Random pc freezes when playing games

Hi there!

Up until about 3 weeks ago my fedora install was running quite smoothly. Recently, however, games will at random intervals completely freeze my pc. In this state i cant do anything until i turn off the pc’s power to reboot it.

There seems to be no real consistency in the issue. The intervals are random, the games can vary, messing with their settings such as turning off full screen doesnt fix the issue either.

I thought at first that it was a driver or xorg/wayland issue. But after having tested both xorg and wayland with an nvidia rtx 2070 super (with 515 drivers) and an amd 6700 XT (with amdgpu drivers) the issue still persists.

Proton might not be the issue either as this happens with both non-native and native games.

I hope this is enough information, feel free to tell me if im missing something though.

Hello Tycho and welcome to ask :fedora:

You seem to have an irritating problem, but we really do need to know more about it to assist.

Please post in Preformatted text </> tags the output of inxi -Fzx and uname -a.

Also please tell us exactly which game is causing it with the current GPU and software config, as well as how the game is being run (native, steam, other?)

A few examples of games i had this issue with:

  • osu!lazer (native on nvidia rtx 2070 super, fullscreen)
  • lethal league blaze (native through steam on nvidia rtx 2070 super, fullscreen)
  • multi versus and sayonara wild hearts (proton experimental on nvidia rtx 2070 super, fullscreen/borderless)
  • cult of the lamb (proton experimental on radeon 6700 xt, fullscreen/borderless/windowed)

inxi -Fzx produces this:

System:
  Kernel: 5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.37-27.fc36 Desktop: GNOME v: 42.3.1
    Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: Z390 Pro4 serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI-[Legacy]: American Megatrends v: P4.40 date: 12/02/2019
CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: Intel Core i7-9700 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Coffee Lake
    rev: D cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 2 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 4500 high: 4501 min/max: 800/4700 cores: 1: 4500
    2: 4501 3: 4500 4: 4500 5: 4500 6: 4500 7: 4500 8: 4501 bogomips: 48000
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Navi 22 [Radeon RX 6700/6700 XT/6750 XT / 6800M]
    driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA 2 bus-ID: 03:00.0
  Display: wayland server: X.Org v: 1.22.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.3
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa gpu: amdgpu resolution:
    1: 2560x1440~144Hz 2: 1920x1080~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (navy_flounder LLVM 14.0.0 DRM
    3.46 5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: ASRock driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 1-7:4 bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  Device-2: AMD Navi 21/23 HDMI/DP Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 03:00.1
  Device-3: Kingston HyperX 7.1 Audio type: USB
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64 running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.56 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: ASRock driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 3.18 TiB used: 642.59 GiB (19.7%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT500MX500SSD1 size: 465.76 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Toshiba model: HDWD130 size: 2.73 TiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 464.76 GiB used: 55.49 GiB (11.9%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 287.5 MiB (29.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-3: /home size: 464.76 GiB used: 55.49 GiB (11.9%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C pch: 51.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu
    temp: 50.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 0
Info:
  Processes: 376 Uptime: 1h 18m Memory: 15.54 GiB used: 4.65 GiB (29.9%)
  Init: systemd target: graphical (5) Compilers: gcc: 12.1.1 Packages: 28
  note: see --pkg Shell: fish v: 3.5.0 inxi: 3.3.19

uname -a produces this:

Linux SirLenster 5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Aug 3 15:44:49 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Hope this helps!

Maybe your CPU or PSU is overheating? ~50°C on all sensors could mean bad ventilation in case. Game with some persistent temperature logging:

Also see what was updated when it started with dnf history list and then dnf history info action-ID_from_previous_command.

1 Like

I think it might be an overheating issue. Europe has been in quite the heatwave these past few weeks

~50C is not a bad temp. Mine runs at ~50C (GPU @ ~65C) with 10% cpu load and 90% GPU load full time. 24C ambient room temp.

However, I have had a case where the CPU cooler failed and the CPU powered down the system @ 100C

I agree 100% with the suggestion to monitor temps. Possibly even run a script with the sensors command to record temps frequently (possibly even every second) while gaming to see what is actually happening.

C’mon, it’s summer time in northern hemisphere. Clean-up radiators and fans (regularly) and don’t fall for the current media’s agenda :wink:

Unless you have water cooling with external radiator, your CPU won’t be cooler than air around it (which is wormed up by GPU). Make better ventilation in your case and everything will cool down, that should decrease noise and power draw as well.

Glad you are willing to criticize without knowing the setup. My overheat was with a water cooler and I had a pump failure.

My desktop system is always water cooled and cpu never gets above ~ 70C even at 90+% cpu load. (~20 degree diff between liquid temp and CPU temp) It does however run very stable and reliable at those temps for long periods.

Stock cpu coolers are almost always the minimum needed and seldom will handle heavy loads for long periods. Upgrading the cooler is usually a good investment.

I agree 100% with the need to keep the system clean and good air flow regardless of the current workload.

I think it might be an overheating issue. Europe has been in quite the heatwave these past few weeks
HTML tutorial

I guess I should have made a separate post for the part with quote form you and my answer to it - no criticism there, just stating the obvious (from a physical point of view) and proposing solution to unusually hot CPU (a least for 10% load).
The other part, ending with wink emoji, was an answer to Tycho, since I also live in Europe and see fearmongering in media.
Have a nice day and efficient cooling :slight_smile:

After a few days of messing around with the temps of my room i can conclude it was indeed an overheating issue. No crashes happened when my room was below 30 C. Thanks for the help!

Cool :wink:
Consider some improvements to your PC cooling, desktop case lets you do just about anything.

Summertime! :beach_umbrella: