Laptop bricking - USB issues?

Ask Fedora
1

G’day,

Over several Fedora releases on the same hardware I have had the issue that the machine completely blocks at apparently random times, accepting no input from trackball nor integrated keyboard. Could run fine for days, could only be hours. The only way to continue at that point is to turn it off. Checking the syslog reveals nothing, other than there have often been USB issues going on in the final seconds of life (but never at the end of the log.) I do not recall this ever happening when unattended, noticing it usually when a USB trackball or mouse is in play

Now, I’m willing to accept that the aging budget hardware may be at fault, however would like to have some definite evidence on the culprit before I toss an otherwise functional machine.

  • Has anyone had to deal with this before?
  • Is there some way to get more information on USB activity over an extended period?

My research so far has turned up no relevant thread - perhaps I have the wrong keywords

I doubt that it’s relevant but I’m running:
Linux Borg 5.17.12-100.fc34.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon May 30 17:47:02 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Cinnamon 5.2.7
certainly not the latest, but so far no updates have shown a change on this since my initial 27

Thanks

Tschaems

2

You seem to be running Fedora 34, which went EOL in May 2022 and has received no updates since.

While I cannot rule out hardware issues with the USB I would first suggest that you upgrade to at least Fedora 36 (which is still supported and updated) and see if the same problem continues. Fedora 35 also went EOL in December 2022. Both fedora 36 & 37 have the 6.1 kernels and major updates in all areas that you do not see and cannot see with fedora 34.

3

Errr, okay. I assumed my use of Fedora 34 would be obvious. I did attempt to state that I had attempted the implied shot-in-the-dark solution to the issue more than once without success and honestly don’t expect another attempt to show any improvement, esp. if it really is hardware based. As my expectations of finding a solution are low, I’ve moved on to focusing on narrowing down the cause to be able to make an appropriate response.

So now that that is out of the way, what I’m specifically looking for is a way to track down the culprit causing the bricking, that is to point with moderate certainty that it IS a hardware issue. (Which seems fairly likely as I can find no one else sharing this experience.)

Now if there are super new system monitoring tools available only in a more current release, I’ll update in a flash to get them, however I’ve found no indication that this is the case. Those working in this area must have tools available in a number of releases - I’m looking for what they are.

So my questions are again (release independent):
- Has anyone had to deal with this before?
- Is there some way to get more information on USB activity over an extended period?

Merci

Tschaems

UPDATE:
Just saw this post https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/random-deadlock-freezes-ssd/73922 and altho I’ve no indication that my issue is associated with the SSD, it could well be connected to memory usage. Pursuing this thx

1 Like
4

Also for this port. I also got a different suggestion about this issue possibly being related to an integrrated wifi/bluetooth module. Suggest trying that as well.