Computer just randomly locked up and logged out - now it's super sluggish

[Red Squirrel]

I was just reading something online, then bang. Cursor locked right up. Then all 3 monitors shut off. Then it went to the login screen. It did not fully reboot, it's like if it's just the GUI that crashed. On similar note, when I turned on my computer earlier today, it went to login screen instead of auto logging in like it's suppose to.

Another thing is typing my username and password is BLOODY SLOW. I type, and it takes a good 30 seconds for a character to appear. I also notice I get "startup lag" like in Windows now. The first few minutes of bootup everything is super slow. Everything is super choppy, like trying to scroll through dmesg output to see if there's anything and even scrolling the console is bloody slow and choppy. Not really seeing anything though, it's too hard to tell where the startup stuff stops as there's no time stamp in there which I always thought was stupid. They should really have time stamps.

Is there any way to figure out why this happened? It's probably going to keep doing it now. That's just my luck. Distro is Linux Mint 17.1 KDE.

 

[Red Squirrel]

One thing I noticed ever since this incident, my whole computer is actually very slow. If I make a selection square on the desktop to select icons it can take several seconds before it actually gets created. Trying to play a youtube video is near impossible. It will play but God forbid I decide I want to pause it, full screen it, or do anything as such. Though I did notice Youtube changed their player so I don't know if it's related too.

It's like if anything GUI related is being really slow.

 

[mundane]

Anything suspicious in /var/log/*? Does 'top' show anything consuming an inordinate amount of processor time? Any failures from `smartctl` tests?

 

[VirtualLarry]

What video card do you have, what are its temps, and have you cleaned the dust out recently?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Firefox and xorg seem to be the biggest consumers. When it gets very slow xorg will be pretty high, like 100%ish. It seems every time I make an action it jumps higher then tones down. Never noticed if it was this way before. Just dragging a square on the desktop, even when I get it to a point where it's more responsive it makes xorg use quite a lot of cpu.

Temps look ok, but not sure how to check video card through command line but found in the GUI and it's 27C.

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +27.8°C  (crit = +105.0°C)
temp2:        +29.8°C  (crit = +105.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +34.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +29.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +29.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Ambient temp (at ceiling of room where sensor is) is 23.5C.

Heck, even pasting that was slow, there was a delay before it showed up. Everything I do feels so choppy and sluggish. It feels like using Windows Vista, where you have to wait for every action you do. Even when it starts to speed up a bit, it still takes several seconds for basic things to happen like opening a window. It should be instant.

Here's output of lspci, may help:

falcon ~ # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 8cb1
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device 8cba
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 8cad
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Device 8ca0
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 8c90 (rev d0)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 8c94 (rev d0)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 8ca6
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 8cc4
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Device 8c82
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Device 8ca2
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti] (rev a2)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0fbc (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2200 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)

Video card is GeForce GTX 750 Ti with 3 monitors attached. (HD)

CPU is ntel(R) Core(TM) i3-4150 CPU @ 3.50GHz


Some logs that may be useful: Some have no time stamp though so it marke it hard to know if it's been like that for a long time.

falcon ~ # tail /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[  1503.740] (**) NVIDIA(0):     device Ancor Communications Inc ASUS VS228 (DFP-3) (Using
[  1503.740] (**) NVIDIA(0):     EDID frequencies has been enabled on all display
[  1503.740] (**) NVIDIA(0):     devices.)
[  1503.820] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[  1503.820] (**) NVIDIA(0):     device Ancor Communications Inc ASUS VS228 (DFP-2) (Using
[  1503.820] (**) NVIDIA(0):     EDID frequencies has been enabled on all display
[  1503.820] (**) NVIDIA(0):     devices.)
[  1503.904] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[  1503.904] (**) NVIDIA(0):     device LG Electronics E2442 (DFP-0) (Using EDID
[  1503.904] (**) NVIDIA(0):     frequencies has been enabled on all display devices.)


falcon ~ # tail /var/log/nvidia-prime-upstart.log 
Sorry but your hardware configuration is not supported
falcon ~ #

Not too sure what else I should check, let me know if you want to see specific stuff.

I also just did a "long" smart test, here is the output: (I cut some stuff out that may not be important)

falcon ~ # smartctl -a /dev/sda

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Crucial/Micron RealSSD m4/C400/P400
Device Model:     M4-CT128M4SSD2

LU WWN Device Id: 5 00a075 109085334
Firmware Version: 0309
User Capacity:    128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Wed Sep 23 01:14:42 2015 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled


SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       22603
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       169
170 Grown_Failing_Block_Ct  0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
171 Program_Fail_Count      0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
172 Erase_Fail_Count        0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
173 Wear_Leveling_Count     0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       15
174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
181 Non4k_Aligned_Access    0x0022   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       797 595 201
183 SATA_Iface_Downshift    0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0033   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 Factory_Bad_Block_Ct    0x000e   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       90
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   001    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0
202 Perc_Rated_Life_Used    0x0018   100   100   001    Old_age   Offline      -       0
206 Write_Error_Rate        0x000e   100   100   001    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     22603         -
# 2  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     20010         -
# 3  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     19962         -
# 4  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     19746         -
# 5  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     19359         -
# 6  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     19321         -
# 7  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     18558         -
# 8  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     18366         -
# 9  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     17301         -
#10  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     13120         -
#11  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12171         -
#12  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12159         -
#13  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12146         -
#14  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12134         -
#15  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12121         -
#16  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12109         -
#17  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12084         -
#18  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     12072         -
#19  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     11828         -
#20  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     11437         -
#21  Vendor (0xff)       Completed without error       00%     11425         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing

I just vacuumed out the front filters of the case, they were getting full of dust, though I can't see how this would be a heat issue as it happened so suddenly and only after the machine was turned off.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't want to speak too soon, but I may have solved it... I don't know for how long though. I was just grasping at straws and decided to switch to an older driver. So went to driver manager and changed it from nvidia-346 (marked as recommended, I never changed it before so always been there) to nvidia-340-updates and now everything seems normal. Still very early to tell though so I don't know if it's going to crap out again and then start acting up on that one too. I have the worse luck for this kind of stuff so seems like this was too easy of a fix to be permanent, but we'll see.

 

[ninaholic37]

This is why I am against updates. I like it when I turn on my computer and everything is always exactly the same as the day before, similar to Deep Freeze. Once every few months or years I might try to update something OS or driver related, and then am very cautious looking around to see if it borks anything (which it usually does then I revert back lol).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I'm wondering if this was a dormant update that just never took effect till I rebooted or something. I did not notice what the driver was at before and if it changed. I occasionally run yum update and apt-get upgrade on my machines but I recently learned that some actually require a reboot.

I still need to find a time to reboot my file server for a kernel update to go through in hopes it fixes a random issue I get, but that one kinda makes me nervous, don't think I want to reboot that box. It involves practically rebooting my entire network.

 

[Executioner]

I just had a similar issue with one of my systems. I had to perform a Secure Erase of my Samsung SSD. After running the utility he told me, the erase took less than 10 seconds. I then restored an Acronis image, and all is well again.

Weird because my other systems with an Intel SSD and a Sandisk SSD, I never had any issues with them. All are running win7 x64.

 

[MongGrel]

I don't want to speak too soon, but I may have solved it... I don't know for how long though. I was just grasping at straws and decided to switch to an older driver. So went to driver manager and changed it from nvidia-346 (marked as recommended, I never changed it before so always been there) to nvidia-340-updates and now everything seems normal. Still very early to tell though so I don't know if it's going to crap out again and then start acting up on that one too. I have the worse luck for this kind of stuff so seems like this was too easy of a fix to be permanent, but we'll see.

Ya never should have went near that manhole cover dude

Hope it's fixed now.