I’m using an XPS 13 9350 with 16GB of RAM and the Intel Graphics 540. I am using Fedora KDE spin. When I am using computer, either randomly or when I start a program, my computer will slow down and quickly fully freeze. In this state, the only thing I can do is shut it down. Is there any way to make it so that a program is killed, or something else that doesn’t fully stop my system?

  • ace_garp@lemmy.world
    40·
    3 days ago

    Once fully frozen, it’s not really able to be saved.

    Is it a full freeze? Press CAPS-LOCK or NUM-LOCK to see if the hardware is still responding.

    If it is, it might just be a DE freeze. Try to SSH into into your frozen device, from another PC or phone.

    Or press CTRL-ALT-F7 to see if you can switch to a terminal and login.

    Once in, use ps -ef, or top to see and kill what might be causing a freeze.

    Turn on auto-save in LibreOffice(you usually only lose a sentence or 3 words with this on).

    Investigate IDEs with auto-backup or an autosaved change-history.

    –//–

    To diagnose whether you have bad RAM, boot from a LiveUSB distro and use it for a day or week.

    If no freezes, reinstall a fresh OS.

    If it still freezes, get new RAM, or replace whole PC/laptop.

    • jhdeval@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 days ago

      As a side note I also use a xps 13 don’t remember the model but I have found they do not properly implement the sleep function and can cause issues when coming out of sleep. I have seen the computer act fine till I open something and then crash.

      • ace_garp@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 days ago

        I’ve had this on previous laptops, and gave up on using Sleep mode, just used full shutdown every time.

        • jhdeval@lemmy.world
          5·
          2 days ago

          That is how I deal with it as well. I just wanted to throw my experience out there because the reported issue sounds similar to what I have a experiences on a similar model laptop.

    • Jayb151@lemmy.world
      4·
      3 days ago

      I super appreciate the comment, as I’ve had the same issue and didn’t know how to deal with it without a full reboot. If there an equivalent command in Linux for what control Alt delete does in Windows?

      • ace_garp@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 days ago

        People are mentioning ‘OOM Killer’ which may have similar features, I have not tried it out.

      • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
        3·
        3 days ago

        Can confirm, the SSH thing saved me many times. I’m running Arch (btw), so as it turned out it did not have a working sshd by default, nor any swap enabled. I very quickly ran into issues where not even oom killer could save it. Once I figured these out though it was smooth sailing.

        Lesson of the story: Don’t try to compile firefox from source without swap…