Hey everyone,
I’m running into a frustrating issue and could use some guidance on how to pinpoint the faulty component.
My system completely locks up every few hours. It’s not just a DE crash; the entire machine becomes unresponsive. The mouse and keyboard are completely dead (no cursor movement, Caps Lock key doesn’t toggle). I’ve tried waiting 10-15 minutes to see if it recovers, but it never does.
REISUB does not work. Holding Alt + SysRq and pressing the keys in order does nothing. The only way out is a hard reset using the case button.
The last time this happened, I ended up buying components for a new computer and replaced them one by one until I found the faulty one. I’d rather try a more targeted approach this time. Though if it takes too much effort, I do have another computer I can fall back on.
Any advice on how to diagnose this efficiently? Logs to check, stress tests to run, or hardware to suspect first?
Thanks in advance!
Others mentioned that it sounds hardware related. That reminded me that you should visually inspect all ports, especially unused ones. I had a system locking up constantly once and it turned out to be from debris in a usb port on one of the monitors was causing a short. It’s something that wont necessarily cause logged errors and can cause seemingly random behaviour that will have one chasing problems that don’t exist. USB ports and DVI plugs especially can be hard to notice with how they are constructed. Audio jack holes too. Make sure there’s no breaks in any cords. It seems too simple to be true and then it happens and you feel foolish for not having thought of it.