[lug] debugging workstation issue

[Michael J. Hammel]

I tend to have these problems, especially with respect to the default
configs for the screensaver, with the X driver.  It's the 3D stuff that
mucks things up.  So I disable the screen saver (just have it blank and
not run fancy displays).  

As for the boot problem, it may be similar.  If you're on nVidia
display hw then you might want to blacklist nouveau on boot and just
use the nVidea drivers for X.  If it's AMD hw I'm not sure what you
might try.

Anyway, I've seen this problem on various hardware (AMD and nVidia)
when the 3D-specific screensaver modules were being used.  Happens on
the new laptop I just got, so I disabled the screensaver and viola!  No
more lockups.

On Thu, 2020-04-09 at 14:14 -0600, Davide Del Vento wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> My workstation, a desktop-sized server computer used as a desktop, is
> having a very annoying problem, which is even more severe these days
> that I have to rely to it for basically everything (so far the only
> thing I don't use it for is for when I use the restroom, but that may
> change soon)...
> 
> Anyway, the problem is that sometimes at boot and sometimes after the
> screensaver is engaged the machine goes into a "dead" status. I
> suspect it can be an hybernation mode or something like that, which
> does not awake when I hit the keyboard, mouse or power button. A long
> press on the power button does trigger a reboot, with all the usual
> consequences of such a thing (possible files not closed, filesystem
> checks, loss of not-saved data, etc). When it is in this status,
> trying to ssh into it from another machine hangs with no response.
> 
> It's been a long time since I debugged something like this and dmesg
> shows only messages since last reboot, which are clearly useless. Any
> clues on how to look at the logs immediately BEFORE that? Bonus
> points if you have any ideas on what might be going on or
> specifically what to look for.
> 
> Thanks,
> Davide
> 
> PS: in my settings I already have to never put the computer to sleep
> (plus the problem happening immediately after boot seems unlikely to
> be a problem with power management - or overheating)
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-- 
Michael J. Hammel
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org
michaelhammel at acm.org