[ltp] E575 screen freezing (was:) Re: Dual-boot with Windows 10

[Marius Gedminas]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 12:33:54PM +1200, cr wrote:
> When Debian (10.9.0 AMD64) first boots up, everything works.   But if I
> go to run e.g. Synaptic, it draws the first window and then freezes,
> with it part-drawn. The mouse pointer moves but nothing else works,
> keyboard, mouseclicks, nothing.   As if it's jammed up.   
> Capslock toggles its light.   No key combinations have any effect.
> I don't think it's a keyboard issue though.   Only escape is the power
> button.

Wait, even Alt+SysRq+S,U,B doesn't do anything?

Is it enabled in /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq?

> I have ssh'd in.   And that keeps working even when the E575's screen
> is jammed.   So wifi is still working.  Very handy as I can view
> lspci, /var/log etc.
> 
> Yet, if I first launch LibreOffice Writer instead, which I assume is a
> memory-hungry app, it works fine, at least for a while.   If I launch a
> terminal window I can carry on inside it for ages.   So it seems to be
> something in the window manager that's getting stuck.  

Sounds like a bug in the graphics driver is causing your GPU to freeze
maybe?  Any interesting messages in dmesg when the GUI is frozen?  What
sort of video card does the machine have -- Intel, AMD, NVidia?

> (Now, something must have timed out, as the screen started to fade,
> moving the mouse brought it back and the Task Manager window popped
> up.   Showing CPU usage 12%, memory 396MB of 7441 MB used.   All
> tasks showing 0% CPU%.   But I still can't scroll it, move it or do
> anything else with it.)

(This rules out what would've been my first guess, swapping to death.)

> (Must run memtest but I doubt it's RAM-related, that would be too easy)
> 
> I updated the BIOS (first time I ever flashed a BIOS.   Lenovo provide
> a Windows updater but also, to their credit, a bootable ISO.  I
> couldn't get it to boot off USB - probably something I did worng making
> the USB stick - but it did boot off a CD).   But no change to the
> problem.

Oh yeah, I'm so happy Lenovo provides BIOS updates via fwupd for their
more recent machines.

Marius Gedminas
-- 
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