[DESKTOP] Getting system lockups

[bradleypariah]

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me which logs I should be checking out. My system has been infrequently freezing. All of a sudden the display freezes and the mouse won't move. The only solution is resetting the PC.

The system had been stable for months, and this started happening last week. Sometimes I'll be reading a PDF when it happens, sometimes I'm opening YouTube from Firefox.

Since I can't identify a pattern, I don't know what is at fault. Any advice?

My system specs are:
Kubuntu 18.04
i7 2600s 2.8 x8 GHz CPU
8 GB DDR3 RAM
gtx680 4GB DDR5 GPU, 430.26 driver
SoundBlaster Audigy FX
Cleveland-GL8 Motherboard

[oshunluvr]

~/.Xauthority
dmseg
/var/log/syslog
/var/Xorg.0.log

IME random lockups are hardware related. If the consistently happen during a specific activity, there could be a software reason. PDFs and Videos use the GPU and RAM quite a bit. You might start checking out your hardware. Random lockups associated with activity can also be heat related. Clean your fans and verify they are working.

[kc1di]

Are you using Nvidia driver or nouveau driver for you video card? That can be a problem at times also.

[bradleypariah]

A day or two after creating this thread here, I ended up recreating it over on the Ubuntu forums. Those that responded pretty much said the same things you guys are. I was using the Nvidia 430 driver, and besides system lockups, OBS was also crashing every time I tried to record. I rolled back to the 418 driver about a week ago, and I haven't experienced a single desktop crash since, and OBS records fine now. For the time being, I guess I'll not worry about the logs, and assume it was the driver. Thanks for your suggestions.

[jglen490]

Great resolution!

Yeah, sometimes the latest is not always the greatest