this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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How to diagnose a complete system freeze (no REISUB, no mouse/kb, have to hard reset)? (piefed.zip)
submitted 8 hours ago by MindfulMaverick@piefed.zip to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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!

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[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

I had / have a similar issue that started at some point on my Ryzen 7 laptop with Kubuntu 24.04. I haven't tried REISUB yet, but otherwise same symptoms.

RAM is the usual suspect. I ran memtest for 24h++ with no errors Also tailed dmesg and journalctl to a remote machine, and checked journalctl after reboot. No errors reported. Presumably because the system hard locked before it had a chance to log the error.

I never found a root cause, but after I changed the KDE Power Profile from Eco to either Balanced or Power (I don't remember which) the random freezing reduced from 1-3 times per day to once every few weeks of continuous uptime.

So my guess is some kernel driver bug relating to power states of the CPU ( or GPU nVidia 3060 with 590 drivers)

[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 3 points 8 hours ago

For actual advice:

  • run memtest to verify RAM. Do multiple passes, at least overnight.
  • Check cooling? RAM and other things can overheat and cause locks, not just CPU.
  • Can you throw a couple of different distros on there, to try different permutations of kernel and drivers, old and new.
  • journalctl --follow (with sudo), dmesg -w. I ran these over ssh from a remote machine. Even better if you can run it on a local 2nd monitor. The point is to have them open the whole time since it's too late to change once the system is locked up