System completely freezes, what is broken and needs replacing?
by AndrewAmmerlaan from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5DCMQ)
For some time now my computer has had this problem where it sometimes completely freezes, not just a hang but a complete freeze. Nothing works, no CTRL+ALT+F2, no SYSRQ, the only thing that works is the power button. If some sound is being played when the freeze occurs it will repeat the last second of this sound indefinitely.
Now today it broke completely and now it does this every time KDE starts. Sometimes it happens even earlier (during booting, or when SDDM starts). Sometimes it happens later and I can actually login before it freezes. I can reproduce the exact same behaviour with a SysResque USB.
With the iGPU set as the default GPU, I get a freeze that is sometimes preceded by massive screen corruption. With the dGPU (AMD RX 590) set as the default GPU (and the iGPU disabled) it is just a freeze without any screen corruption.
Obviously this is a hardware failure, but my question is how do I determine which part is the faulty one? The fact that I have the same problem with the iGPU and the dGPU indicates to me that the problem might not be in the GPU. The motherboard seems functional as well, BIOS works and displays just fine. My guess is that the CPU is the problem, but I want to be sure before I start buying new things. (Perhaps I am completely on the wrong path here and it is the RAM or storage that is faulty)
The motherboard is a MSI Z370-A PRO (which I already updated to the latest version)
The CPU is a Intel i7 8700K
The GPU is a XFX AMD Radeon RX 590
Now today it broke completely and now it does this every time KDE starts. Sometimes it happens even earlier (during booting, or when SDDM starts). Sometimes it happens later and I can actually login before it freezes. I can reproduce the exact same behaviour with a SysResque USB.
With the iGPU set as the default GPU, I get a freeze that is sometimes preceded by massive screen corruption. With the dGPU (AMD RX 590) set as the default GPU (and the iGPU disabled) it is just a freeze without any screen corruption.
Obviously this is a hardware failure, but my question is how do I determine which part is the faulty one? The fact that I have the same problem with the iGPU and the dGPU indicates to me that the problem might not be in the GPU. The motherboard seems functional as well, BIOS works and displays just fine. My guess is that the CPU is the problem, but I want to be sure before I start buying new things. (Perhaps I am completely on the wrong path here and it is the RAM or storage that is faulty)
The motherboard is a MSI Z370-A PRO (which I already updated to the latest version)
The CPU is a Intel i7 8700K
The GPU is a XFX AMD Radeon RX 590