laptop Screen Freeze

[easysurfer]

My laptop froze on me and I'm trying to find a clue as to what may be the cause.

Happened as I was watching a livestream. There still was audio but couldn't control mouse or keyboard, had manually press the power button off.

Attached is what the screen looked like. I'm thinking hardware issue as a similar situation happened in the past, but different distro (laptop is running on Linux).

Hoping some of the smart folks here will see and say "Oh yeah, same thing happened to me. problem is the ....."

I thought perhaps an overheating issue so tried this morning to recreate he problem and ran a temp monitoring program alongside. CPU temp stayed below 70 C degrees throughout, so I don't think problem is a heat issue.

Any clues in mind?

 

[Sunset]

I run Ubuntu, about 1/10th of the time when I put the computer to sleep, and then wake it up. The display is messed up like above.
I always guessed the video card/driver was causing the problem. Obviously for me it was not heat as the machine had been asleep for hours.
I have found by randomly hitting some keys (esc, shift cntrl del, etc) that it often will blank out the screen and then come back normal.

I have yet to figure out the actual keypress sequence that fixes it.

 

[easysurfer]

I run Ubuntu, about 1/10th of the time when I put the computer to sleep, and then wake it up. The display is messed up like above.
I always guessed the video card/driver was causing the problem. Obviously for me it was not heat as the machine had been asleep for hours.
I have found by randomly hitting some keys (esc, shift cntrl del, etc) that it often will blank out the screen and then come back normal.

I have yet to figure out the actual keypress sequence that fixes it.

Thanks for the clue. In both times my laptop experienced this messed up display, I was also running a screen capture program called SimpleScreenRecorder at the time. The display mess up may have nothing to do with that program and be a total coincidence.

I do have a plan B as have another laptop (different brand and model) that I have yet to experience the screen match up so at least have that to use. But except for this issue, do prefer this laptop.

 

[MichaelB]

Can you restart in safe mode?

 

[easysurfer]

Can you restart in safe mode?

Not sure what the safe mode (if there is one) on the linux system I'm using. Probably is but I did not try. Ended up manually powering down. Good idea though should I encounter this again.

 

[MichaelB]

Not sure what the safe mode (if there is one) on the linux system I'm using. Probably is but I did not try. Ended up manually powering down. Good idea though should I encounter this again.

Yes, you mentioned linux and I missed it. Nonetheless, most computers can be rebooted into some version of safe mode, and from there you might be able to run some diagnostics. From the screenshot it definitely looks like the video card, but it might also be a bad video connection.

Even if the issue has gone away I’d try to run a diagnostic.

 

[easysurfer]

Yes, you mentioned linux and I missed it. Nonetheless, most computers can be rebooted into some version of safe mode, and from there you might be able to run some diagnostics. From the screenshot it definitely looks like the video card, but it might also be a bad video connection.

Even if the issue has gone away I’d try to run a diagnostic.

Since it's a laptop without a card, might be a driver, or perhaps incompatible video chip?

I thought too perhaps a bad video connection especially since a few months back, I did upgrade the LCD screen which entailed replacing the screen and new video cable. But looking at when I bought the new screen, the first screen freeze incident occurred before I upgraded the screen, so I don't think the cable is the culprit.

Good idea about looking at doing some diagnostics.

 

[ejman]

Don't know what linux distro you are running but I would suggest you post your question at the forum dedicated to your distro. Chances are someone there has seen it before. I use MXlinux and Manjaro and both have very active forums. I've never experienced your issue with my own laptop.

 

[jim584672]

I would run a memory test to rule that out.

 

[easysurfer]

Don't know what linux distro you are running but I would suggest you post your question at the forum dedicated to your distro. Chances are someone there has seen it before. I use MXlinux and Manjaro and both have very active forums. I've never experienced your issue with my own laptop.

Thanks for the suggestion. I gave that a shot and made a post to the linux distro forum dedicated to my distro.

 

[easysurfer]

As an update. I did post to the linux distro forum dedicated to my distro. So far, haven't received any more clues than just thoughts. No, aha! moments.

The laptop is a Dell and found out (learned something new) there's a built-in hardware diagnostic option (pressing the power button and function key at same time at power up). The laptop tested fine.

Guess I'll just go with that if something odd happens once, that's an anomaly, twice, that's a coincidence, three times that's a pattern. My laptop still is at twice.