Even after upgrades/updates, laptop freezes[Poss. Resolved]

[wutsinterweb]

This may be related to facebook??? It may be related to my laptop's RAM???

Back with 18.3 my laptop had no anomalous problems EXCEPT that sometimes I had to reseat my RAM sticks to POST.

Laptop is a G380 Lenovo with only 20.1 installed.

I wonder if, as I use up ram that maybe one of the two sticks h a bad "section"?

My screen slows down and then even using ctrl-alt-bkspc won't respond or it will respond very slowly and still crash the system unable to get the the line prompt.

This started happening when I went from 18.3 to 19.0 and ever since, now on 20.1

It seems that it almost happens to the clock, after about 24 hours of being booted and using facebook in firefox, facebook starts to hang and then the entire system hands. It does this every day and I have to crash reboot which is not ideal.

[SMG]

Were these fresh installs or upgrades when you moved from version to version?

Please give us information about your install by entering this command in a terminal: inxi -Fxxxrz
Click </> from the mini toolbar above the textbox where you type your reply and then place your cursor between the code markers and paste the results of the command between the code markers [code]Results[/code]. This will let us know how Mint sees your hardware.

[wutsinterweb]

Code: Select all

~$ inxi -Fxxxrz
System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-62-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 wm: muffin 4.8.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20150 v: Lenovo G580 serial: <filter> 
  Chassis: type: 10 v: Lenovo G580 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: INVALID v: 31900003WIN8 STD MLT serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: LENOVO v: 5ECN95WW(V9.00) date: 12/19/2012 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 33.2 Wh condition: 33.2/42.8 Wh (78%) volts: 11.9/10.8 
  model: LENOVO PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full 
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M325 
  serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes 
  status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3210M bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19953 
  Speed: 1536 MHz min/max: 1200/3100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1396 2: 1403 
  3: 1454 4: 1395 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:0166 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1366x768~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) 
  v: 4.2 Mesa 20.2.6 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:1e20 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-62-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR8162 Fast Ethernet vendor: Lenovo driver: alx 
  v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1969:1090 
  IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network 
  Adapter 
  driver: wl v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 14e4:4727 
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 48.22 GiB (5.2%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS721010A9E630 
  size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm serial: <filter> 
  rev: A3J0 scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 54.75 GiB used: 48.21 GiB (88.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 58.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list 
  1: deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vivaldi.list 
  1: deb http://repo.vivaldi.com/stable/deb/ stable main
Info:
  Processes: 226 Uptime: 1d 4h 01m Memory: 7.64 GiB used: 5.47 GiB (71.6%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 

[SMG]

Your system has a very small size and is very full, so it is possible that is part of the issue. Here are some tips, How to Clean Linux Mint Safely. Because of the size, there is not a lot of room for Mint to flex the swap file to handle everything you have open. Your memory is also quite full.

Partition:
ID-1: / size: 54.75 GiB used: 48.21 GiB (88.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
Info:
Processes: 226 Uptime: 1d 4h 01m Memory: 7.64 GiB used: 5.47 GiB (71.6%)
Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash
v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38

It seems that it almost happens to the clock, after about 24 hours of being booted and using facebook in firefox, facebook starts to hang and then the entire system hands. It does this every day and I have to crash reboot which is not ideal.

If it is to the point of doing this every day and cleaning out your system does not help. you might be better off shutting down each day rather than letting the system crash.

I do not know what technology Facebook is currently using, but I would guess there is always the possibility of memory leaks within their add-ons. Because your install is so small, your system does not have the room to handle that type of issue.

[wutsinterweb]

Gee, I have a 1 TB hard drive, it didn't dawn on me that the install would use so little space automatically. Hm...

[wutsinterweb]

That is my sole disk

[SMG]

Gee, I have a 1 TB hard drive, it didn't dawn on me that the install would use so little space automatically. Hm...

That is one interesting install. The boot partition is nearly the same size as the root partition. Boot/EFI partition only needs a small amount of space (as indicated by how much it is using.)

If the rest of that is just empty EXT4 space, you could probably resize the root partition. You would not want the drive mounted when you resize it, so we usually recommend booting to a live session of Mint (using usb/dvd) and using GParted on it to resize.

I have not done that and do not know all the things to watch for, so either search for posts on this forum which might help or post a new thread about changing it in the Installation & Boot section of the forum.

[wutsinterweb]

But why does my filemanager show only 7 gB of space left in my home directory. Something seems broken.

[SMG]

But why does my filemanager show only 7 gB of space left in my home directory. Something seems broken.

Your home directory is a sub-directory under root on sda2. And your root is 88% full, so I would expect there is not much room for it.

I'm guessing you meant that big empty EXT4 space on sda3 to be your home partition? If that is the case, I think you may have not used the correct drop-down box when you installed Mint.

[wutsinterweb]

Strange, I just did the automatic install. Maybe I need to wipe and reinstall? What is that third partition if it is not my home partition, is it a ghost partition from a previous install? How do I access it?

[SMG]

Strange, I just did the automatic install. Maybe I need to wipe and reinstall? What is that third partition if it is not my home partition, is it a ghost partition from a previous install? How do I access it?

I have no idea what it might be, however, I think you should be able to access it to see if there is anything on it using the File Manager on your desktop.

I would think backing up your data and doing a reinstall might be best. That is the only way I know to put /home on a separate partition. In addition, the EFI/boot partition does not need to be that large and it just wastes space.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana) Installation Steps with Screenshots which may help you.

[wutsinterweb]

I may have resolved it already. I looked using the desktop computer icon file manager and saw that that large partition was an old install. I deleted it with gparted, then I booted with my stick and used gparted to resize the root/home partition. Maybe now things will be ok.

It would appear that with fresh installs now, the install system won't delete old partitions automatically and start over! This is a major change that must have happened after 18.3. Lesson learned!

[wutsinterweb]

I thank you heartily, because I had no idea and didn't even think to check this! Hurr Durr on me!

[wutsinterweb]

If I do continue to have problems I'll report back in, so far so good. I have to leave it running for a few days and see what happens.

Thank you for such clear-headed advice, I feel dumb not realizing something so obvious. I admit that I don't have as much passion for computer stuff like I used to. I've been more focused on music, another passion.

I should not have slacked off and defaulted to the automatic choices in the fresh install, the moment I stopped paying attention is when things changed. So now I know that if you do a fresh install you have to explicitly delete old directories, all of them, if that is what you want. I had assumed that they had been partitioned over.

[SMG]

I have to leave it running for a few days and see what happens.

I presumed that would be the case.

Like most people, I don't install that often, so I do not know what may have happened. Something weird did happen to make that efi/boot partition so large, so maybe whatever caused that to happen caused the installer to bypass overwriting the other install. We'll never know at this point.

It's all in the past now and hopefully expanding the root partition will take care of the issues. Enjoy your music.

[wutsinterweb]

Update: It seems to still lock up but I can go 2 or 3 days now without it getting buggy and I can usually reboot safely, but tonight when I choose the reboot, it had a kernel panic.

I suspect my memory may be to blame, and the reason I do is because I can go an almost predictable amount of time and then I have trouble with the system freezing intermittently and for very long periods of time.

The computer is too old, it's 6 years old, so I don't want to buy new RAM to see what's what because it's just old.

[SMG]

Update: It seems to still lock up but I can go 2 or 3 days now without it getting buggy and I can usually reboot safely, but tonight when I choose the reboot, it had a kernel panic.

That is not something I would expect to happen.

I suspect my memory may be to blame, and the reason I do is because I can go an almost predictable amount of time and then I have trouble with the system freezing intermittently and for very long periods of time.

Either that or there is something running which has a memory leak.

[wutsinterweb]

I just "cleaned" the RAM with alcohol and reseated drive to see if that helps.

[wutsinterweb]

It's still getting hung up, but if I ctrl-alt-bkspc and recover from there it works as well as reboot but sometime it doesn't succeed without black screen.

[SMG]

Ctl-Alt-Backspace restarts the X Server.

Some people have been noticing memory leak issues with the most recent version of Cinnamon. Try using Ctl-Alt-Escape to restart Cinnamon instead of restarting X Server and see if that helps.