether it could be software/driver related rather than hardware.

AsRock Extreme 4 Z77
i5 3550 ivy bridge Intel CPU
Seasonic 650 W
Hitachi 2TB HD
eVGA NVidia GTX 670
8GB (2 x 4GB) g.Skill RAM

[DaJinx]

I was able to snatch a picture with my phone before it rebooted, sorry for the crappy quality but if someone has any ideas on how to fix I'd appreciate it.

[remoulder]

I built a desktop computer

Have you verified that there are no hardware issues before assuming the issue lies with the OS? Random freezing can be caused by many things - overheating, poorly seated components, mismatched or faulty components, insufficient power, etc. That said, there are many reports of newer kernels causing similar problems, perhaps you could try booting an older/different version of linux or perhaps Windows to see if you still have issues?

[traversc]

I built a desktop computer

Have you verified that there are no hardware issues before assuming the issue lies with the OS? Random freezing can be caused by many things - overheating, poorly seated components, mismatched or faulty components, insufficient power, etc. That said, there are many reports of newer kernels causing similar problems, perhaps you could try booting an older/different version of linux or perhaps Windows to see if you still have issues?

Besides memtest, what other tools would you recommend to test hardware parts?

[remoulder]

There are no free/open source hardware diags I'm aware of, which doesn't mean there aren't any. These are normally provided by the manufacturers on commercial machines.

[dmaniac]

I want to add to this post that I have the same symptons and also a kernel panic like shown DaJinx.

As I am running windows7 as a dual boot I can add that when using windows I do not have this problem and can work/play for hours without a lock-up/freeze.

I prevere Linux and I have installed Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon as my primary OS but these lock-up/freeze by the kernel panic keep occuring randomly. Sometime not for hours but sometimes immidiately.

My Laptop is brand new and has the following configuration:
i5-3210M
nvidia-GT650M 1gb gddr5 (turned off by bumblebee so using the intel HD4000 integrated in the i5)
8gb1333mhz
hm77 motherboard.

I really think this is kernel related.

[traversc]

There are no free/open source hardware diags I'm aware of, which doesn't mean there aren't any. These are normally provided by the manufacturers on commercial machines.

Well then how do you expect us to verify that there are no hardware issues like you suggested in your post? I'm not too impressed with hardware diagnostics from manufacturers; my old HP computer had sporadic hardware related crashing that the diagnostic didn't pick up on.

On a side note, I've been using windows 7 for almost a week now and haven't had any crashing issues so far. Previously, I was crashing 1-2 times a day on linux.

[mintybits]

The freezing issue I had seems to be this viewtopic.php?f=90&t=103054
which is a software problem that affects Cinnamon on 32 bit Mint.

[argodar]

I've been experiencing the same freezes as the OP. As far as I understand, there are 2 types of freezes described in these forums:

- freeze type 1: desktop freezes, but the mouse still moves, and it is still possible to go to the login screen using ctrl+alt+backspace
- freeze type 2: complete freeze, where it is not possible to go to the login screen using ctrl+alt+backspace, nothing responds (includig the mouse), only option left: pressing the power button on the computer

Freeze type 1 seems to be a cinnamon issue. Clem has provided alternate builds of cinnamon for us to test: see viewtopic.php?f=90&t=103054&start=440. These build do NOT fix the crashes I'm experiencing (freeze type 2).

Freeze type 2: it seems the OP experiences this type of freezes, like me. His CPU is an Intel i5 Ivy Bridge (identical to mine). There might be a problem with the Intel driver in the current kernel. See bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/993187

Comments #85, #86 and #91 in the bug report are interesting. Comment #91 provides guidelines for installing the kernel 3.3.6 in Ubuntu 12.04. I tested this procedure in Mint 13 and it works. I'm not sure yet if this solves the hard freezes, because I've only been testing for about 1 hour since installing and running kernel 3.3.6. However there seem to be some positive reports in the bug report.

[DaJinx]

I had the same freeze type you described (type 2) nothing was responsive and I had to hit the reset button. BTW, I was still using Mint 11 and even tried reinstalling it and the same issue occurs randomly. I am not interested in upgrading to a newer version of Mint as of yet. I ended up downloading and installing Mint 9 LTS and so far (4 hours) there hasn't been any freezes *knock on wood*.

[homerscousin]

Hello all. Been away 2-3 weeks due to hardware issues. My old Nvidia card died, I was forced to use onboard graphics on a 6 year old mobo which was basically intollerable, so I finally bot some new stuff. Got an i5 3570k, ASRock z77 extreme 4 mobo and 8 gb Ripjaws ram. I was running Ultimate Edition 3.4 at the time after using Mint 13 Cinnamon as my first ever Linux OS since May this year. Hey, I'm new and I can distro hop if I want to. Anyway, with U.E. freshly installed on new hardware, I was getting 5 or more hard freezes per day. Reset button was the only option. I read the bug reports at Launchpad, I check Phoronix regularly and it seems there are issues with Ivy Bridge, but there are newer kernels, there is a newer MESA driver, newer xorg, option to use SNA or UXA (2d accel). Do I know how to implement these changes? Not really. Not yet. My solution was to distro hop again and install Mint 13 KDE 64 bit. I installed yesterday and have had 0 freezes so far. That wouldn't happen on U.E. Maybe Compiz was a culprit. If you really want to fix this you will probably have to dig into the kernel and other basic components. Good luck.

[theophrastus]

I've been searching for more than a year for a solid clue as to what is causing my random desktop freezes. Nothing in system logs, no "panic" messages, have to hit reset. It always occurs just as a mouse selection or mouse motion or screen change. (naturally one tends to be in a browser when this happens, but i've tried several browsers with no change in frequency) I'm seeing them about 3 or 4 times a week under normal usage, and i'm running Linux Mint 64bit debian. I've got a Gigabyte motherboard, (which i've occasionally heard tiny hints that might be problematic) and an Nvidia graphics card.

System: Host aragog Kernel 3.6.0-jwg027+ x86_64 (64 bit) Distro Linux Mint Xfce Edition
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5 760 (-MCP-) cache 8192 KB flags (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips 22381.6
Clock Speeds: (1) 1197.00 MHz (2) 1197.00 MHz (3) 1197.00 MHz (4) 1197.00 MHz
Graphics: Card NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 440] X.Org 1.12.3.902 Res: 1600x900@60.0hz
GLX Renderer GeForce GT 440/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version 4.2.0 NVIDIA 304.48 Direct Rendering Yes

Here's my one bizarre clue, i tend to compile my own special kernels (using make-kpkg ...) and one time I left on "Compile the kernel with debug info" DEBUG_INFO (.config option) and i had no such lockups. so for me this is a Heisenbug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug

I've got this an a few other message boards to watch for clues. But any notions would be gratefully received. Even ways of narrowing the search. I'm close to trying a different graphics card, at least.

thankee!

[aquaman487]

I built a new desktop and it is randomly locking up with Linux Mint Maya frequently. I am using the integrated graphics on the CPU and integrated sound. My suspicion is that it is a sound driver related problem because it always happens when I am either streaming music through the web or playing mp3s with the mp3 player installed with Mint. I have a laptop running Linux Mint Maya. I run the same apps, music videos, and play mp3s on it without any crashes.

Everything operates at normal temperatures and I am not using much RAM. I have a very good case and nothing is overclocked. I checked the memory settings in the mobo to ensure they are correct. I am using the fiber optic sound output.

I really hate the Windows 8 UI and the path MS is going down. I don't need or want any touch capabilities on my laptops and desktops. I am trying hard to get Mint to work so I can move away from Windows for my personal machines. Any suggestions/fixes are appreciated.

Here are my components:
Intel i5-3570K
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 motherboard
Crucial Ballistic 4x2 DDR3 1600
500W power supply
Samsung 830 SSD

[slogger]

I have and ASRock z77 pro4-m or something like that mobo, and Ivy Bridge Xeon E3 1230-v2, and Xfx 7770 Radeon video card.

I can report similar issues recently. At some point in the last month or two an update froze while updating the bootloader. I've also had lots of freezes running Wine, both the free cursor kind, and the whole thing so hard frozen I have to hold down power button to reboot kind.

I've also had USB issues.

Interestingly, I've never been able to use my green audio out because of of static (have been using black 'rear' speaker out for my main audio out instead).

Anyway, most of my crashes (except for the update one) have happened while running wine, so it might not be related, but I'm also running software that in previous versions of Ubuntu has been rock solid under wine (Infinity Engine games, mostly) so I'm not really sure what to make of it.

I just though I have really similar hardware to other poster and am having a tangentially similar issue.

Also, random note, but my 7770 is supposedly PCIE 3.0, but amdccle always says PCIE 2.0, so I don't know what's up with that, either.

[aquaman487]

I installed Ubuntu 12.10 on the same machine that was crashing. I have used it for at least a week without any problems. I will try the new release of Mint to see if it is fixed. I don't know the issue and I tried everything I could think of. For whatever reason Ubuntu runs perfect on the same hardware. In the end I want to move to Mint because I like the UI much better.

[mintybits]

I installed Ubuntu 12.10 on the same machine that was crashing. I have used it for at least a week without any problems. I will try the new release of Mint to see if it is fixed. I don't know the issue and I tried everything I could think of. For whatever reason Ubuntu runs perfect on the same hardware. In the end I want to move to Mint because I like the UI much better.

You can run Cinnamon on Ubuntu: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/09/20/in ... 12-04-lts/

[richardsdma]

that is becaude cinnamon (and unity too) is crap, it is a waste of time and resources.
i cant underestend why people dont just use gnome 3. catalyst doesnt match with compiz.