Solved Constant Freezing Forcing me back to Windows

[ghosty999]

@ghosty999 , give it a day or so and if all is still well, please come back and edit the title in your first post to include "Solved"

thanks

Sorry, I was a little quick with the Solved tag!

Given that it was previously installed, it was probably not Etcher or the USB stick that made the difference.

Of the two remaining choices, again it installed previously - and you had consistent behavior from a few distros. So, it's unlikely to be the checksum.

That leaves the modifier, when you added a modifier to the boot menu - the i915.enable_psr=0 bit.

So, that's the most likely culprit. That's not *definite*, but it's the *most likely*.

You can test this of course. You could simply remove it and see if the freezing resumed. Or, you can just keep on computing happily with your newly installed Linux. I'd suggest making a note of what you did so that you can do so in the future, should you have to reinstall your operating system for one reason or another.

I would tend to agree, the only thing is that Mint did run for around 20 mins before I inputted, which was longer than anytime previous (normally the installer would crash a couple times and I'd have to start again) ... but that could be an anomaly.

 

[Brickwizard]

@KGIII probably my fault, I see I have alerts, open the list ,and click without bothering to read it, it takes me directly to the post concerned, which I then read and reply if necessary,
as @ghosty999 had tried other distributions, my guess was either a bad burn with Rufus or a dodgy pen-drive [which seems to be getting more common]

 

[KGIII]

my guess was either a bad burn with Rufus or a dodgy pen-drive

Reading the thread more carefully, those could just be the reason.

I've also had some issues with flash media recently, though not USB drives - with MicroSD drives. I even got one that was counterfeit, saying it was 256 GB when it couldn't have been any larger than 16 GB.

 

[Brickwizard]

MicroSD drives. I even got one that was counterfeit, saying it was 256 GB when it couldn't have been any larger than 16 GB.

a couple of years back, there were thousands of SD and USB that had been spoofed on the market

 

[ghosty999]

Reading the thread more carefully, those could just be the reason.

I've also had some issues with flash media recently, though not USB drives - with MicroSD drives. I even got one that was counterfeit, saying it was 256 GB when it couldn't have been any larger than 16 GB.

a couple of years back, there were thousands of SD and USB that had been spoofed on the market

I agree, I think this is the most likely cause. The first 2 sticks I used where very old (5 years at-least) and likely have cheap unbranded micro controllers. The one I used for this install was a branded Kingston stick. If most people use both Rufus and Belena for mint installs without issue, then it's less likely me swapping to Belena was the fix.

 

[Brickwizard]

If most people use both Rufus and Belena for mint installs without issue, then it's less likely me swapping to Belena was the fix.

I think it's well known on other forums as well as this, the latest version of Rufus doesn't play nicely with Linux,
the USB/ISO burner in mint has never failed for me

 

[KGIII]

a couple of years back, there were thousands of SD and USB that had been spoofed on the market

I used plural 'cause the other one wouldn't let me format it - no matter what. It eventually went through the process and became a mess that couldn't be recovered. These were name brands sourced at a major online shopping site. I was pretty annoyed. The replacements worked just fine. They didn't even make me send back the defective ones - which could speak to how frequently they deal with this.

 

[Condobloke]

@ghosty999 ...glad to see you have it sorted !!

That was a pleasant start to my day.

 

[ghosty999]

@ghosty999 ...glad to see you have it sorted !!

That was a pleasant start to my day.

Thankyou my good sir! Another windows refugee saved.

I think it's well known on other forums as well as this, the latest version of Rufus doesn't play nicely with Linux,
the USB/ISO burner in mint has never failed for me

This exposes my ignorance. I must have previously used an older version. Belen Etcher was always too "cool" looking for me. The janky UI and old school website of rufus always made me feel at home haha.

 

[ghosty999]

Still no crashes. I have now turned off i915.enable_psr=0 in the GRUB bootloader parameters and testing the system today without it.

 

[ghosty999]

@Brickwizard I've just had 2 x Freezes during normal use. I've re-enabled i915.enable_psr=0 in grubo paramters and continuing to test.

I've also removed the (SOLVED) from the title of this thread.

 

[Brickwizard]

Oh well win some loose some, I would have expected the i915 error to have been fixed in the kernel by now as it was first reported about a year ago.

 

[Brickwizard]

the important thing is your up and running

 

[ghosty999]

the important thing is your up and running

Seems like it could of been the i915.enable_psr=0 all along... after me being convinced it was the installation media/installer.

No crashes so far with this set up. Only hit seems to be the battery life since the screen is constantly refreshing now even on static images.

 

[kc1di]

Glad you may have found the solution. I would bet that it was not the install media. But Rufus has caused problems in the past with linux .isos. Enjoy Mint it's a great Distro.

 

[KGIII]

Seems like it could of been the i915.enable_psr=0 all along... after me being convinced it was the installation media/installer.

As mentioned earlier, that seems the most likely culprit. Now that you've disabled it and it froze, assuming you don't freeze now, you can be pretty sure of it. Again, be sure to make a note of it somewhere. You'll likely break your OS and eventually need to install it again.

(It's a part of learning.)

While you're at it, I'd further suggest making a linux-notes.txt file (call it whatever you want) and use it to keep snippets of terminal commands you like, installation notes, etc... This will prove to be a valuable asset in the long run.

 

[ghosty999]

As mentioned earlier, that seems the most likely culprit. Now that you've disabled it and it froze, assuming you don't freeze now, you can be pretty sure of it. Again, be sure to make a note of it somewhere. You'll likely break your OS and eventually need to install it again.

(It's a part of learning.)

While you're at it, I'd further suggest making a linux-notes.txt file (call it whatever you want) and use it to keep snippets of terminal commands you like, installation notes, etc... This will prove to be a valuable asset in the long run.

Great idea thanks. I'll give it a few more days of testing but logically it's most likely to be the GRUB param as you said. If it was the USB and/or Rufus, then the OS wouldn't of crashed had I disabled it. Unless it's a fluke! Which I'm defo not ruling out...

The battery life sacrifice will have to do for now. I will likely just reduce the time it takes for the screen to turn off to compensate. Another quirk is that sometimes waking Mint from sleep causes my scaled 125% resolution to jump back to 100%. Apart from that it runs really well and at lower temps than windows.

 

[forester]

I'd go through these links to see if there is anything useful, myself
(Once I had trouble with i915 in antiX) --
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/intel_graphics

https://www.dell.com/support/manual...8e0902-85ce-46da-b1cf-ee21e67bcf50&lang=en-us

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005520/graphics.html

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/linux-osv.html

 

[KGIII]

The battery life sacrifice will have to do for now.

You can kinda help battery life fairly simply:

TLP – Quickly Increase and Optimize Linux Laptop Battery Life

TLP is a free open source, feature-rich and command line tool for advanced power management, which helps to optimize battery life in laptops powered by Linux.

www.tecmint.com

However, you won't need to add a repository to do that. You can just do:

sudo apt install tlp

 

[MikeWalsh]

Heh. I bought a 12-yr old Dell Latitude D630 to replace a 20-yr old Inspiron 1100.

I nuked the Windoze 10 some idiot had shoehorned onto it. I'm now dual-booting a pair of Puppies.....and having a whale of a time.

I'd never recommend Puppy to noobs, 'cos too much about it is "non-standard". But I have less trouble setting a Puppy up than most beginners seem to have with many mainstream distros.....

I'm usually installed, set-up and fully-customized in around an hour.


Mike.