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Laptop Frequent random Freeze - Reason?

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    Laptop Frequent random Freeze - Reason?

    So, no need to post solutions for this as I believe I know what, just not the how/why.

    So, I have my work laptop (HP ZBook 15 G6) and in general it has great specs and is serviceable for my use.

    From day one it acted wonky under Windows 10 Pro. No bother, I'm Linux anyway, so here we go, migrated to latest Kubuntu at that time (even now, most recent LTS version of Kubuntu). From the get go things were bad. Not Kubuntu but the system. So it seems Windows 10 had a reason it was Wonky and one Linux system was trying to tell me what.

    Over and over, frequent random freeze. I mean the hard shut off power button approach. Linux handles this far more graciously than WIN10. So, lived with this. Occurring as much as 4 times throughout the work day.

    However, you can "live with it" for only so long. I really thought maybe future kernel updates would help. Nope. Did not.

    So I searched around and others, many others, even Windows users, had similar issues. I say similar because their solutions didn't work here. Sad that this model laptop has this issue, although not everyone. Must have been component or production issues at a certain time.

    Just keeping an eye on its behaviour at moments of boot and reboot, and so on, I noticed the Sound system was always the portion that was faulting for one reason or other. After about a month of noting this on every freeze, I decided to look in the BIOS/Sys Config to see if I could decide which internal devices can be, or not, exposed to the system and OS. Luckily, the audio system could be turned off.

    So, two weeks in, no freezing. I have no sound, and some here know how I feel about that, but the system stays operationally perfect. I do have an external Jabra puck, so that helps on the sound but would be nice for the system proper to have audio when mobile with it.

    Anyway, why? Why would the audio sub-systems cause this hard freeze? This is more for just wanting to know the why. I've seen all logical reasons for such freezing in my IT/Computer Science life for the past 35 plus years and having the audio sub-system do this is odd for me. I have never seen this even in the days of using sound cards like CreativeLabs and such.

    #2
    Poorly engineered BIOS or hardware integration, bad quality control and QA testing, that sort of thing.(This *is* HP here ) Especially on laptops where *everything* is integrated, and less of a sub-system. I don't think this notebook is at the SoC level but it probably is not that far removed.

    If you haven't already, see if your BIOS is up to date, Even if it isn't mentioned in the changelog, these sorts of things do get fixed quietly this way, some times.

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      #3
      That was the first thing I did was update the BIOS. It actually made it worse and why I started trying to find a way to stop it.

      Unfortunately that kind of poor Quality I'm seeing more and more. The are designed for 3 years and buy a new one. Very sad really.

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        #4
        14 months ago I was given an HP-17cnxxxx 17" laptop for my 80th birthday. One of the first things I did was to go online at HP and download the service manual pdf for it. Like your HP, my HP does not include an audio module that can be easily replaced. To fix a bad audio I'd either have to replace the mobo or plug in an audio dongle. The last option is obviously the most advantageous.

        Here is the HP service video for your laptop:
        "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
        – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.

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          #5
          One problem from the specs I see that can and does cause problems is the Nvidia Graphics card. The open source drivers do not always work well with them and they do cause freezes.
          So if you haven't already you should install the correct Nvidia driver for that card. In the mean time if you want you can try appending the "nomodeset" parameter to the grub boot line.

          Nvidia has just released there code as open and better open source drivers are in the works. Which should make a great deal of difference in the future.

          https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nv...ernel-modules/

          Good luck.
          Dave Kubuntu 20.04 Registered Linux User #462608

          Wireless Script: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...5#post12350385

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            #6
            GreyGeek; yes agree and basically what I have done. Lucky for me I can disable the audio to keep it from freezing and do the external. Though, to me, still defeats the concept behind a laptop for mobility. Eh, is what is.

            Now, kc1di - so, you got me thinking, knowing how these systems are so integrated now and know how NVidia tries to extend beyond graphics, possible relation there? Not sure. By the specs, I cannot tell readily how the audio is integrated. Do they have it tied to the NVidia graphics system? Interesting if so and if that could be? Hmmmm.......

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