On 20/11/2025 16:00, Seb wrote:
Install latest firmware (BIOS). If it offers an option to run hardware
self-test then try it.
Only twice in 30 years have I upgraded the firmware for a motherboard.
Followed instructions to the letter. No problem during the update. Both
times it crippled the machine. I will only ever do that again on a
machine that I am ready to discard.
At least read changelog between latest version and the version you have
currently installed. A lot of things have changed over 30 years
including expectations of vendors related to whether customers may
promptly update firmware when some bugs are found.
I respect your choice, but it strongly affects my motivation to reply.
Check for errors, warnings, and all other messages related to graphics
adapter output of the following command:
sudo journalctl -b
You may discover e.g. missed firmware files.
Good idea. But... I don't know what a "missing firmware" line looks like
here. And the output is both copious and very boring to read line-by-line.
Certainly reading logs require some experience. In the case of
journalctl and color terminal, errors and warnings should be
highlighted, so skimming through whole log of current boot and reading
just errors should not take much time. By default journalctl uses
less(1). This pager allows to search (or even to filter) by regex
patterns. So "firmware" and "amdgpu" may be first keywords to try.
If X is unreliable then you may use virtual console or ssh login from
another machine (install ssh-server if have not it yet).
Yeah, but it's supposed to become a user-facing PC, not a server in a
closet...
If your X session crashes frequently then reading logs from another
machine may be more comfortable. X may freeze with no reaction to
keyboard and mouse. This case remote debugging may be convenient as well.
Kernel crash stacktrace from logs is helpful to determine if your exact
problem has been reported to the upstream bug tracker and whether it has
been fixed at least in the development branch.
