How can I find the reason my PC crashes?
How can I find the reason my PC crashes?
Lately my PC has started crashing while it plays videos. It freezes completely, screen frozen and not responding to any input (keyboard, mouse), I mean I cannot change TTY (alt + ctrl + F(1-2-...)), and it cannot even respond to alt + PrntScr + REISUB. I have to force power off by holding down the power button.
After I reboot I have tried checking all logs available and I cannot find anything logged right before the incident. Last entries are always different and not indicating anything.
I suspect it has to do with the graphics card but I'm looking for ways that I can dig deeper on that and confirm it or not.
What else should I check? How can I find more info?
OS: Lubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (latest updates) I'm using the nvidia proprietary drivers (nvidia-driver-390)
UPDATE:
First of all thank you all for your input and fresh ideas. Now I've already tried some of them and I will continue with the other ones until I get some results.
till now I have tried
- memtest and it didn't show any errors.
- boot from a live distro and see if problem also occurs. Well it didn't occur but on the live distro you cannot change the graphics driver. So it was using the open source nouveau driver, also it didn't happen during the 1 hour I let it play. The thing is that it never was punctual even before. It could happen during the first hour or the third or sometime later.
Next steps are to
- open the case and clean it up to remove the possibility of high temp because of that,
- change my drivers to be the nouveau and try again,
- try with only the onboard GPU on,
- remove extra disks to reduce the load of the PSU
thank you all again.
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Why do you suspect gfx card?
What happens if you use a different video player, or play different videos ie different codecs?
I used to have a similar issue but updates at some point fixed it. I think it was codecs.
Do you have an onboard gfx card you can use instead to test?
Why do you suspect gfx card?
because it happens only on video. Also if it is an 60fps video I start hearing the fans spinning like mad
What happens if you use a different video player, or play different videos ie different codecs?
haven't tried specific codecs. Usually it is youtube videos but makes no difference if I play them on firefox, on chromium, or even on opening them on MPV
Do you have an onboard gfx card you can use instead to test?
yes, there is one. Good idea.
Also if it is an 60fps video I start hearing the fans spinning like mad
ok this is definitely not normal. Check the temperature of your GPU. Is the GPU physically clean? Is the air flow ok? Do you have the chance to test with a different GPU? An overheating GPU can definitely lead to the described symptoms.
Also if it is an 60fps video I start hearing the fans spinning like mad
Do you know that it's specifically the GPU's fans or is it just some fan spinning up?
Is it actually using your GPU to decode? You need a fairly modern GPU to decode many YT vids nowadays.
you're right. No, i'm not sure it is the GPU fan. it can be any fan, possibly the CPU's
In that case I'd rather suspect the CPU. Decoding video can stress certain parts of a CPU that aren't usually stressed by other applications. YouTube commonly serves AV1 nowadays which most GPUs older than a few years can't decode and is rather compute intensive.
Is the CPU overclocked, undervolted or overheating? Instability in the CPU can certainly cause a complete system crash.
thanks for the input. It makes sense. No, it is not overclocked or intentionally undervolted. I think it could be undervolted if the PSU fails to provide sufficent voltage which also can be a possibility since it was a middle-tier "normal" PSU which is already 5 years old
I'd probably suspect PSU last.
Maybe checking your computer's resource utilization could provide some insight.
sorry but what exactly do you mean by checking resource utilization? CPU? yes load increases but it is not indicative. It is not starting being laggy and eventually freeze. It goes from responsive instantly to non responsive. RAM? it is 8GB, it always shows as full including the cached items (which is normal), but it doesn't start to swap. Swap is ~1GB used. SSD? not full.
What else (and how) should I check?
im not sure how helpful it'll be, but theres a program called nvtop that will show you what's using your GPU and all that. Maybe it'll show something right as it crashes, or at least give you a hint as to what to look into next?
I mean to use something like htop, btop, or psensor to check how much of your RAM, CPU, GPU, etc is being used along with temperature. Also, what do you mean your RAM always shows as full? I get that Linux "uses" it all but most resource monitors should be able to tell how much is actually being used for programs.
sorry but can you elaborate what exactly you mean? HDDs ? they are not full. CPU ? it increases load but not something like 100% or the pc start getting unresponsive gradually until it freezes. It goes from fully functional instantly to frozen. RAM ? Swap is not getting more than 1GB
If the fans are spinning maybe check if it still happens when you point a big standalone Fan at the graphics Card.