Games randomly crash my laptop PC (NVIDIA)

Hello!
Short version: I am on a laptop running an i5 core and a Geforce RTX 3050
I play helldivers 2, deep rock galatic, and Starsector, all of which have crashed the desktop and PC. just a sudden freeze. I never had this issue prior to installing linux, nor did I have this issue with my old laptop which had AMD graphics.
any ideas?

also heres the detailed system info:
System:
Kernel: 6.1.0-21-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.0.4
tk: GTK v: 3.24.38 wm: muffin vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.26.0 Distro: LMDE 6 Faye
base: Debian 12.1 bookworm
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: HP product: Victus by HP Gaming Laptop 15-fa1xxx v: N/A
serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: HP model: 8BC8 v: 63.31 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: AMI v: F.13 date: 08/29/2023
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 66.8 Wh (100.0%) condition: 66.8/70.1 Wh (95.4%) volts: 17.3 min: 15.4
model: HP Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: full cycles: 25
Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech M570 serial: <filter> charge: 10% rechargeable: yes
status: discharging
CPU:
Info: 8-core (4-mt/4-st) model: 13th Gen Intel Core i5-13420H bits: 64 type: MST AMCP
smt: enabled arch: Raptor Lake rev: 2 cache: L1: 704 KiB L2: 7 MiB L3: 12 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 624 high: 1087 min/max: 400/4600:3400 cores: 1: 807 2: 466 3: 1087 4: 756
5: 673 6: 400 7: 901 8: 400 9: 400 10: 607 11: 400 12: 591 bogomips: 62668
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P [UHD Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel
arch: Gen-13 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:a7a8 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: NVIDIA GN20-P0-R-K2 [GeForce RTX 3050 6GB Laptop GPU] vendor: Hewlett-Packard
driver: nvidia v: 525.147.05 arch: Ampere pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 8 bus-ID: 01:00.0
chip-ID: 10de:25ac class-ID: 0300
Device-3: Luxvisions Innotech HP Wide Vision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 3-6:6
chip-ID: 30c9:0069 class-ID: fe01 serial: <filter>
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa alternate: nv dri: iris gpu: i915
display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22") s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0x2992 res: 1920x1080 hz: 144 dpi: 142
size: 344x193mm (13.54x7.6") diag: 394mm (15.5") modes: 1920x1080
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (RPL-P) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P/U/H cAVS vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
bus-ID: 3-1.3:4 chip-ID: 03f0:0b92 class-ID: 0300 serial: <filter>
Device-2: NVIDIA vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s
lanes: 8 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:2291 class-ID: 0403
Device-3: HP HyperX Virtual Surround Sound type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-21-amd64 status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
Network:
Device-1: MEDIATEK MT7921 802.11ax PCI Express Wireless Network Adapter vendor: AzureWave
driver: mt7921e v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 14c3:7961
class-ID: 0280
IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard
driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 05:00.0
chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
IF: eno1 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: IMC Networks Wireless_Device type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-7:7
chip-ID: 13d3:3567 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.2
sub-v: 2301 hci-v: 5.2 rev: 1717
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 592.41 GiB used: 166.32 GiB (28.1%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WD PC SN810 SDCPNRY-512G-1006
size: 476.94 GiB speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: HPS2 temp: 30.9 C
scheme: GPT
ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DataTraveler 3.0 size: 115.47 GiB type: N/A
serial: <filter> rev: 0000 scheme: MBR
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 460.04 GiB used: 133.7 GiB (29.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 285.4 MiB used: 5.8 MiB (2.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
USB:
Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 1 rev: 3.1 speed: 20 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
class-ID: 0900
Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 12 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
Hub-4: 3-1:2 info: VIA Labs VL813 Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.1 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 2109:2813
class-ID: 0900
Device-1: 3-1.3:4 info: HP HyperX Virtual Surround Sound type: Audio,HID
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid interfaces: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 100mA
chip-ID: 03f0:0b92 class-ID: 0300 serial: <filter>
Device-2: 3-2:3 info: Logitech Unifying Receiver type: Keyboard,Mouse,HID
driver: logitech-djreceiver,usbhid interfaces: 3 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 98mA
chip-ID: 046d:c52b class-ID: 0300
Device-3: 3-6:6 info: Luxvisions Innotech HP Wide Vision HD Camera type: Video driver: uvcvideo
interfaces: 3 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 500mA chip-ID: 30c9:0069 class-ID: fe01
serial: <filter>
Device-4: 3-7:7 info: IMC Networks Wireless_Device type: Bluetooth driver: btusb interfaces: 3
rev: 2.1 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 100mA chip-ID: 13d3:3567 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
Hub-5: 4-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 4 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
class-ID: 0900
Hub-6: 4-1:2 info: VIA Labs VL813 Hub ports: 4 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s chip-ID: 2109:0813
class-ID: 0900
Device-1: 4-1.2:3 info: Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3/G4/SE9 G2/50 Kyson type: Mass Storage
driver: usb-storage interfaces: 1 rev: 3.2 speed: 5 Gb/s power: 144mA chip-ID: 0951:1666
class-ID: 0806 serial: <filter>
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 29.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2202 fan-2: 2038
Repos:
Packages: 2349 pm: dpkg pkgs: 2328 pm: flatpak pkgs: 21
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com faye main upstream import backport
2: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
3: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
4: deb http: //security.debian.org bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
5: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Info:
Processes: 281 Uptime: 4h 6m wakeups: 13496 Memory: 15.26 GiB used: 2.77 GiB (18.1%)
Init: systemd v: 252 target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
Client: Cinnamon v: 6.0.4 inxi: 3.3.26

Do you have the intel microcode installed? Idk what it is with intel chips but when I see someone having trouble it's almost always on an intel build and I'm unsure why (and ofc most times, NVIDIA gets the blame). Take a look at this and see if it leads you down the right path.


I don't think it's got anything to do with your GPU as I run 4 different generations of NVIDIA GPU's in my household (including a 3080) and they all run like a dream. But all of my rigs are AMD CPU / NVIDIA GPU builds.

If I were in your shoes, ensuring I've got the microcode installed for the CPU would be my first step. You'll be interested in the intel-ucode package specifically of course. I'm not familiar with Mint, but the microcode is generally available on all mainstream distro's (LM being Debian, it should have it too). Being an RTX card you could ensure you have the vulkan-icd-loader package installed to make use of the features of RTX as well. Cant imagine not having it would cause problems, but may be worth looking into if nothing else resolves it.

What does your RAM usage look like up until the point of crash?

AlphaObeisance said:

Do you have the intel microcode installed? Idk what it is with intel chips but when I see someone having trouble it's almost always on an intel build and I'm unsure why (and ofc most times, NVIDIA gets the blame). Take a look at this and see if it leads you down the right path.

Microcode - ArchWiki

wiki.archlinux.org

I don't think it's got anything to do with your GPU as I run 4 different generations of NVIDIA GPU's in my household (including a 3080) and they all run like a dream. But all of my rigs are AMD CPU / NVIDIA GPU builds.

If I were in your shoes, ensuring I've got the microcode installed for the CPU would be my first step. You'll be interested in the intel-ucode package specifically of course. I'm not familiar with Mint, but the microcode is generally available on all mainstream distro's (LM being Debian, it should have it too). Being an RTX card you could ensure you have the vulkan-icd-loader package installed to make use of the features of RTX as well. Cant imagine not having it would cause problems, but may be worth looking into if nothing else resolves it.

What does your RAM usage look like up until the point of crash?

Click to expand...

thanks for the info! I will check this out soon. I am normally gaming so I dunno what my ram usage is before it crashes.

AlphaObeisance said:

Do you have the intel microcode installed? Idk what it is with intel chips but when I see someone having trouble it's almost always on an intel build and I'm unsure why (and ofc most times, NVIDIA gets the blame). Take a look at this and see if it leads you down the right path.

Microcode - ArchWiki

wiki.archlinux.org

I don't think it's got anything to do with your GPU as I run 4 different generations of NVIDIA GPU's in my household (including a 3080) and they all run like a dream. But all of my rigs are AMD CPU / NVIDIA GPU builds.

If I were in your shoes, ensuring I've got the microcode installed for the CPU would be my first step. You'll be interested in the intel-ucode package specifically of course. I'm not familiar with Mint, but the microcode is generally available on all mainstream distro's (LM being Debian, it should have it too). Being an RTX card you could ensure you have the vulkan-icd-loader package installed to make use of the features of RTX as well. Cant imagine not having it would cause problems, but may be worth looking into if nothing else resolves it.

What does your RAM usage look like up until the point of crash?

Click to expand...

see, thing is, my desktop (which had no issues) was just like my laptop, only difference is it ran a AMD RX 6400, it has also a i5 intel, and 16 gb or ram, thats why I think its NVIDIA thats giving me problems.

AlphaObeisance said:

Do you have the intel microcode installed? Idk what it is with intel chips but when I see someone having trouble it's almost always on an intel build and I'm unsure why (and ofc most times, NVIDIA gets the blame). Take a look at this and see if it leads you down the right path.

Microcode - ArchWiki

wiki.archlinux.org

I don't think it's got anything to do with your GPU as I run 4 different generations of NVIDIA GPU's in my household (including a 3080) and they all run like a dream. But all of my rigs are AMD CPU / NVIDIA GPU builds.

If I were in your shoes, ensuring I've got the microcode installed for the CPU would be my first step. You'll be interested in the intel-ucode package specifically of course. I'm not familiar with Mint, but the microcode is generally available on all mainstream distro's (LM being Debian, it should have it too). Being an RTX card you could ensure you have the vulkan-icd-loader package installed to make use of the features of RTX as well. Cant imagine not having it would cause problems, but may be worth looking into if nothing else resolves it.

What does your RAM usage look like up until the point of crash?

Click to expand...

myname@myLMDE:~$ dmesg | grep microcode
[ 0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x411c, date = 2023-08-30
[ 0.043013] Register File Data Sampling: Vulnerable: No microcode
[ 0.775992] microcode: sig=0xb06a2, pf=0x80, revision=0x411c
[ 0.776239] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.
myname@myLMDE:~$

that is the results i got for running grep microcode.

Which NVIDIA packages do you have installed?

In my experience, keeping in mind I run AMD/NVIDIA; as long as I've had nvidia or nvidia-dkms, nvidia-settings, and nvidia-utils installed; I've never had an issue; but I'm on Arch Linux.

What's your GPU version? You can get your GPU info with


Redundant and somewhat obvious, but make sure you're systems updated with


You can check system logs with

Xorg logs with


You can check your nvidia logs with


One of those log files should give you a pretty good indication as to what's going on.

AlphaObeisance said:

Code:
nvidia-smi

Click to expand...

Sat May 18 12:38:29 2024
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 525.147.05 Driver Version: 525.147.05 CUDA Version: 12.0 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... On | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |
| N/A 31C P0 N/A / 60W | 5MiB / 6144MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 889 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 4MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

AlphaObeisance said:

You can check system logs with

Code:

sudo less /var/log/syslog

Click to expand...

when I did this, my terminal got endless scrolling pages of logs LOL how do I get to the bottom ? or even know what to look for? do I search for something in particular?

AlphaObeisance said:

Redundant and somewhat obvious, but make sure you're systems updated with

Code:

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Click to expand...

oh yes... so obvious, why would you even recommend it? (Cough cough, ive never run the command before, but it seems to have updated some stuff)

Also while I am at it I should mention I cant put the laptop into sleep, and sometimes it refuses to shut down. never had these issues before with my desktop or previous laptop.