Hard freezes at seemingly random intervals

**MrArch** · July 12th, 2012

Thanks for the tip, I'll try to update the bios tonight. But first I have to reinstall windows so I can run the bios update... don't see anything spectacular mentioned in the update documentation though, so I remain sceptical.

**MrArch** · July 12th, 2012

Two interesting updates:
1. Just updated the bios, from version F.01 to version F.16 so there could be a lot of changes. Didn't find any changelog for bios <= F.13 so I'm not sure what changed.
2. Found this very interesing post about users having the same lockup/freeze:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic....53607#p1053607
I get the same message at boot:

Code:

SP5100 TCO timer: mmio address 0xb80430 already in use

So I will try to disable the thermal module like they do and see if that helps.

**MrArch** · July 16th, 2012

Good news, I'm fairly sure I've fixed the lockups. For the last 4 days I haven't had a lockup. This is what I did:
1. Updated the bios from F.01 to F.16
2. Boot the kernel with thermal acpi off, for example:

Code:

kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/mapper/root cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:root ro thermal.off=1

3. Blacklist the sp5100_tco module

Code:

blacklist sp5100_tco

A big help was this post on the arch linux forum:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic....53607#p1053607

It seems the instability was caused by the sp5100_tco module and/or the thermal acpi module. I've used the netbook for over 5 hours each day, for the last four days, doing various stress tests, surfing the web, playing youtube, compiling kernels, etc. and it seems finally stable!

**Stylebox** · July 19th, 2012

Glad to hear someone is getting their Dm1-4010us working. I have the same machine with a similar problem. Not a complete lock-up ... just keyboard and trackpad stop responding. Unfortunately, changes with thermal and sp5100_tco don't have any effect. Thankfully, I can still plug in USB keyboard and mouse.

Some differences -- I'm using the radeon driver and I haven't installed the proprietary wireless drivers (yes, I get horrible wireless at the moment).

Seems like different but related issues. I agree with the above comments that it appears to be thermal and/or IO related but haven't really been able to find the culprit.

Graphic performance seems fine with the radeon driver -- video plays well. Laptop stays cool and is otherwise responsive.

**MrArch** · July 20th, 2012

@Stylebox: although my computer completely freezes the bug is probably related. Take a look at this thread, some people have the same keybaord freezing, these guys have really dived into it:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Noteboo...1339919/page/2

**pjbroad** · July 23rd, 2012

I've been running with the grub option "thermal.off=1" set on my dm1-4125sa for a few days and, so far, no freezes. The best its been since the day I bought it.

**justinfx** · July 31st, 2012

Running Asus Laptop R500V, Ubuntu 12.04.

I started out thinking it was video drivers and X, then a kernel bug, also tried the thermal grub option above. It would still hard freeze - couldn't ever pinpoint what exactly it was. Nothing ever showed up in the logs.

This post on Arch Linux's forums helped me. Haven't had a hard freeze in three days. Was having them at least twice a day before.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=145425

**RDV** · August 13th, 2012

I would like to thank "MrArch" for his post #13 in this thread. Following his instructions has eliminated my random system freezes with Ubuntu 12.04 on a HP Pavilion DM1-4010US.