Solved System randomly freezing, requiring restart

[Battledoge21]

EDIT: It happened two more times, both after waking the computer from a suspended state for an extended period of time. For now, I'm just gonna hibernate the computer instead, but hopefully that might have an explanation.

Hello folks. I've recently got my hands on a Lenovo Thinkpad E560. I'm running WattOS r13 on it at the moment. For those who don't know, it's essentially a trimmed down version of Debian 12 with LXDE.

Using this computer casually, I've encountered a strange issue. Every once and a while, the system will completely freeze. I can move my mouse, but the taskbar will disappear and/or be completely unresponsive. My desktop icons remain, but clicking them yields no results. Any open programs can be used and interacted with (resized, moved, etc). Minimizing the programs makes them disappear completely, but they can be reached once again by alt-tabbing. The only way to get the system working again is to hold the power button and force restart the computer.

When I got the computer, if was missing a couple of trim pieces and a hard drive or SSD. It had a single 8gb DDR3 RAM stick, so I decided to add another 2gb stick I had lying around. After 3 occurrences of this issue, I figured it was a hardware issue, so I removed the 2gb stick and reseated the other one. Since then, I haven't added the 2gb stick back in. I also ran the BIOS's built-in hardware tests, and literally everything passed with no errors (besides a mild burn-in on the monitor, but I don't imagine that matters in the context of this problem). After all of this, it happened again, and that's why I'm making this post.

So, does anyone have any idea as to why this might be happening? All the usual fixes don't seem to be working. My personal hypothesis is that there's a motherboard issue or a bad connection somewhere, backed up by the fact that the system is in very poor cosmetic condition, and seems to have been used heavily throughout it's life. Thankfully it seems to be pretty rare, only happening every ~15 hours of use.

Below are some system specs and other potentially useful information:
-Intel i5-6200U Quad Core CPU @ 2.8GHZ
-Kernel 6.1.0-25-amd64
-The system is a Norwegian model
-It runs on Integrated Graphics (Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520])
-The SSD uses a SATA to NVME adaptor

Nothing else of note really, just a painfully average system.
Thanks for the help!

 

[KGIII]

Hmm...

That reads like an example of the desktop environment freezing. LXDE is pretty lightweight, so it's not necessarily a resource problem. Have you checked the CPU and RAM use during these freezes?

Also, LXDE is no longer really being worked on. The devs are now more or less just working on LXQt. It's a potentially drastic step but you might want to try LXQt - if that's a realistic option for you.

 

[Battledoge21]

Hmm...

That reads like an example of the desktop environment freezing. LXDE is pretty lightweight, so it's not necessarily a resource problem. Have you checked the CPU and RAM use during these freezes?

Also, LXDE is no longer really being worked on. The devs are now more or less just working on LXQt. It's a potentially drastic step but you might want to try LXQt - if that's a realistic option for you.

I haven't tried looking at resource usage during the freezes, as they seem to be completely random, but I agree with you about it being a issue with LXDE or maybe X11.

As for upgrading to LXQt, I'll look into it, but I don't really plan on keeping this system too up to date honestly. I'll probably end up only using it for light coding and web browsing. WattOS paired with a modern DE sounds awesome though...

 

[KGIII]

I don't really plan on keeping this system too up to date honestly.

Doing so makes you a good netizen, protects you, provides new features, fixes bugs, and takes almost no effort in Linux. The entire system updates with just a couple of commands - and you can even alias them to require a single command.

 

[APTI]

Hello folks. I've recently got my hands on a Lenovo Thinkpad E560. I'm running WattOS r13 on it at the moment. For those who don't know, it's essentially a trimmed down version of Debian 12 with LXDE.

Using this computer casually, I've encountered a strange issue. Every once and a while, the system will completely freeze. I can move my mouse, but the taskbar will disappear and/or be completely unresponsive. My desktop icons remain, but clicking them yields no results. Any open programs can be used and interacted with (resized, moved, etc). Minimizing the programs makes them disappear completely, but they can be reached once again by alt-tabbing. The only way to get the system working again is to hold the power button and force restart the computer.

When I got the computer, if was missing a couple of trim pieces and a hard drive or SSD. It had a single 8gb DDR3 RAM stick, so I decided to add another 2gb stick I had lying around. After 3 occurrences of this issue, I figured it was a hardware issue, so I removed the 2gb stick and reseated the other one. Since then, I haven't added the 2gb stick back in. I also ran the BIOS's built-in hardware tests, and literally everything passed with no errors (besides a mild burn-in on the monitor, but I don't imagine that matters in the context of this problem). After all of this, it happened again, and that's why I'm making this post.

So, does anyone have any idea as to why this might be happening? All the usual fixes don't seem to be working. My personal hypothesis is that there's a motherboard issue or a bad connection somewhere, backed up by the fact that the system is in very poor cosmetic condition, and seems to have been used heavily throughout it's life. Thankfully it seems to be pretty rare, only happening every ~15 hours of use.

Below are some system specs and other potentially useful information:
-Intel i5-6200U Quad Core CPU @ 2.8GHZ
-Kernel 6.1.0-25-amd64
-The system is a Norwegian model
-It runs on Integrated Graphics (Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520])
-The SSD uses a SATA to NVME adaptor

Nothing else of note really, just a painfully average system.
Thanks for the help!

Before you go too crazy with things. Check for physical issues. Check the RAM as mentioned. check the hard drive using S.M.A.R.T. and if it shows anything other than a zero in each error or warning category, replace the drive that is the cause. Early drive failure is the most common cause of random freezing. since you are running a converter from sata to NVME that can also be issue. Take the converter out of the mix and use what you should for it.
Do not bother looking at the OS until you rule out physical issues.

 

[Battledoge21]

Doing so makes you a good netizen, protects you, provides new features, fixes bugs, and takes almost no effort in Linux. The entire system updates with just a couple of commands - and you can even alias them to require a single command.

I guess I should have specified what I meant by that. I run sudo apt update/upgrade about every month or so, but the packages installed are generally ones that don't get as much updates. For example, Firefox-ESR.

 

[Battledoge21]

Before you go too crazy with things. Check for physical issues. Check the RAM as mentioned. check the hard drive using S.M.A.R.T. and if it shows anything other than a zero in each error or warning category, replace the drive that is the cause. Early drive failure is the most common cause of random freezing. since you are running a converter from sata to NVME that can also be issue. Take the converter out of the mix and use what you should for it.
Do not bother looking at the OS until you rule out physical issues.

I have done SMART tests, as it is a part of the computer's built in diagnostic tool. It reported that everything was in working order. As for the adapter, I haven't tried removing, as the laptop does not a native NVME slot. I might consider ordering a higher quality one however, as the one I ordered was pretty cheap.

 

[APTI]

I have done SMART tests, as it is a part of the computer's built in diagnostic tool. It reported that everything was in working order. As for the adapter, I haven't tried removing, as the laptop does not a native NVME slot. I might consider ordering a higher quality one however, as the one I ordered was pretty cheap.

you can get an NVME of the best and highest quality but it will never perform better than the SATA channel that it is plugged into. Keep that in mind. I would not trust the adapter, try a straight SSD with no adapters and I think your problem will go away. The adapter can be doing this to you. NVME to SATA is flakey at best. There is trickery involved in making it work and perhaps a sacrificial goat.