[SOLVED] System crashing when Firefox and Thunderbird open at same time

[alp_c]

Dear community,

I'm using LMDE 5 64bit on my PC (details below). Whenever I have Firefox and Thunderbird running at the same time, after some seconds the system freezes. In most cases I can still move the mouse, but all applications are stuck and Alt-Tab is also frozen. I have to do a cold reboot to get things working again.

I had the exact same issue with Debian testing non-free with KDE plasma desktop on this machine earlier, so it appears to be distro agnostic. My best guess would be that it is some hardware acceleration issue, where both apps access the video card at the same time? Which settings should be tweaked to get this solved?

Any help kindly appreciated!
Alp_C

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-17-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.12 tk: GTK 3.24.24 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: LMDE 5 Elsie 
           base: Debian 11.2 bullseye 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: EP41-UD3L v: x.x serial: <filter> BIOS: Award v: F6 
           date: 04/22/2010 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo E7500 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn rev: A 
           L2 cache: 3 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 11732 
           Speed: 1600 MHz min/max: 1600/2933 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1600 2: 1600 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA G96C [GeForce 9500 GT] vendor: ZOTAC driver: nouveau v: kernel 
           bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0640 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1440x900~60Hz s-dpi: 96 
           OpenGL: renderer: NV96 v: 3.3 Mesa 20.3.5 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio vendor: Gigabyte GA-D525TUD 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:27d8 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-17-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8192CE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter driver: rtl8192ce v: kernel 
           port: ce00 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8178 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Gigabyte 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: be00 bus ID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp4s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 149.68 GiB used: 9.85 GiB (6.6%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Intel model: SSDSA2CW160G3 size: 149.05 GiB speed: <unknown> 
           serial: <filter> 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB model: OLYMPUS uTough-3000 size: 641.9 MiB serial: <filter> 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 32.52 GiB used: 7.94 GiB (24.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7 
           ID-2: /home size: 27.3 GiB used: 1.29 GiB (4.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.45 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 75.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nouveau fan: 0 
Repos:     Packages: apt: 2142 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb https: //mirror.bauhuette.fh-aachen.de/linuxmint elsie main upstream import backport
           2: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
           3: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           4: deb http: //security.debian.org/ bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           5: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-backports main contrib non-free
Info:      Processes: 173 Uptime: 37m Memory: 3.84 GiB used: 1.59 GiB (41.3%) Init: systemd v: 247 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 alt: 10 Client: Unknown Client: cinnamon (deleted) 
           inxi: 3.3.01 

[MiZoG]

You have a heating problem

nouveau temp: 75.0 C

nouveau fan: 0

This is not good if true

Either your gpu fan is dead indeed or open source driver nouveau can't handle fan control properly.
Open the case, check that fan.
If it spins, revert to Debian 10 or Mint 20.x where the nvidia 340-legacy driver is available.
I read recently that nvidia released a lot of documentation for their older chips.
I hope nouveau development will pick up but it has admittedly been anaemic the last few years.
If it does not (spin)...

[alp_c]

Hi MiZoG,

very good point basically. So I opened the case and...



..no fan! Just a huge heat sink. (The fan in the background is the CPU fan).

I also noticed the "Zotac" logo on the card, is this indicating some cheap copy of the original NVIDIA hardware? Maybe that's the reason why it behaves strange to the OS? That said, I have a dual boot Win 8.1 running on this box without any issues. I'll try Mint 20.3 with the proprietary Nvidia drivers and see what gives.

[MiZoG]

The possibility of a fan-less GPU didn't cross my mind.
That means your system has been running more or less hot for a very long time.
My recommendation stands for now: proprietary nvidia driver can hopefully handle better the thermal loads than nouveau.
Anything you can do to increase cooling will help.
I never heard anything bad about Zotac. They are one of the established nvidia card manufacturers.

[alp_c]

Installation of Mint 20.3 with Nvidia driver is finished and so far I am unable to reproduce the issue. I'll give it another 1-2 days to sit. If it stays that way, I'll mark this thread as solved. Thank you for taking the time and pointing me into the right direction!

[alp_c]

Addendum:

For those who trust PPAs there is a way to even run Mint 21 with NVIDIA 340 drivers. See this Reddit for details:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/c ... untu_2204/

Successfully tested on my PC.