Quoting: PangaeaThis is going *way* back, to when ATI existed and I had a Radeon 8500 card. Back then the drivers weren't exactly up to snuff either, and I remember we used an alternative called Omega or some such

Ah, that brings back memories…


Anyway, my switch back to AMD and its Ryzen CPU was a really rough ride. Recently, I even switched from nVidia back to an AMD graphics card and that seems to have made things even worse. No matter what I've tried, nothing has helped. I now have such an unstable and unreliable system that I consider it no longer fit for work. Heck, I even had to completely re-install my OS recently because the computer froze in the middle of a system update, breaking the whole system in the process.

I'm already thinking of ditching my whole Ryzen/RX570 setup for good and buying a completely new computer based on Intel/nVidia hardware.

Quoting: PlintslîchoNo matter what I've tried, nothing has helped. I now have such an unstable and unreliable system that I consider it no longer fit for work. Heck, I even had to completely re-install my OS recently because the computer froze in the middle of a system update, breaking the whole system in the process

Are you using first generation Ryzen by chance? They have hardware bugs. Also, what is your motherboard and RAM? Freezes and hangs often mean faulty hardware or bad UEFI configuration.

Regardless of components, it's a good idea after building a new system to run a RAM and CPU stresstest before starting using it for real work. No need to install anything for that, you can do it using a bootable image. That can help identify faulty hardware that requires an RMA. Running a new untested system can end up like you describe, which is not good especially if it causes some data loss.

Last edited by Shmerl on 5 December 2019 at 6:47 am UTC

Hey Shmerl, I'm indeed an early adopter and run one of the first generation Ryzen CPU's. Hence my rough experience with it; it took ages and uncountable BIOS updates till I had the computer running as intended. I never put the system on a real stress test but I assume that I'm just one of the unlucky ones who got his hands on one of the faulty CPU's. (My system doesn't freeze when on stress, but quite contrary, always when idling or doing easy tasks. Checking the internet for the problem it's obvious that I'm not the only one with a Ryzen CPU facing this problem.)

There are of course a few things that I could still try, like putting the system on a stress test. But sometimes I think about just going back to hardware that I used in the past and never faced such problems with.

The best option is to get a newer Ryzen. First generation Ryzens are just bad (I had exactly the same issue). But there is a workaround in various UEFIs, called "typical current idle", that disables some of the C6 states and it should help preventing the lockups.

See: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196683

Last edited by Shmerl on 5 December 2019 at 6:23 pm UTC

I've been putting my new RX 5700 XT through its paces for a few hours now. So far so good. Everything I've thrown at it thus far runs perfectly. The fact that I was already running Ubuntu's latest mainline kernel (5.4.2, simple and safe to install with Ukuu) and Mesa 19.3.0 rc6 from the kisak-mesa PPA probably made the switch less painful. I guess the experience wouldn't have been as good if I'd bought it even a few days earlier.

Backports of GPU hazard fixes to llvm9 is probably a major help, as for kernel, hopefully flip patch will land soon. According to Alex Deucher who submitted it, it should first land in Linus' master (future 5.5) and shortly after that to 5.4 patches queue.

Last edited by Shmerl on 5 December 2019 at 6:09 pm UTC

Quoting: ShmerlBackports of GPU hazard fixes to llvm9 is probably a major help, as for kernel, hopefully flip patch will land soon. According to Alex Deucher who submitted it, it should first land in Linus' master (future 5.5) and shortly after that to 5.4 patches queue.

I don't have most of the games mentioned in the report(s) you're referring to, but I can't seem to trigger the flip bug with the ones I do. Maybe I'm just lucky, but in that case I hope it lasts.

That's good, it didn't happen in every game, but at least a couple (Hedon and Pathfinder: Kingmaker) were affected by it for me. Plus, sometimes KWin itself triggered it.

The flip patch landed in 5.5 tree by the way.

It will probably end up in 5.4.3 next weekend. As for powerplay, I'll be testing 5.5-rc1 once it comes out.

Quoting: PlintslîchoMy system doesn't freeze when on stress, but quite contrary, always when idling or doing easy tasks. Checking the internet for the problem it's obvious that I'm not the only one with a Ryzen CPU facing this problem.

My brother bought a Rizen 7 1800x and he had the idle crash, i installed disable-c6-systemd from the AUR, and no more idle crash, in his case it is probably because he use an old PSU that does not support C6/C7 state.

You have to be sure the service is started, otherwise it will do nothing, and also your CPU will always be at a higher clock, and you will lose the turbo.