[SOLVED] Random system freezes

[Kasim Ahmic]

Hello all! I've been having increasingly more common system freezes that manifest in weird ways lately. I built this computer sometime last year (specs at the bottom), installed Kubuntu 24.04, and after a few weeks, it started hard locking on me:

1. The screen freezes
2. Any playing media starts repeating the last split second of audio
3. The keyboard and mouse become unresponsive
4. The computer cannot be hard rebooted by holding the power button for 10 seconds. I can only flip the switch on the power supply

This happened a few times and then the computer refused to even boot, giving me some unused error code on the motherboard read out. After a lengthy RMA process with Asus for the motherboard and AMD for the CPU, I finally had all the components back, put the computer back together, upgraded to Kubuntu 25.04 and everything seemed good for a time. Then out of nowhere, different issues cropped up that were somewhat similar to the first issue. Completely randomly, I'd experience the following:

1. My network connection cuts out
2. The desktop becomes sluggish unresponsive
3. If I try to open the network settings from the taskbar, the system as a whole starts becoming sluggish
4. Using the terminal, particularly when using sudo, becomes damn near impossible as commands take ages to execute
5. Using the menu to try to shutdown or reboot the computer is hit or miss, it's as if the command is executed behind the scenes but it may or may not succeed

Sometimes I also get see (what I think are) kernel messages when the desktop closes. I'm never quick enough to capture a picture of it but if I ever happen to get it, I will update this post. One thing I do remember seeing is a message saying something to the effect of:

failed to fill region header

At this point, I'm not sure whether this is a hardware or software version and I can't quite seem to find anything online that has helped. Most of the issues I come across when Googling the error above seem to be related to WiFi but I get this issue on both Ethernet and WiFi. I've been on WiFi for a while now, but today I'm trying to be exclusively on Ethernet with WiFi completely disabled and I'll update this post if anything changes.

I know this isn't a whole lot to go off of so if there are any logs or config files I need to provide, please let me know.

Thanks in advance for any help!

System Info:
CPU: AMD Ryzen R9 9950X
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000 MHz CL30 16GB x 4 (64 GB total)
GPU: XFX AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming Wifi

Software Info:
OS: Kubuntu 25.04
KDE Plasma: 6.3.4
KDE Frameworks: 6.12.0
Qt: 6.8.3
Kernel: 6.14.0-28-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

Inxi Output:

kahmic@workpc:~$ inxi -F
System:
 Host: workpc Kernel: 6.14.0-28-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
 Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.3.4 Distro: Kubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin)
Machine:
 Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
 Mobo: ASUSTeK model: ROG STRIX X670E-E GAMING WIFI v: Rev 1.xx
   serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 3205
   date: 07/15/2025
CPU:
 Info: 16-core model: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache:
   L2: 16 MiB
 Speed (MHz): avg: 624 min/max: 600/5756 cores: 1: 624 2: 624 3: 624 4: 624
   5: 624 6: 624 7: 624 8: 624 9: 624 10: 624 11: 624 12: 624 13: 624 14: 624
   15: 624 16: 624 17: 624 18: 624 19: 624 20: 624 21: 624 22: 624 23: 624
   24: 624 25: 624 26: 624 27: 624 28: 624 29: 624 30: 624 31: 624 32: 624
Graphics:
 Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600
   XT / 5700/5700 XT] driver: amdgpu v: kernel
 Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Granite Ridge [Radeon Graphics]
   driver: amdgpu v: kernel
 Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.16 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.6 driver: X:
   loaded: amdgpu unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa dri: radeonsi
   gpu: amdgpu resolution: 1: 2560x1440~144Hz 2: 2560x1440~144Hz
   3: 2560x1440~144Hz
 API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,radeonsi,swrast
   platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
 API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa
   v: 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.25.04.1 renderer: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (radeonsi navi10
   LLVM 19.1.7 DRM 3.61 6.14.0-28-generic)
 API: Vulkan v: 1.4.304 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib
 Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
   de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor wl: wayland-info x11: xdriinfo,
   xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
 Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 10 HDMI Audio
   driver: snd_hda_intel
 Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Rembrandt Radeon High
   Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
 Device-3: ASUSTek USB Audio driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
   type: USB
 Device-4: Audio-Technica AT2020USB-X
   driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB
 API: ALSA v: k6.14.0-28-generic status: kernel-api
 Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.2.7 status: active
Network:
 Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210/AX1675 2x2 [Typhoon Peak] driver: iwlwifi
 IF: wlp11s0 state: down mac: b0:dc:ef:2e:dc:f9
 Device-2: Intel Ethernet I226-V driver: igc
 IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: cc:28:aa:87:04:5d
 IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: 52:54:00:9e:75:f5
Bluetooth:
 Device-1: Intel AX210 Bluetooth driver: btusb type: USB
 Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down
   bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block: hardware: no software: no
   address: B0:DC:EF:2E:DC:FD
Drives:
 Local Storage: total: 1.82 TiB used: 315.19 GiB (16.9%)
 ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 990 PRO 2TB size: 1.82 TiB
Partition:
 ID-1: / size: 1.79 TiB used: 315.19 GiB (17.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
 ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (2.0%) fs: vfat
   dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
 ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 512 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile
Sensors:
 System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0 C mobo: 36.0 C
 Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
 GPU: device: amdgpu temp: 57.0 C fan: 776 device: amdgpu temp: 43.0 C
Info:
 Memory: total: 60 GiB note: est. available: 60.48 GiB used: 19.6 GiB (32.4%)
 Processes: 625 Uptime: 2h 10m Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.37
​

[Snowhog]

Welcome to KFN!

installed Kubuntu 24.04

But your specs show:

OS: Kubuntu 25.04

You're logging in with Desktop Session:

Graphics Platform: Wayland

Have you tried switching to Desktop Session: Plasma (X11) to see if anything improves?

[Kasim Ahmic]

Welcome to KFN!

Thank you!

Have you tried switching to Desktop Session: Plasma (X11) to see if anything improves?

I have not, but I'll go ahead and try that now.

As for the Kubuntu version discrepancy, I originally installed 24.04 back when I first built this computer. After the RMA process for my CPU and motherboard, I upgraded to 25.04 which is what I am running today.

[Kasim Ahmic]

Update, it happened again. This time, it froze on the lock screen so I was unable to do anything besides power cycling. Then later on in the day it happened again, but I just lost internet connectivity and it didn't seem like my system was getting increasingly unstable. Everything seemed responsive and I was able to quickly reboot the computer and get back to work.

EDIT: Happened again, but this time I stayed working on the system for a while longer and noticed no system stability issues whatsoever. It seems that when my network drops (whatever the root cause of that may be), if it's on Ethernet the system is able to continue working but if it's on WiFi, it grinds to a halt. At least that's my early conclusion. Gonna switch back to Wayland and see if I get system stability issues when on Ethernet.

[Kasim Ahmic]

So after two weeks of usage with Ethernet + Wayland, the system is noticeably more stable but the network connection still drops from time to time. While annoying, I am at least able to save all my work before restarting with no signs of system instability at all. Any logs in particular I should be looking through to help diagnose this?

[oshunluvr]

One of the "keys" to log searching is to note the time of occurrence as accurately as possible so you know where in the logs to look.

In Konsole or terminal mode start with sudo dmesg
This command also will show ALL errors: journalctl -p 3 -p 2 -xb
You can reduce the amount of output by specifying a start date like: journalctl -p 3 -p 2 -xb --since "2025-06-10"
Or just get Network Manager errors: by adding -u NetworkManager

man journalctl will explain the filters I suggested.

[oshunluvr]

Also - just a thought - if it's Network Manager you are using and it's the problem, you can try switching your "renderer" to "networkd" instead.

[Kasim Ahmic]

I think I have finally fixed the issue. I've been living with the networking issues for a while now since I was at least able to save my work before rebooting, but I finally remembered to check the logs when the network cut out and I found this:

[ 3999.054494] igc 0000:0c:00.0 eno1: PCIe link lost, device now detached
[ 3999.054504] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 3999.054505] igc: Failed to read reg 0xc030!
[ 3999.054542] WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 254 at drivers/net/ethernet/intel/igc/igc_main.c:7005 igc_rd32+0xb3/0xc0 [igc]
[ 3999.054550] Modules linked in: nf_conntrack_netlink xt_nat veth snd_seq_dummy snd_hrtimer xfrm_user xfrm_algo xt_set ip_set xt_addrtype xt_CHECKSUM xt_MASQUERADE xt_conntrack ipt_REJECT nf_reject_ipv4 xt_tcpudp nft_compat nft_chain_nat nf_nat nf_conntrack nf_defrag_ipv6 nf_defrag_ipv4 nf_tables bridge stp llc overlay qrtr rfcomm cmac algif_hash algif_skcipher af_alg bnep binfmt_misc amd_atl intel_rapl_msr snd_hda_codec_atihdmi intel_rapl_common snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_intel snd_hda_codec iwlmvm snd_hda_core nls_iso8859_1 snd_usb_audio snd_intel_dspcfg snd_usbmidi_lib snd_intel_sdw_acpi snd_ump snd_hwdep edac_mce_amd snd_pcm mac80211 amdgpu snd_seq_midi kvm_amd snd_seq_midi_event btusb btrtl spd5118 libarc4 snd_rawmidi btintel amdxcp btbcm drm_panel_backlight_quirks kvm btmtk gpu_sched snd_seq iwlwifi mfd_aaeon eeepc_wmi drm_buddy drm_exec asus_wmi irqbypass snd_seq_device drm_suballoc_helper sparse_keymap snd_timer rapl drm_display_helper bluetooth wmi_bmof platform_profile cec i2c_piix4 snd joydev cfg80211 rc_core
[ 3999.054572]  input_leds mc ccp i2c_smbus k10temp i2c_algo_bit soundcore gpio_amdpt mac_hid sch_fq_codel vmwgfx drm_ttm_helper ttm msr parport_pc ppdev lp parport nvme_fabrics efi_pstore nfnetlink dmi_sysfs ip_tables x_tables autofs4 btrfs blake2b_generic xor raid6_pq uas usb_storage hid_generic usbhid hid nvme polyval_clmulni ghash_clmulni_intel nvme_core igc nvme_keyring ahci libahci nvme_auth video wmi aesni_intel
[ 3999.054585] CPU: 3 UID: 0 PID: 254 Comm: kworker/3:1 Not tainted 6.17.0-12-generic #12-Ubuntu PREEMPT(voluntary)
[ 3999.054587] Hardware name: ASUS System Product Name/ROG STRIX X670E-E GAMING WIFI, BIOS 3205 07/15/2025
[ 3999.054588] Workqueue: events igc_watchdog_task [igc]
[ 3999.054592] RIP: 0010:igc_rd32+0xb3/0xc0 [igc]
[ 3999.054594] Code: c9 84 c0 75 17 48 8b 5d f8 b8 ff ff ff ff c9 31 d2 31 c9 31 f6 31 ff c3 cc cc cc cc 89 de 48 c7 c7 38 b5 66 c0 e8 fd fb 1d c9 <0f> 0b eb d7 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90
[ 3999.054595] RSP: 0018:ffffcf7b40e0fd70 EFLAGS: 00010246
[ 3999.054597] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 000000000000c030 RCX: 0000000000000000
[ 3999.054597] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000
[ 3999.054597] RBP: ffffcf7b40e0fd88 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
[ 3999.054598] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff8ed1d972cc28
[ 3999.054598] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff8ed1c38c8440 R15: 000000000000c030
[ 3999.054599] FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8ee0f2bff000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[ 3999.054599] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[ 3999.054600] CR2: 00000006b23ae000 CR3: 0000000db8c40000 CR4: 0000000000f50ef0
[ 3999.054601] PKRU: 55555554
[ 3999.054602] Call Trace:
[ 3999.054603]  
[ 3999.054605]  igc_update_stats+0xa0/0x850 [igc]
[ 3999.054608]  igc_watchdog_task+0x9f/0x390 [igc]
[ 3999.054609]  ? __schedule+0x2f5/0x7c0
[ 3999.054613]  process_one_work+0x18b/0x370
[ 3999.054616]  worker_thread+0x317/0x450
[ 3999.054617]  ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0xe/0x20
[ 3999.054618]  ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10
[ 3999.054619]  kthread+0x108/0x220
[ 3999.054621]  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
[ 3999.054622]  ret_from_fork+0x131/0x150
[ 3999.054624]  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
[ 3999.054625]  ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30
[ 3999.054627]  
[ 3999.054627] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---​

Armed with something more concrete than "my network connection drops and my system becomes unstable," I did some digging and came across this thread from the Linux Mint forums and this thread from the Arch Linux forums. Both came to the conclusion that adding pcie_port_pm=off pcie_aspm.policy=performance to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub should fix the issue. Adding those parameters myself and doing a 3 week long "burn-in" test confirms that my network issues have now been resolved.

I guess the Intel NIC drivers don't have the best support in Linux, particularly when trying to go into lower power states when network traffic is low. When the device enters the low power state, the device appears to just disconnect entirely and then the CPU fails to read anything else from it. I haven't tried anything similar with WiFi yet as I'm running off Ethernet fully now, but if I have a need to switch back to WiFi and experience system instability again, I'll just edit this comment with the resolution to avoid necro-ing this thread again.

Apologies if I'm breaking any rules here, but I didn't find any specifically targeting resurrection of old threads.

[oshunluvr]

Great that you fixed and thanks a ton for bothering to come back here and detailing the fix. No doubt this will help others in the future. Nice work!

[Snowhog]

Apologies if I'm breaking any rules here, but I didn't find any specifically targeting resurrection of old threads.

KFN is unlike many forums on the 'Net; we don't have a true 'fixed set of rules'.

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