CachyOS / CachyOS/linux-cachyos

[BUG] Crashes and general instability on Intel+NVIDIA system

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#1,019 26 comments 1 reaction 2 assignees Claimed by @ptr1337 View on GitHub
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Description

### Pre-flight checklist

- [x] I have searched existing issues and this is not a duplicate.
- [x] I have read the [Contributing Guidelines](https://github.com/CachyOS/linux-cachyos/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md).
- [x] I have verified the issue is reproducible with the latest available CachyOS kernel.
- [x] I have tried to reproduce the issue on Arch Linux's `linux` kernel.

### Upstream / vanilla kernel check

I have not tested with a vanilla/upstream kernel

### Kernel variant

linux-cachyos (EEVDF, Clang)

### System information (cachyos-bugreport.sh)

https://paste.cachyos.org/p/217fddf.log

### Bug description

When using the system, it sometimes has major slowdowns in light tasks and crashes unexpectedly. I could be doing anything, from browsing the internet with LibreWolf or playing Cyberpunk, what I'm doing doesn't matter. It also happened on Windows, but CachyOS seemed to solve it, but then it happens again, so it seems to be somewhat software-related. It's been getting worse lately since the 7.2 kernel update. The slowdowns were somewhat solved by disabling Intel Turbo Boost on the BIOS, but the crashes are still consistently happening. If this is a hardware issue or a mainline Arch issue just tell me, but I'm going insane trying to diagnose it on my own.

### Steps to reproduce

Literally just use my computer (I am so sorry but it's so inconsistent that I can't find a way to reproduce it)

### Expected behavior

Fast gaming computer should be able to browse the internet and not dying in the process

### Actual behavior

Hard crashes, completely unresponsive, can only shut down by pressing the power button (PSU shutdown). Neither Windows nor CachyOS produce any useful logs besides detecting the forced shutdown

### Logs / stack traces

The journalctl log from around the time that the system crashed/freezed: https://paste.cachyos.org/p/dee7d78.txt

### Additional system information

RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (2x8GB)
DE: KDE Plasma
Bootloader: Limine

### Measures taken following advice from the answers

-Installed and enabled through systemctl the earlyoom package
-Disabled PCIe ASPM through a kernel parameter in Limine
-Enabled driver persistence mode through the command provided by @kernelOfTruth
-Installed and enabled the nvidia-vaapi-driver project by elFarto
-Enabled Vulkan rendering on both of my browsers (LibreWolf and Helium). Helium was instructed to use the X11 windowing system through the CLI in order to do this.

### History of the issue (in both text form and list form)

It's a strange case, it started on Windows 11 23H1 (or whatever), and it caused crashes (where the screen would freeze and not even a caps lock on the keyboard). I thought it was a hardware issue, but then 24H2 (I don't remember the codes, but the big 2024 update) rolled out and it completely solved it, but then it started happening again with the big 2025 update. I switched to Cachy in mid-July and it didn't happen, but it started freezing again in August (but the caps-lock on the keyboard does still respond when it freezes). I haven't tried other kernels besides the standard CachyOS one, the LTS, and the standard Arch one. I back on the latest CachyOS kernel (7.2.3-1, if I remember correctly, I'm not on my computer right now). In Windows it usually happened when gaming or browsing. In Cachy it has only happened in browsing and watching YouTube (though strangely today it freezed, but after a forced shutdown I could play that same video without any issues).

TL;DR is:

I have experienced software-related crashes in:

-Windows 11 23H2 (complete crash, screen turned off, not even caps-lock on the keyboard) (resolved by the 2024 update)
-Windows 11 25H2 (the screen freezes in place, no audio, system unresponsive) (not resolved yet)
-CachyOS post-7.2 kernel update (same as Windows 11 25H2, with the only difference being that the caps-lock on the keyboard actually works after it freezes)

while doing:

-Light web browsing and YouTube playback (with the AV1 codec)
-Setting up the Flatpak version of LocalSend (LibreWolf was open on the background)
-Gaming (Only on The Elder Scrolls Online, Steam version)
-GPU-accelerated video encoding (Handbrake, H264-NVENC encoder)

I have NOT experienced any crashes or freezes while:

-Binge-watching a 12-episode anime through my Jellyfin client (so, H265 MKVs coming from my server and being played by MPV)
-Moving hundreds of GBs between my PC and my NAS, in both directions.

### Current state of the issue

It crashed after saving an encoded video, though after the crash and a forced restart I encoded 200+ videos without any issues

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Assessment

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