My LENOVO ThinkPad T580 is crashing on Ubuntu 18.04. The crashes are seemingly happening at random. I tried running the following command as specified by this SO post:
However, that did not work the system is still crashing. If I were to charictorize the crash I would say everything just stops. The system does not shutdown but everything freezes and I am forced to hard restart the computer by holding down the power button. The laptob was originally simply a windows 10 machine. However, I decided to make it a duel-boot windows/ubuntu machine so that I can take my work home with me. That being said, until I can figure out and eliminate this crashing problem I won't be doing any work on it.
I am not sure if Linux logs crashes like this. If anyone knows how to help or if they need more information please ask/tell me how to get the information you are looking for. Here is some basic system info on the machine:
Yes, well, Lenovo has had all sorts of issues with Ubuntu concerning their BIOS and graphics chipset. On some Ubuntu distributions, the way the kernel was compiled was known to corrupt the BIOS on Lenovo's. However, I think that was on Ubuntu 17 and has now been fixed, but who knows.
Have you tried running Ubuntu 18.04 live? Does that still hang?
Try Ubuntu 18.04 with an external monitor attached to check whether it's the T580 display that it doesn't like.
The T580 was certified at Ubuntu version 16.04 LTS. You could try installing that just to see what happens and verify your hardware.
Ref: Ubuntu on Lenovo ThinkPad T580 | Ubuntu
Oh, and you could just try changing any graphics adapter settings in the BIOS (e.g. display memory shadowing on/off and the like).
I am not sure what I am looking for. I am in the drivers directory now: @/lib/modules/5.0.0-32-generic/kernel/drivers. Should I be looking for graphics drivers? Perhaps I am misinterpreting your question?
@hicksd8 I am not sure what Ubuntu 18.04 live is. I will run the labtop on an external monitor today and see how that goes. If I were to try changing graphics adapter settings; are there any settings that you would recommend specifically?
Edit: Just a note. I went to: settings->details and clicked "Check for updates" and two system updates were downloaded. I restarted the computer and it went through a hardware update. I am not sure if that has fixed the problem but I will let you guys know if it does. Currently I have another monitor hooked up to the labtop and I am running it in mirror mode.
The hardware updates did not fix the problem, the labtop froze again. I had another monitor setup in mirror mode and the screen simply went black when the labtop froze. I will attempt to setup the monitor s/t it is the only/primary display for the labtop.
'live' running is when you boot from CD/DVD and let it run from that media. Sometimes the Linux media for hard disk install and 'live' is the same media; sometimes you have to download a separate ISO for the 'live' CD/DVD. However, when running 'live' you can do most things. It would be interesting to know whether it still hangs under those conditions.
Also, as I said, Lenovo hardware can have problems with Ubuntu kernel's so I would suggest that you try Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and see if it still hangs. If not, then I would suggest that your hardware is not faulty because Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is fully certified on the Lenovo T580.
@hicksd8 After checking with my superior running 16.04 with the new build system is not an option. It may be possible but he is concerned that I may introduce dependencies in the code for the 16.04 system that could break the build for people using 18.04. After trying to run the labtop with a different monitor as it's sole display it seems to have crashed again. However, this time the screen did not freeze instead it simply went dark. The computer sounds like it is still running/processing (I can hear it) but I can't see anything. Perhaps I can try messing around with graphics adapter settings.
Looking around in the ThinkPad setup from the boot menu and there is a setting here called Thunderbolt BIOS Assist Mode. It's description is:
Enabled/Disabled
ThunderBolt BIOS
Assist mode.
Set to Enabled only
to support Linux and Windows 10
prior to version 1709
It is currently set to Disabled but there is another setting called: Wake by Thunderbolt(TM) 3 which has been set to Enabled, here is it's description:
Enabled/Disabled Wake
Feature with
Thunderbolt 3 ports. If
Enabled, the battery life during
low power state may become
shorter.
I am not sure what either of these settings are for but I thought perhaps they might have something to do with my problem or perhaps nothing.
The only option I can see that seems useful in the Display section would be the: Total Graphics Memory which was set too 256MB and I changed to 512MB
Even if you are not allowed to use Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in anger, I would still be inclined to try it in 'live' mode (booted from CD/DVD) and see if it works reliably. 16.04 is certified for use on the Lenovo T580 whereas 18.04 is not. If 16.04 will run without hanging that tells you something. you won't need to install 16.04 to do this test because it will run from the booted CD/DVD.
Well I posted on the LENOVO website. They suggested that I download the latest BIOS here. I am not exactly sure if I should. It says Ubuntu 16.04 and I am running 18.04; I suppose it couldn't hurt? I am not exactly sure how to go about it either.
I faced the similar laptop crashing problem. My Lenovo laptop was new and using Ubuntu in my laptop. I was so frustrated with that problem and searching laptop repair service center for getting the solution.