Linux Mint 20.2 Performance Issues and DE Locking Up SOLVED

[Alexzee]

Sorry for the delay-
It's been one thing after another lately.

Just finished ordering 2 sticks of RAM for my friend from Amazon.
If it pans out like expected his 2 new:

16GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Ares Series Low Profile CL9 (9-9-9-24) Dual Channel kit 2x 8GB​

Should arrive this coming Monday-

 

[Alexzee]

Ok the new memory is seated and I've been through the BIOS twice.
Everything is set to "Auto"

After booting into LM and using the Update MGR to update the system and rebooted after a new kernel all I've got is a black screen.
Rebooting back into Mint and FF was up and running fine. Stayed up for about 7 minutes.
The screen flashed and turned black see screenshot and then FF came back up again.

Any ideas?

 

[osprey]

Can the machine boot to a text prompt, i.e. runlevel 3, or multi-user.target?

 

[Alexzee]

After the new memory was in place this message appeared.

 

[Alexzee]

Can the machine boot to a text prompt, i.e. runlevel 3, or multi-user.target?

Not sure, haven't tried that yet.
I need the machine to boot into Mint or LMDE to change the runlevel right?

On Slackware I edit the /etc/inittab file and change the runlevel that way.

 

[osprey]

Not sure, haven't tried that yet.
I need the machine to boot into Mint or LMDE to change the runlevel.

It can be done from the grub menu without needing to boot into the installation. Check here if uncertain:

How To Boot To Console (Text) Mode Using Debian / Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux / Manjaro And More

This article explains how to boot a Linux distribution like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux / Manjaro, etc., in console mode, either temporarily or permanently.

www.linuxuprising.com

 

[Alexzee]

Gotta put some steaks on the grill, it's dinner time.

 

[Brickwizard]

This may sound like a silly question,
have you disturbed the heat sink on the CPU ? Screen blackouts are one symptom of it overheating

 

[Alexzee]

This may sound like a silly question,
have you disturbed the heat sink on the CPU ? Screen blackouts are one symptom of it overheating

No, not as far as my friend (I asked him) and I know.
Screenshot is the result of after updating LMDE 6 and launching FF.

Could this be a video acceleration issue / gpu driver issue <or> the mobo on it's way out?

 

[Brickwizard]

If it only happens in FF then I may suspect graphic acceleration, If not then there could be a number of suspects, including a failing HDD/SSD Faulty ram, a Dry joint somewhere, to name just 3

 

[Alexzee]

If it only happens in FF then I may suspect graphic acceleration, If not then there could be a number of suspects, including a failing HDD/SSD Faulty ram, a Dry joint somewhere, to name just 3

In his BIOS virt acceleration is disabled. I can certainly tell him to enable it.
IF his 2 HDD's or SSD's are failing Smartmontools should be easy to install and use.

The ram he just got brand new from Amazon yesterday I hope isn't faulty.
I can tell him to run Memtest again to ensure that.

 

[Alexzee]

The new ram is ok....Memtest passed.

 

[Alexzee]

If he tries to play a YouTube video on all 3 distros shapes and other anomalies appear on the screen. Followed by a flash of the screen then the screen turns black and is unresponsive or returns to the log in screen in Sparky Linux.

Will enabling virt acceleration in the BIOS help @Brickwizard or is this the mobo?

 

[KGIII]

Shot in the dark:

In the browser's settings, find and disable hardware acceleration.

 

[Alexzee]

Shot in the dark:

In the browser's settings, find and disable hardware acceleration.

Thanks, he said he'll try that.
Taking a break, been at this most of the day.

 

[KGIII]

It's a bit hidden in the settings.

Restart the browser after changing that value.

 

[Condobloke]

And, if he has more than one browser, turn it off there as well.

He has a graphics card?......that was my first thought.

no idea how that works on sparky linux.....the driver for it is searchable in menu/driver manager/..???....or similar?

Disable it. The motherboard will almost doubtless have onboard graphics to run on in its absence

 

[Alexzee]

And, if he has more than one browser, turn it off there as well.

He has a graphics card?......that was my first thought.

no idea how that works on sparky linux.....the driver for it is searchable in menu/driver manager/..???....or similar?

Disable it. The motherboard will almost doubtless have onboard graphics to run on in its absence

Disabled the hardware acc.. in all 3 FF browsers on all 3 distros. Then, he rebooted into each one. No dice.
He still has the same thing going on in the screenshot in post #109.

Yeah his GPU is a MSI Twin Froz III.
He bought this GPU in 2012 and he didn't use it for gaming as was his original plan.

And you said 'disable it' ....by that you mean create a blacklist file and disable the driver (for his MSI Twin Frozr III GPU) that way, @Condobloke correct?

BTW, virt acceleration in the BIOS is disable.

 

[Brickwizard]

MSI Twin Froz III.

I have never likes products from Micro Star international, and this is typical of their offerings, it is a heavily modified AMD Radeon HD 7950. for which they supplied their own Windows drivers, so I will not guess if it is compatible with Linux AMD drivers

 

[Alexzee]

I have never likes products from Micro Star international, and this is typical of their offerings, it is a heavily modified AMD Radeon HD 7950. for which they supplied their own Windows drivers, so I will not guess if it is compatible with Linux AMD drivers

This GPU has been running Linux on my friends triple booted rig for 12 years and it's been a good desktop for him. He has had zero problems with AMD or Intel drivers. His CPU is an Intel i 7.

He built this rig with some help from me in 2012. He never installed Windows and used whatever Linux drivers were in the kernel. As far as the MSI brand he knows first hand about how they run their ship.
My friend was supposed to get a hefty rebate after jumping through their mine field of do this and do that, which never produced the promised refund. TWOT (total waste of time) He feels your pain.

I'll help him install lm-sensors later and run that to see if the CPU is overheating.
I'm not sure which driver in the output of lsmod is the driver for his GPU. I'm assuming it would say radeon?

@Condobloke, @osprey, @KGIII and Brickwizard.... do you know what the screenshot in post #109 is an indication of?