this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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I have a Ryzen 3 1300X at the moment and it's always had this soft lock freezing bug on Linux. I used to dual-boot Windows on this machine and Windows never had the same problem, so I think it is an issue with the Linux kernel (I've also replaced nearly every bit of hardware that I originally built the PC with, except for the CPU and motherboard, so it probably is an issue the kernel has with my CPU, or possibly the motherboard firmware).

I've changed the kernel parameters as suggested by the Arch Wiki. The bug is pretty inconsistent about happening so only time will tell if this solves the issue. But if it doesn't solve the issue, I'd honestly consider just getting a new CPU that doesn't have this issue, as completely freezing up, unable to get to a tty or anything, and only being able to power off by physically holding down the power button, is a pretty major issue, even if it only happens sometimes.

So if I do get a new CPU, or maybe just for when I'm next buying a CPU for reasons unrelated to this bug (been considering an upgrade to something that's better for compiling anyway), are there any good options out there? Intel is investing $25 billion into Israel and the BNC has called for "divestment and exclusion" from it (it's not officially on the BDS consumer boycott list, but I'm still very much not comfortable buying from Intel). But the Arch Wiki article seems to suggest this bug is applicable to Ryzen CPUs in general, or at least it never specifies a particular model or range of models. So maybe I'm limited to non-Ryzen AMD CPUs?

I'm guessing this is one of the situations where two companies have a complete duopoly over the market and there isn't an all-round good solution, but thought I'd ask in case anyone had some useful input.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

While it probably isn't the issue for you, I have once been chasing a hard freeze that was caused by some APM setting in the BIOS. If you are on AMD right now you could check it.

It was very weird, setting it to automatic would cause random freezes. Setting it to on or off would both work just fine. Somehow the automatic setting gave me issues.

Just a random thing for you to check I guess.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I've no ideia what you're rambling about. I can attest that the Ryzen 5 1600 and the Ryzen 5 2600 that aren't even new CPUs run perfectly fine with Debian.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Not 100% sure if it is the same issue as you linked to, but I have an early Ryzen 7 1700 that has a hardware error (google "ryzen performance marginality" to find info about it) causing it not to work properly with linux. I never bothered to RMA my CPU. I've made it kinda work anyways, by disabling cool and quiet or whatever it is called, and set a fixed overclock to compensate for the lack of turbo after that. The idea is that the CPU should always run at a fixed clock speed instead of clocking down to save power when idle. Haven't had any issues with this CPU for a while now after I did that.

BTW I upgraded my desktop with a 3900x and put the 1700 in a server. Never had any issues with the 3900x on linux, so getting a newer generation ryzen for you PC second hand or something might just fix it as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Thank you, I'm getting this response a lot. Will be getting a newer gen Ryzen, probably a Ryzen 5 5600X because I don't want to get an AM5 board (which will only support DDR5 RAM, thus I'll have to replace my perfectly good DDR4 sticks, etc, just a ridiculous amount of unnecessary e-waste when I've had multiple people commenting here saying 5000 series seem to work fine)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Flapping about, feeling morally superior... did you even try to search for an answer or did you just want to virtue signal? Take a look at RIsc, or Arm... or w/e the Chinese just released.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I heard that Linux gets new patches for Loongson, but I didn't try it yet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I appreciate you raising this question, thank you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What motherboard do you have? Also what happens exactly when the lock-ups happen? Have you ever been playing audio when the lock-ups happen and does it loop or stop or keep playing?

I recently had to "fix" (workaround) a similar issue in the OpenBSD kernel with a specific hardware peripheral on my PC (running a 2nd-gen Ryzen), the High Definition Audio controller. For whatever reason (and only when I was running OpenBSD) interrupts from the HDA controller (to let the CPU know to refill audio buffers) would just randomly stop making it to the CPU and audio would loop for a few seconds and then shut off. I spent a long time trying to figure out what causes it and reading Linux driver code but I couldn't find a cause or why only OpenBSD would trigger it. I ended up having to write kind of a hacky polling mode into the HDA driver. My only guess is some of these AMD-chipset-having motherboards have faulty interrupt controllers.

Maybe there is a similar issue with your system and timer interrupts aren't making it to your CPU or something. But I'm not really an expert on PC architecture and idek if it even works like that on PCs lol

Sorry for so many questions but do you also have any kernel logs available from when this happens?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This is my mobo

Also what happens exactly when the lock-ups happen?

Screen is frozen, doesn't respond to keyboard or mouse input, including unable to switch to a tty or kill the graphical session (I have a keybind to exit my Wayland compositor, which I launch from the tty, so when I use the keybind it sends me to the tty—that is, if my computer isn't locked up lol).

I don't remember if this has ever happened with audio playing, idk what happens to audio if it happens with audio playing.

I think I did post kernel logs to a forum way back in the day when I first got this PC and started having this issue, to no avail—at this point I'd rather just get a new CPU and save the headache and stress, especially since this is a known issue with Ryzens

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I see. Our motherboards have different chipsets (I have an X570 in mine). It probably has nothing to do with my issue...

Hoping those kernel parameters fix it. I wish I could help further. PCs are just a bottomless, mostly undocumented rabbithole :(

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Am I the only one of the opinion tech companies that don't produce any kind of military equipment should not have any political leaning whatsoever?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I run AMD r9 7000 series fine on Linux since like a month

[–] [email protected] -5 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Please keep politics out of here

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For what its worth I agree with you. From my experience the idea of not being political is unpopular with lemmings

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