On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 7:43 PM Sven Arvidsson <
sa@whiz.se> wrote:
On Fri, 2016-05-06 at 21:02 -0500, Seb wrote:
> For a few weeks, I'm experiencing complete system freezes that occur
> nearly every day and seemingly at random or not linked to any easily
> identifiable activity. This is a new system (Lenovo ThinkCentre
> M800),
Another thought: Is the intel-microcode package installed and up to
date?
--
Cheers,
Sven Arvidsson
http://www.whiz.se
PGP Key ID 6FAB5CD5
Seb
Sven might be on to something there, there has been a lot of chatter about dodgy microcode updates with recent Intel processors eg Skylake. Some versions are widely derided as causing lots of problems. I'm not sure if it's a question of getting the latest or downgrading to known-good -- GIYF. Newest CPU here is a Celeron and highest-end is an early Core i7-920 so I have not seen the issues personally, but what you are describing sounds very familiar, look back in this list's archives 2-3 months.
Also Sven mentioned nouveau which implies nVidia graphics hardware -- I have been stable a long time (touch wood) but when Gnome 3 was a new thing in Debian I used to have a lot of problems with both nouveau and the nVidia proprietary driver, resulting in symptoms like the ones you are describing. Patience and regular updates of the testing distro eventually fixed it. I was stuck on Gnome Classic for a while as a result.
So if you eliminate processor microcode, or other firmware issues, then I'd look next at your graphics hardware and your desktop environment. Contrary to your instincts, mine are that this most likely _is_ a hardware issue of some kind -- not necessarily that there is anything wrong with the hardware per se, but maybe not fully supported or not configured correctly.
Mark