Hey everyone,
I’m running into a frustrating issue and could use some guidance on how to pinpoint the faulty component.
My system completely locks up every few hours. It’s not just a DE crash; the entire machine becomes unresponsive. The mouse and keyboard are completely dead (no cursor movement, Caps Lock key doesn’t toggle). I’ve tried waiting 10-15 minutes to see if it recovers, but it never does.
REISUB does not work. Holding Alt + SysRq and pressing the keys in order does nothing. The only way out is a hard reset using the case button.
The last time this happened, I ended up buying components for a new computer and replaced them one by one until I found the faulty one. I’d rather try a more targeted approach this time. Though if it takes too much effort, I do have another computer I can fall back on.
Any advice on how to diagnose this efficiently? Logs to check, stress tests to run, or hardware to suspect first?
Thanks in advance!
There was or is a specific bug with earlier Ryzen CPU generations that causes system freezes when the CPU enters the powersaving c-state #6. If that applies to your machine, try the kernel parameter
max_cstate=5for a while. I had one PC build where this 100% resolved the system freezing after several minutes. Note though that this is ~6 year old info. Issue might have been resolved in the meantime. But worth a try probably if you have an older Ryzen CPU.