To the point where nothing responds and I need to kill it.
What about ctrl-alt-F3?
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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I am assuming the problem is your ram runs out of memory. And Linux kernel's OOM killer is too slow and doesn't kill processes earlier. You have two options to try:
- install earlyoom to kill processes earlier so the laptop doesn't freeze
- add zram to virtually double your ram
or you can use both options to get the best of you laptop
I would look at these things first.
- Try another DE, something like XFCE. See if the problem persists. Sometimes swapping compositors or display managers can help too.
- Run memtest. Failing memory can definitely cause lock-ups.
- Lastly I'd look at graphics drivers. If you're running Nvidia, switch from nouveau to the proprietary driver or vice-versa and see if that helps.
Great idea. I will try some time with XFCE. One of the challenges is that I don't know how to trigger the crash, and sometimes it can be days, other times multiple times within an hour.
Boot memtest
Leave it to do it's thing overnight. That will at least check for badly failing RAM.
I've run this on machines that I thought were ok, only to find... they weren't.
It might not be a bad idea having btop with like 100ms refresh. Watch it while using it and see what the thermals are as everyone is suggesting. Or if any other cpu thing is being weird. I've had weird freezes before due to lack of power. Or being on a screwed up power plan.
What laptop is it?
I'll try to monitor the temperature more closely, but nothing suggest that anything is wrong (doesn't feel hot, and the freeze can happen without doing anything intensive).
It's a tuxedo laptop.
Can you check
/var/log/syslog ?
Something like:
tail -f /var/log/syslog may help out.
That file usually has the answers. Its just hard to find the exact lines.
There are an absurd amount of this:
2026-02-06T01:41:23.698044+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Warning: Reached burst limit for user '1000', denying request.
2026-02-06T01:41:23.909775+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
2026-02-06T01:41:23.910579+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
2026-02-06T01:41:23.913096+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Warning: Reached burst limit for user '1000', denying request.
2026-02-06T01:41:24.124958+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
2026-02-06T01:41:24.125834+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
2026-02-06T01:41:24.128451+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Successfully made thread 58065 of process 58064 owned by '1000' RT at priority 20.
2026-02-06T01:41:24.128489+01:00 tuxedo rtkit-daemon[46122]: Supervising 2 threads of 2 processes of 1 users.
That seems to be there all the time, and also before crashing/freezing
If your machine is a Tuxedo laptop, this thread might interest you. Seems as though this user was hitting thermal limits and their laptop would freeze/poweroff to keep from dying.
+1 to this line on inquiry.
When I've managed to get a modern Linux desktop to freeze, I've had a bad power supply, or heat issues, each time.
Interesting that the power supply might be the problem. Never thought about that. Sounds like a nightmare to come to that conclusion.
Maybe something to do with your audio?
Maybe https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+source/rtkit/+bug/1547589
not sure.
Since you specifically mention qtile you should undo your customizations and see if that fixes your problem?
If not, you should look at the journal after reboot:
journalctl -b
But you'll need to filter it.
Try journalctl -b | grep -v rtkit-daemon, which will remove the masses of entries you bemoaned in another comment (AFAICS all syslog entries should also be in the journal anyhow).
Very important:
Please make note of when the problem happened, and if your journal entries even go that far in time.
journalctl -b | grep -v rtkit-daemon
I just got the following freeze that it recovered from by itself (rarely happens). After filtering the log a bit I get the following from around the time it happened.
Feb 07 00:00:58 tuxedo systemd[1]: Starting systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service - Cleanup of Temporary Directories...
Feb 07 00:00:58 tuxedo systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service: Deactivated successfully.
Feb 07 00:00:58 tuxedo systemd[1]: Finished systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service - Cleanup of Temporary Directories.
Feb 07 00:00:58 tuxedo systemd[1]: run-credentials-systemd\x2dtmpfiles\x2dclean.service.mount: Deactivated successfully.
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_job_timedout [amdgpu]] *ERROR* ring gfx_0.0.0 timeout, signaled seq=780519, emitted seq=780521
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_job_timedout [amdgpu]] *ERROR* Process information: process floorp pid 1548 thread floorp:cs0 pid 1606
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: GPU reset begin!
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:35 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Feb 07 00:58:36 tuxedo kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm:gfx_v11_0_hw_fini [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to halt cp gfx
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: MODE2 reset
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: GPU reset succeeded, trying to resume
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] PCIE GART of 512M enabled (table at 0x000000801FD00000).
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: SMU is resuming...
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: SMU is resumed successfully!
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] DMUB hardware initialized: version=0x08000500
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] DPIA AUX failed on 0x600(1), error 7
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] DPIA AUX failed on 0x600(1), error 7
...
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] DPIA AUX failed on 0x600(1), error 7
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] DPIA AUX failed on 0x600(1), error 7
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] kiq ring mec 3 pipe 1 q 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] VCN decode and encode initialized successfully(under DPG Mode).
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: [drm:jpeg_v4_0_hw_init [amdgpu]] JPEG decode initialized successfully.
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring gfx_0.0.0 uses VM inv eng 0 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.0.0 uses VM inv eng 1 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.1.0 uses VM inv eng 4 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.2.0 uses VM inv eng 6 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.3.0 uses VM inv eng 7 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.0.1 uses VM inv eng 8 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.1.1 uses VM inv eng 9 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.2.1 uses VM inv eng 10 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.3.1 uses VM inv eng 11 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring sdma0 uses VM inv eng 12 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring vcn_unified_0 uses VM inv eng 0 on hub 1
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring jpeg_dec uses VM inv eng 1 on hub 1
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: ring mes_kiq_3.1.0 uses VM inv eng 13 on hub 0
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: recover vram bo from shadow start
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: recover vram bo from shadow done
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring gfx_32775.1.1 was added
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring compute_32775.2.2 was added
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring sdma_32775.3.3 was added
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring gfx_32775.1.1 test pass
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring gfx_32775.1.1 ib test pass
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring compute_32775.2.2 test pass
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring compute_32775.2.2 ib test pass
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring sdma_32775.3.3 test pass
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: [drm] ring sdma_32775.3.3 ib test pass
Feb 07 00:58:37 tuxedo kernel: amdgpu 0000:65:00.0: amdgpu: GPU reset(2) succeeded!
``'Nice, that looks pretty obvious.
In addition to the other reply, you should search around your distro* having problems with (certain) AMD gpus; maybe all you need is a backported kernel.
* I don't think you ever mentioned. If it's Ubuntu-based, search for Ubuntu.
I use linux mint debian edition (LMDE)
Looks like the chipset/graphics driver is crashing. That can be because of the driver or the hardware.
It will be hard to diagnose, but you can search for the most detailed of those log lines together with your laptop model and see if that yields anything. There problem is that it's never possible to know whether you have a software issue or a hardware issue that is exposed by particular software.
You can try installing a completely different os (i.e windows) to see if the same problem occurs - if it does you can be fairly sure it's hardware.
Also, add -r to show the log in reverse. If you want to look at previous boots other than the last you can specify like so journalctl -b -2 -r
Can you ctl+alt+4 to another terminal? Could you ssh from another machine?
No, I can't access another tty during a freeze, unfortunately.
No, I can't access another tty during a freeze, unfortunately.
That's may be a hint!
The only times I've had the desktop freeze on Linux and the alternate terminals fail to respond, I had a hardware issue.
In one case, I was on a Raspberry Pi, and my power supply was not delivering clean enough power for the board.
In another case, my fan wasn't connected properly and the motherboard was overheating.
What are the machine’s specs? I had a similar issue on a Ryzen 5 3500U laptop before, but more recent kernels (6.8+) don’t exhibit that behavior.
I was thinking the same with my 7840u. Could try something a bit more cutting edge than Mint, though I will admit I have no idea how up to date they keep the kernel these days. Though if they live boot, they're removing the SSD and likely qtile from the equation, so it's a bit tricky to isolate.
It might also be overheating. If you can monitor the temperature it might give you a clue.
I checked that at some point, and I don't think that was the case, although sometimes during a crash the fans starts going crazy.
maybe the ram gets full?
i'd have htop and dmesg -w running visibly and see if there's any issue showing on the screen as it freezes