7 ms·

I also built a Ryzen machine for development. It's great when it works, but I've found that Ryzen is unstable on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04). Every once in a while, I

by kondbg 9y ago

I also built a Ryzen machine for development. It's great when it works, but I've found that Ryzen is unstable on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04). Every once in a while, I get kernel errors like NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#9 stuck for 23s! which requires a hard reset. This behavior doesn't occur on Windows, though, so if you use Windows for development, you should be good.

Pengwin 9y ago
Did you try a later kernel? out of the box ubuntu 16.04 is on the longterm 4.4 kernel. It looks like some ryzen features and patches have been added to 4.10, and they probably were not back-ported to the longterm kernels.
- look_lookatme 9y ago
  Not OP, but just built at Ryzen 1600 box. I've had _more_ instability when running 17.04 and settled on 16.04 which has been mostly fine, but hard crashes occasionally.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    > hard crashes occasionally This sounds disturbingly unacceptable yet accepted
    - dom0 9y ago
      Nothing out of the ordinary with a new platform. While Linux often takes longer to work this stuff out, Windows often has had similar issues in the past as well.
      - shady-lady 9y ago
        Not sure if intent but this is AMD issue. Having experienced first hand AMD driver instability on both Windows & Linux, AMD have lost my custom for the next 10 years.. Multiple re-occurring driver crashes using their main graphics card product line(RX380) on Windows 10.. So, pretty mainstream and yet having driver crashing (even when doing non-intensive tasks e.g. web browsing) For the record, I'm not so sure Nvidia is any more stable either. The only (constantly) stable graphics provider over the years has been Intel's on-board graphics.
    - look_lookatme 9y ago
      I custom built a machine last week for the first time in over a decade and from a fairly new processor and a just released video card. If I had more confidence in my PC building I guess I'd be more upset, but there are a lot of variables here and I'm still in a honeymoon phase. I installed the official AMD RX580 drivers and it's been stable since.
  - pawadu 9y ago
    You can use 16.04 with a newer kernel. There is even a deb package for 4.8
- kondbg 9y ago
  Yes, that log entry was from running 4.10.11.
- fulafel 9y ago
  The official 16.04 hwe "edge" kernel is currently at 4.10.x: http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/kernel/linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/kernel/linux-generic-hwe-1...
look_lookatme 9y ago
I also have been experiencing lock ups with my Ryzen system. I thought it was my RX580, but now I'm thinking it might be the CPU/mobo. Did you go with a B350?
- kondbg 9y ago
  Yes, MSI B350 Tomahawk
  - look_lookatme 9y ago
    Hrm... same here.
    - FnuGk 9y ago
      Open a bug report?
clarry 9y ago
I recently built a system with R7 1800X and Arch is randomly resetting when running its 4.10.* kernels. Fedora, with 4.11 rc builds (the real thing is out now btw) has been rock solid with weeks of uptime, running games & browsers & development stuff.
- noir_lord 9y ago
  Good to know Fedora is worth a try, I'm a Xubuntu user and have Ryzen parts coming, won't need it til June so I'm hoping Ubuntu gets it sorted before then but if not I can live with Fedora for a while.
luca_ing 9y ago
I experience the same issue on my Skylake i5 :-) IIRC in my case it goes away once I install bumblebee. Apparently something to do with switching between internal Intel graphics and the dedicated Nvidia chip, and not at all related to your issue, except for the symptom. It's comedic because after bootup I have about 90s until lockup, so I have to be lightening-fast to type the commands to install bumblebee. If I'm too slow: reset machine, try again. FWIW, this is on a notebook, running Ubuntu 16.04.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  Try adding it to a startup script.
  - luca_ing 9y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. I was unclear, this only happens after a fresh install, before I've installed Bumblebee and its dependencies. Once that is out of the way, I don't need to worry about it any more.
paulmd 9y ago
You might want to try disabling SMT and see if that helps. No promises, could be many other things, but it might be worth a shot. SMT support on Ryzen is really flakey, it's almost always a wash and often can hurt performance and I wouldn't be surprised to see it cause this kind of bug as well (especially in the early days of kernel support).

by kondbg 9y ago

Pengwin 9y ago

Did you try a later kernel? out of the box ubuntu 16.04 is on the longterm 4.4 kernel. It looks like some ryzen features and patches have been added to 4.10, and they probably were not back-ported to the longterm kernels.

look_lookatme 9y ago
Not OP, but just built at Ryzen 1600 box. I've had _more_ instability when running 17.04 and settled on 16.04 which has been mostly fine, but hard crashes occasionally.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  > hard crashes occasionally This sounds disturbingly unacceptable yet accepted
  - dom0 9y ago
    Nothing out of the ordinary with a new platform. While Linux often takes longer to work this stuff out, Windows often has had similar issues in the past as well.
    - shady-lady 9y ago
      Not sure if intent but this is AMD issue. Having experienced first hand AMD driver instability on both Windows & Linux, AMD have lost my custom for the next 10 years.. Multiple re-occurring driver crashes using their main graphics card product line(RX380) on Windows 10.. So, pretty mainstream and yet having driver crashing (even when doing non-intensive tasks e.g. web browsing) For the record, I'm not so sure Nvidia is any more stable either. The only (constantly) stable graphics provider over the years has been Intel's on-board graphics.
  - look_lookatme 9y ago
    I custom built a machine last week for the first time in over a decade and from a fairly new processor and a just released video card. If I had more confidence in my PC building I guess I'd be more upset, but there are a lot of variables here and I'm still in a honeymoon phase. I installed the official AMD RX580 drivers and it's been stable since.
- pawadu 9y ago
  You can use 16.04 with a newer kernel. There is even a deb package for 4.8
kondbg 9y ago
Yes, that log entry was from running 4.10.11.
fulafel 9y ago
The official 16.04 hwe "edge" kernel is currently at 4.10.x: http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/kernel/linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/kernel/linux-generic-hwe-1...

look_lookatme 9y ago

I also have been experiencing lock ups with my Ryzen system. I thought it was my RX580, but now I'm thinking it might be the CPU/mobo. Did you go with a B350?

kondbg 9y ago
Yes, MSI B350 Tomahawk
- look_lookatme 9y ago
  Hrm... same here.
  - FnuGk 9y ago
    Open a bug report?

clarry 9y ago

I recently built a system with R7 1800X and Arch is randomly resetting when running its 4.10.* kernels. Fedora, with 4.11 rc builds (the real thing is out now btw) has been rock solid with weeks of uptime, running games & browsers & development stuff.

noir_lord 9y ago
Good to know Fedora is worth a try, I'm a Xubuntu user and have Ryzen parts coming, won't need it til June so I'm hoping Ubuntu gets it sorted before then but if not I can live with Fedora for a while.

luca_ing 9y ago

I experience the same issue on my Skylake i5 :-) IIRC in my case it goes away once I install bumblebee. Apparently something to do with switching between internal Intel graphics and the dedicated Nvidia chip, and not at all related to your issue, except for the symptom. It's comedic because after bootup I have about 90s until lockup, so I have to be lightening-fast to type the commands to install bumblebee. If I'm too slow: reset machine, try again. FWIW, this is on a notebook, running Ubuntu 16.04.

mixmastamyk 9y ago
Try adding it to a startup script.
- luca_ing 9y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I was unclear, this only happens after a fresh install, before I've installed Bumblebee and its dependencies. Once that is out of the way, I don't need to worry about it any more.

paulmd 9y ago

You might want to try disabling SMT and see if that helps. No promises, could be many other things, but it might be worth a shot. SMT support on Ryzen is really flakey, it's almost always a wash and often can hurt performance and I wouldn't be surprised to see it cause this kind of bug as well (especially in the early days of kernel support).