Q1900-ITX with Ubuntu 16.04 Freezing

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   Hardware:Q1900-ITX (Latest UEFI Ver 1.70)
16GB RAM (2 x 8GB 1333 SO-DIMMs) (Kingston)
240GB SATA SSD (Adata)
Monitor connected via DVI
Cheap USB Keyboard/Mouse
PCIe Wifi Card BCM43217

OS:
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Linux

Problem:
Seemingly random freezing occurring after boot of OS. The time can vary from almost straight after boot to several hours after boot. When freezing occurs, the mouse stops, HDD access stops, caps lock light on keyboard will not toggle when caps lock pressed, Power button will not function on short press and has to be held down to turn off.

Steps taken to attempt remedy:

1. Used with different keyboard/mouse/monitor (on different ports and same ports) to eliminate external device problem. Problem still occurred.

2. Used with PCIe Wifi card removed. Used with and without ethernet network connected.  Problem still occurred.

3. Used with different HDD (320GB 2.5" mechanical HDD). Problem still occurred.

4. Disconnected motherboard control header cables (speaker, power on, reset, hdd led and power led). Turned on machine by shorting power switch pins with a screwdriver. Problem still occurred.

5. Tried with different (higher power) PSU. Problem still occurred.

At this point I am reasonably certain that it is a motherboard issue as all other possibilities have been eliminated so I start to fiddle with motherboard UEFI options.

6. Disabled all Sleep/Timer/External power functions. Problem still occured.

7. Disabled CPU state (c7, c5 etc). Problem still occurred.

8. Disabled CPU memory buffer overrun protection thing (can't remember its actual name but I'm sure you'll know what I mean). Problem still occurred.

9. Disabled CPU frequency speed step. Problem not yet occurred. Running for 3 days now.

So it would seem the issue is the speed step functionality. This could be motherboard or linux at fault here. No doubt this same post over at Ubuntu they'll blame the mobo and posting it here you'll probably blame linux, but I'm not interested in blaming anyone, would just like speedstep to work. I bought this system as a low cost, energy efficient office PC. And although it is still quite efficient with speedstep disabled, it's not optimal.

From doing research into this, it would seem to be some update regarding intel "microcode" is required?
Any advice on how to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated. My apologies for the length of the post and all the stuff I'd already tried. But If I'd just have posted about disabling speedstep I'd have gotten a bunch of replies saying to try different hardware etc.... Just wanted to be 100% clear on what has already been done.

Cheers

Edited by Boltar - 23 Jun 2016 at 2:22pm

Author	Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic
Boltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jun 2016 Status: Offline Points: 9	Post Options Post Reply Quote Boltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Q1900-ITX with Ubuntu 16.04 Freezing Posted: 23 Jun 2016 at 2:11pm
	Hardware: Q1900-ITX (Latest UEFI Ver 1.70) 16GB RAM (2 x 8GB 1333 SO-DIMMs) (Kingston) 240GB SATA SSD (Adata) Monitor connected via DVI Cheap USB Keyboard/Mouse PCIe Wifi Card BCM43217 OS: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Linux Problem: Seemingly random freezing occurring after boot of OS. The time can vary from almost straight after boot to several hours after boot. When freezing occurs, the mouse stops, HDD access stops, caps lock light on keyboard will not toggle when caps lock pressed, Power button will not function on short press and has to be held down to turn off. Steps taken to attempt remedy: 1. Used with different keyboard/mouse/monitor (on different ports and same ports) to eliminate external device problem. Problem still occurred. 2. Used with PCIe Wifi card removed. Used with and without ethernet network connected. Problem still occurred. 3. Used with different HDD (320GB 2.5" mechanical HDD). Problem still occurred. 4. Disconnected motherboard control header cables (speaker, power on, reset, hdd led and power led). Turned on machine by shorting power switch pins with a screwdriver. Problem still occurred. 5. Tried with different (higher power) PSU. Problem still occurred. At this point I am reasonably certain that it is a motherboard issue as all other possibilities have been eliminated so I start to fiddle with motherboard UEFI options. 6. Disabled all Sleep/Timer/External power functions. Problem still occured. 7. Disabled CPU state (c7, c5 etc). Problem still occurred. 8. Disabled CPU memory buffer overrun protection thing (can't remember its actual name but I'm sure you'll know what I mean). Problem still occurred. 9. Disabled CPU frequency speed step. Problem not yet occurred. Running for 3 days now. So it would seem the issue is the speed step functionality. This could be motherboard or linux at fault here. No doubt this same post over at Ubuntu they'll blame the mobo and posting it here you'll probably blame linux, but I'm not interested in blaming anyone, would just like speedstep to work. I bought this system as a low cost, energy efficient office PC. And although it is still quite efficient with speedstep disabled, it's not optimal. From doing research into this, it would seem to be some update regarding intel "microcode" is required? Any advice on how to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated. My apologies for the length of the post and all the stuff I'd already tried. But If I'd just have posted about disabling speedstep I'd have gotten a bunch of replies saying to try different hardware etc.... Just wanted to be 100% clear on what has already been done. Cheers Edited by Boltar - 23 Jun 2016 at 2:22pm

Jessie Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 Jun 2016 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Jessie Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jun 2016 at 4:03pm
	Unfortunately it seems that you won't get much help here as long as you are running linux; To avoid unnecessary lengthy arguments, I suggest that you install Windows 10. It is rather unfortunate as I am also using linux (which usually works pretty good with Asrock motherboard). If you have nothing in the logs (look in /var/log/syslog or /var/log/kern.log) before the freeze, it has probably nothing to do with linux itself (cannot be 100% sure though).

Boltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jun 2016 Status: Offline Points: 9	Post Options Post Reply Quote Boltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jun 2016 at 6:10pm
	Thanks Jessie, it was worth a post here just in case someone had a similar issue and could offer information. I have indeed installed Windows 10 on another identical system and am not getting freezing with scaling enabled. I'm also doing a power analysis with my agilent and there is literally no difference between linux with no scaling and Windows 10 with scaling. So if scaling is making a difference, it is negligible. I think it's a fair solution to disable speedstep and just run Linux like that. I doubt a saving of a couple bucks a year is worth the effort.

Jessie Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 Jun 2016 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Jessie Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 Jun 2016 at 5:55am
	Have you got the latest firmware package for your CPU ? I think it is called intel-microcode (depends on your linux) . Cheers

Boltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jun 2016 Status: Offline Points: 9	Post Options Post Reply Quote Boltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 Jun 2016 at 10:00am
	According to Synaptic the microcode currently installed is the latest unless there's beta releases from Intel which I did look for but didn't find. Similar issues on other intel boards that I've googled were all resolved by a firmware update, so I guess I'll have to wait for ASRock to (maybe) sort it out. It's fine though, speedstep really makes little to no difference in power consumption. I ran this board ragged with stress to try to get the automatic fan headers to kick in, and I literally could not get the core temperature to rise above 45C (the lowest threshold setting possible) even after 30 minutes of 100% CPU consumption. That's pretty impressive. Especially when the power usage didn't rise very much from idle state at all. So even though it's killing my OCD that speedstep can't be enabled, it's really not a big deal realistically. Thanks for replying by the way :) Cheers B

wardog Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 15 Jul 2015 Status: Offline Points: 6447	Post Options Post Reply Quote wardog Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 Jun 2016 at 1:38pm
	???? The below thread relates. The dates posted may supersede released BIOS/microcode updates. ie: turbo / max_cstate http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=253700

Boltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jun 2016 Status: Offline Points: 9	Post Options Post Reply Quote Boltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 24 Jun 2016 at 3:01pm
	Hi wardog, thanks for the link. I did come across that while looking for solutions, but the fix described there (grub c_state param) didn't solve the problem. I've no doubt this is indeed a related issue however. Seems everyone is waiting on Intel. Ah well. Such is life.

JeZxLee Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 05 Sep 2016 Location: New York, USA Status: Offline Points: 1	Post Options Post Reply Quote JeZxLee Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 05 Sep 2016 at 5:00pm
	Hi, Running this board with Linux Mint 18 MATE 64Bit. (a distro based on Ubuntu 16.04 64Bit) Had daily freezes like you describe. After I disabled the following the freezes stopped: In BIOS under "Advanced\CPU Configuration" DISABLE: - Intel SpeedStep Technology - CPU C States Support - Enhanced Halt State(C1E) Hope that helps a fellow Linux user. After above modifications to my board's BIOS the system runs rock-solid with 16.04...
	JeZxLee 16BitSoft Inc. Video Game Design Studio www.16BitSoft.com

NX3 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 21 Dec 2016 Status: Offline Points: 3	Post Options Post Reply Quote NX3 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 21 Dec 2016 at 4:39pm
	I've upgraded to 16.04 and have the same issue, the machine freeze daily now whereas on 14.x LTS it was rock solid for months. I've followed the steps to disable Intel Speedstep, CPU C State, Halt state and updated to bios 1.70. Its generally will stay running for about 24 hours but they will freeze. I've check various logs and can't find Ubuntu reporting any problems. Does anyone have a solution or suggestion on how to resolve ?

Xaltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 27473	Post Options Post Reply Quote Xaltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 21 Dec 2016 at 5:08pm
	Linux issues are complex which is a shame because these SoC boards make fantastic little linux servers. By and large the issues stem from the nature of the boards themselves, or more specifically the SoC. While they may be based on Desktop versions they are not exactly the same so what we end up with is standardized drivers (iGPU, IO, SATA etc) that sort of work but are not tailored to the SoCs. The fault lies not with any board manufacturer but rather with Linux itself and intel (where it comes to providing source code for drivers to Linux devs). To give an example, I can force install intel's standard desktop drivers for the iGPU on my N3150M, they will allow me to boot into windows, play a youtube vid etc but invariably I will encounter a BSOD at some point because it is not the correct driver, even though it uses the same technology it is not the same iGPU as found in desktop variants. This is very likely what is causing the issues with Linux on Q1900 based systems. As linux drivers try to keep up with new tech it often introduces incompatibility or bugs with older hardware. Linux's intel driver implementation can only be as good as the code they have to work with. Anyone looking for help with Linux would be better served posting on the boards for the Distro they are using, while yes, some issues can be hardware related, in most instances the issues stem from drivers in linux rather than defects or bugs with the UEFI/motherboard. If the system works well on one distro version but then fails on another the issue is clearly the distro not the hardware. ASRock does not officially support linux (no manufacturer does) and as such provides no drivers for the OS. This means the only real reason to post on the ASRock forums is in the hope that someone else with your particular hardware and issues found a solution and would be kind enough to share. I myself have not kept up to speed with linux for many years now and can offer little to no help with linux related issues. While I always have at least one linux machine in my home I typically "set up and forget", it has been ages since I went digging around and fiddled with the innards of linux. If one distro doesn't work for me I switch to another or an older/newer release, if that fails I use a different system as my linux machine. What I do know however is that the linux support forums for the more major distros are very helpful and frequented by some very knowledgeable linux supporters, I seldom encounter issues I can't find solutions to on say the Ubuntu forums. Most often I don't even need to post, just search the forums for someone else who had the same issue.