Hi everyone!
I recently installed Debian on a new NVMe SSD in my main PC and now it keeps freezing without any apparent reason or pattern. I've been running Windows on this same setup for years with no issues, so I'm quite puzzled by the problem. Here are some details about my system:

• AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU
• AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
• MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge WIFI motherboard
• 32 GB RAM
• 750 watt power supply

I've already tried various troubleshooting steps, including:

• Using REISUB to shut down the PC and other hotkeys
• Reinstalling Debian multiple times
• Installing Ubuntu as an alternative OS
• Trying out Debian on a regular HDD instead of NVMe SSD
• Checking logs (though it seems like the freezing happens before logging can occur)
• Running memtest to check RAM integrity, which came back clean
• Updating BIOS
• Monitoring PC components for heavy load or overheating issues
• Reading through various forum entries on similar problems
• Downloading the proprietary AMD drivers (although that shouldn't be the issue since it's an AMD graphics card and I could play Minecraft)
• Trying to change the GRUB entry to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash intel_idle.max_cstate=1"

Despite all these efforts, I haven't found a solution yet. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for your help!

Try re-seating the ssd in the connector. I have a IBM T530 that would not reboot and also freeze up on a 1TB SSD I inserted.

Re-seating the drive in the connector fixed this.

Noticed you say it freeze's up when tried another drive. Might wanna check the power jack. Try another. It can cause freezes also as I have learned. Also the hard drive connector blades might have one loose or corroded.
I don't think this is a software issue because of 2 different drives exhibiting the same behavior.

I had some r/w nvme errors that lead to freezing, until I manually configured the maximum power for the nvme drive, as described here.

you gave very few information to work with. Is there any app which can be connected to it? Did you try to boot into console mode (will that freeze too)? You can boot a lot of different live CD releases to check/test/try.
Freezing means that the screen is there, just stopped working (mouse does not move ...), or it is crashing? Did you try to log in from a remote host? Is it connected to sleep/hibernate somehow?

The regular HDD would be running on SATA, Is the nvme drive also SATA? Does it also freeze with the HDD?
Normally the nvme drives would be installed as an M.2 card using PCIe for the interface so there is a distinct difference since that would not use the sata controller.
The suggestions for reseating the device (an unused slot that has a new device installed may have a tiny bit of dust or lint that interferes with a connection) or for checking the power states seems best to me.
If the nvme device is in an adapter using a sata port then the interface in that adapter may have a problem as well.

Hi

I had this happen on a PC - it would freeze once in a while. I think I ran "journalctl -f -k" in a terminal window, and left the computer running for a while. It actually spit out some cryptic error message on screen and froze. I figuered it was about some disk controller. It couldn't write the error to a log, because the logging disk was on that controller.

@computersavvy

M.2sata and M.2nvme are totally different interfaces, see here. I do know however that some M.2 connectors can handle both devices in newer systems. (M.2sata is the older technology, uses SATA protocol, nvme uses the faster PCIe protocol.)

Play Bonny!

Thank you both for your responses and suggestions!


To clarify, the NVMe SSD is directly connected to a PCIe interface, while the regular HDD is indeed connected via SATA. I've already re-seated both drives in their respective connectors, and upon inspection, everything appears to be in order.

Given that the freezing occurs even when using the HDD, it's unlikely to be related to the power states or the NVMe interface. However, I will still double-check the power jack and examine the hard drive connector blades for any loose or corroded connections.

Is it the Ryzen RCU thing? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Ryzen (section 4.3). When I first got this machine, a Ryzen 5, it did that. I had to build the kernel with CONFIG_RCU_NOCB_CPU=y (in the 'make expert changes to the rcu subsystem' area) and boot with rcu_nocbs=0-7 for an 8 core machine. Without that, I couldn't get even 2 days uptime. What a nasty bug that was.

Turn off all the power saving and sleep options. Useless on a desktop and can cause problems. In the past screen savers can cause lock-ups too. Just some suggestions.

Thank you for your response and suggestions!

I apologize for the limited information provided initially. To address your questions:

No specific app seems to trigger the freezing, as it occurs even without any additional programs running beyond what is included in the distribution. Additionally, the freezing doesn't seem to be related to particular applications. For instance, I've experienced freezes both when running only Firefox and when no additional programs were running at all.

Regarding the distribution choice, I've tried both Ubuntu and Debian, both of which are stable distributions, opting for the stable releases. However, the issue persists across both distributions, suggesting that it may not be related to the specific distribution used.

As for sleep/hibernate, the freezing does not seem to be triggered by any sleep or hibernate settings.

To describe the symptoms more precisely: the PC becomes completely unresponsive, not reacting to any keyboard input, including keyboard shortcuts like REISUB. If I had been watching a video before the freeze (the freezing issue occurs regardless of whether I've been watching a video or not), the audio loops endlessly at approximately one second intervals, while the screen remains frozen. The only recourse is to forcibly power off the PC. Additionally, the duration until the freeze occurs varies, ranging roughly between 3 minutes and 6 hours.

I appreciate the suggestion to try accessing the PC via SSH, and I will certainly test that out.

I would definitely try another distro too (especially if you have no better idea). Did you try to run smartctl ?

They clash with?

Running the video card continuously. Would probably lock it up eventually.

I blank mine. But I run a Window manager distro that has reputation as " lean and mean "