Objectionable GPU reset carshes desktop envireonment

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

distro: NixOS 24.11 “stable”, up to date
kernel: 6.6.85
model: AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series
bios: 0.0.3.5

screen blackened, session restarts to login and all application data not saved was lost

action taken: update BIOS to 0.0.3.7 with fwupdmgr, restart, report.
reasoning: creating record to compare a possible future event for myself or others

$ jornalctl -k
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_job_timedout [amdgpu]] *ERROR* ring gfx_0.0.0 timeout, signaled seq=5471474, emitted seq=5471476                                        
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_job_timedout [amdgpu]] *ERROR* Process information: process .firefox-wrappe pid 119869 thread .firefox-w:cs0 pid 119982                 
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: amdgpu 0000:c1:00.0: amdgpu: GPU reset begin!                                                                                                       
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3                                            
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue                                                                   
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3                                            
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue                                                                   
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3                                            
Apr 09 10:56:22 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue                                                                   
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3                                            
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:mes_v11_0_submit_pkt_and_poll_completion.constprop.0 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* MES failed to response msg=3
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:amdgpu_mes_unmap_legacy_queue [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to unmap legacy queue
Apr 09 10:56:23 nixos kernel: [drm:gfx_v11_0_hw_fini [amdgpu]] *ERROR* failed to halt cp gfx
2

still no progress, cannot simply reproduce the issue. also got other symptoms such as system reboot, system completely freezing after some time of usage or after hibernate.

I did contact support. They wanted me to test on live Ubuntu 24.04 LTS; a rather poor advice in my opinion. I did that and to no surprise could not simply reproduce, even though I tried using it today.

next after I found some other people had similar issues with AMD models:

  • switched kernel to 6.12.23 with boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_6_12;– this is the earliest version that was not throwing error “was removed because it reached its end of life upstream” and pkgs.linuxPackages_latest would currently result in 6.14.2.
  • changed BIOS-setting Memory Optimizer to Gaming
$ nix-shell -p glxinfo
[nix-shell:~]$ sudo glxinfo | grep -E -i 'device|memory'
    Device: AMD Radeon 780M (radeonsi, gfx1103_r1, LLVM 18.1.8, DRM 3.61, 6.12.23) (0x15bf)
    Video memory: 8192MB
    Unified memory: no
Memory info (GL_ATI_meminfo):
    VBO free memory - total: 6407 MB, largest block: 6407 MB
    VBO free aux. memory - total: 43984 MB, largest block: 43984 MB
    Texture free memory - total: 6407 MB, largest block: 6407 MB
    Texture free aux. memory - total: 43984 MB, largest block: 43984 MB
    Renderbuffer free memory - total: 6407 MB, largest block: 6407 MB
    Renderbuffer free aux. memory - total: 43984 MB, largest block: 43984 MB
Memory info (GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info):
    Dedicated video memory: 8192 MB
    Total available memory: 52342 MB
    Currently available dedicated video memory: 6407 MB
    GL_AMD_multi_draw_indirect, GL_AMD_pinned_memory, 
    GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB, GL_EXT_memory_object, GL_EXT_memory_object_fd, 
    GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, GL_NV_alpha_to_coverage_dither_control, 
    GL_AMD_pinned_memory, GL_AMD_query_buffer_object, 
    GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters, GL_EXT_gpu_shader4, GL_EXT_memory_object, 
    GL_EXT_memory_object_fd, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, 
    GL_MESA_window_pos, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info, GL_NV_ES1_1_compatibility, 
    GL_EXT_instanced_arrays, GL_EXT_map_buffer_range, GL_EXT_memory_object, 
    GL_EXT_memory_object_fd, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays,
3

Probably not related to this case and I even got no dmesg:

KDE Neon, Kernel 6.11
Four time now in the last few weeks, after having the laptop run for a long time with a lot of hibernation, suddenly the “fps” of the desktop environment is down to 5 or something, it feels like very sluggish games. Reading about your gpu entirely crashing it might be related to that. As you, I cannot really replicate the issue. The intervals of it happening were differently. I am unsure if xorg falls back to some kind of software rendering which would explain the sluggish behavior