Screen randomly freezes after prolonged use

Desktop Environments Plasma
1

My screen randomly stops updating the image after prolonged use, it has happened multiple times. My system is up to date and i haven’t found a similar problem on the forum.
I really don’t know what could be causing these weird issues, my hypothesis is that my monitor for some reason does not like endeavouros or some other part of my pc. In the past i had another issue with the display where the monitor would go black for like half a second when going from windowed to fullscreen (anywhere, not specific to games or videos, simply anywhere), or backwards (from fullscreen to windowed).

System:
  Kernel: 6.12.12-1-lts arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.2.1
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.2.5 tk: Qt v: N/A wm: kwin_wayland dm: SDDM
    Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: B650 PG Lightning
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 1.21
    date: 04/26/2023
CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 4
    rev: 2 cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 8 MiB L3: 96 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2982 min/max: 400/5050 boost: enabled cores: 1: 2982
    2: 2982 3: 2982 4: 2982 5: 2982 6: 2982 7: 2982 8: 2982 9: 2982 10: 2982
    11: 2982 12: 2982 13: 2982 14: 2982 15: 2982 16: 2982 bogomips: 134204
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 32 [Radeon RX 7700 XT /
    7800 XT] vendor: Sapphire driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-3 pcie:
    speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: DP-2 empty: DP-1, HDMI-A-1,
    HDMI-A-2, Writeback-1 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:747e
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Raphael driver: amdgpu
    v: kernel arch: RDNA-2 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: none
    empty: DP-3, DP-4, DP-5, HDMI-A-3, Writeback-2 bus-ID: 13:00.0
    chip-ID: 1002:164e temp: 36.0 C
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.15 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.4
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: modesetting,radeon alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: radeonsi
    gpu: amdgpu display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: DP-2 model: Samsung Odyssey G85SB res: 3440x1440 hz: 120
    dpi: 108 diag: 883mm (34.8")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi device: 1 drv: radeonsi
    device: 2 drv: swrast gbm: drv: radeonsi surfaceless: drv: radeonsi wayland:
    drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 24.3.4-arch1.1
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT (radeonsi
    navi32 LLVM 19.1.7 DRM 3.59 6.12.12-1-lts) device-ID: 1002:747e
    display-ID: :1.0
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.303 surfaces: xcb,xlib,wayland device: 0
    type: discrete-gpu driver: N/A device-ID: 1002:747e device: 1
    type: integrated-gpu driver: N/A device-ID: 1002:164e
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor wl: wayland-info
    x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 31 HDMI/DP Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 03:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:ab30
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Rembrandt Radeon High
    Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 13:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:1640
  Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio
    vendor: ASRock driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 13:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3
  Device-4: Thesycon System & Consulting GmbH E50
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-9.2:4 chip-ID: 152a:8750
  Device-5: Razer USA Seiren Mini driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
    type: USB rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-9.4:5
    chip-ID: 1532:0531
  API: ALSA v: k6.12.12-1-lts status: kernel-api
  Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.2.7 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE vendor: ASRock driver: r8169 v: kernel
    pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: e000 bus-ID: 0f:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp15s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 779.39 GiB (83.7%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Kingston model: SNV2S1000G size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 37.9 C
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 914.83 GiB used: 779.22 GiB (85.2%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 40.5 C mobo: 34.5 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
  GPU: device: amdgpu temp: 52.0 C mem: 63.0 C fan: 3 device: amdgpu
    temp: 36.0 C
Info:
  Memory: total: 32 GiB note: est. available: 30.47 GiB used: 4.64 GiB (15.2%)
  Processes: 373 Power: uptime: 8m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 257
    default: graphical
  Packages: 1488 pm: pacman pkgs: 1463 pm: flatpak pkgs: 25 Compilers:
    clang: 19.1.7 gcc: 14.2.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.37 running-in: kitty
    inxi: 3.3.37
2

Welcome to the community @LeatherPadding :wave::sunglasses: :enos_flag:

Here are a couple of things you might test:

  • Can you confirm whether you have variable refresh enabled/disabled on your monitor, and whether it happens only with one setting and not the other?
  • Does this issue occur in X11 sessions?

Note:
To insert large blocks of specs in a presentable way, you use backticks (looks similar to apostrophe on the keyboard).

Three backticks on the line above the content to mark the start, and three backticks on the line below the content to mark the end. Like so:

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3

Could be a scenario of low or zero free memory and the OS is dying trying to move memory around, thrashing, with no or full swap.

Ref:

Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.

4

I don’t use X11, I can try these days to see if it happens, the problem being so random makes it hard to isolate factors. My refresh rate is fixed, 120hz if in standard and 175 if in gaming mode, I don’t see a variable refresh rate setting but if it is the adaptive sync, that is set to Automatic.
Thank you for the formatting tip.

5

I have around 90GB of storage. Or am I misunderstanding what you’re talking about?
If it’s about ram, When it happened I wasn’t doing anything intense on the system, just studying, the apps that were open were stuff like okular, discord, a few firefox tabs, music and obs.

6

Variable refresh rate (VRR), also referred to as adaptive sync, allows the monitor to adjust its refresh rate to the output signal.

Arch Wiki > Variable refresh rate

If at some point you return to Wayland to test, then yes I would recommend disabling Adaptive Sync to see if the issue continues. If it doesn’t, then it would seem to be related and troubleshooting can continue there.

1 Like
7

Still on wayland for today but disabling it made the screen going black problem go away. I’ll have to see if it also helps with the freezing problem

8

How much memory do you have? Not storage, and yes, it’s about RAM. If you exhaust memory, your system may freeze for very long periods of time.

The apps you listed could consume a fair amount of memory, possibly pushing beyond 8gb or 16gb in some cases. If you have 8gb or 16gb, you may want to look into creating a swap file on your system.

Ref: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Swap

9

I believe i have 32 GB of ram, my machine reports having 30,5. I don’t remember if it is ddr4 or 5 but I can check if it matters.

10

It’s more of how much RAM the OS reports available when the screen freezes.

I might suggest running the top command in a terminal, and resizing it such that it’s always visible on your desktop. The top 5 lines are what you need to view. When you get a lock, see how much RAM is free vs used vs total. And if the terminal keeps updating even though the graphics are frozen.

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