System hangs (freezes) randomly without intel_idle.max_cstate=1

[Mikko Rantalainen]

Maybe related: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109051

This system has CPU Intel i5-3570k (no overclocking) and the system suffers from random hangs (total freeze with no response to power button, SysRq combinations and nothing in any logs). The hang seems to be related to Google Chrome so it might be related to GPU (intel HD 4000) rendering.

Adding intel_idle.max_cstate=1 seems to help a lot. Without this kernel flag, the system did hang randomly between 15 min and a couple of days. With this flag the system has frozen first time today after uptime of 3 weeks.

So it seems that this CPU is also affected by issues described in the above linked kernel bug. However, as the system did hang earlier today, even this workaround is not perfect.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: linux-lowlatency-hwe-18.04-edge 5.4.0.52.57~18.04.46
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-52.57~18.04.1-lowlatency 5.4.65
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-52-lowlatency x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.18
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Tue Oct 27 16:56:35 2020
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-01-05 (660 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180725)
SourcePackage: linux-meta-hwe-5.4
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mikko Rantalainen (mira)]

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 58
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz
stepping : 9
microcode : 0x21
cpu MHz : 3147.576
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cpuid_fault epb pti ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase smep erms xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts md_clear flush_l1d
bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf mds swapgs itlb_multihit srbds
bogomips : 6799.83
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 1
...

[Mikko Rantalainen (mira)]

I can confirm that this is somehow related to GPU because when I disabled hardware acceleration in Chrome settings the system has been stable for 100 days. When GPU hardware acceleration is enabled, the system crashes randomly, sometimes within hours, sometimes in a couple of days. I'm pretty sure I never got uptime up to a week when GPU hardware acceleration was enabled.