Hi all. I know this isn’t a support community, but Lemmy is only so big so I hope it’s ok if I post about this here.
I have a a Dell Inspiron 7375 laptop. The processor is a Ryzen 7 2300U. It only has integrated graphics. It was purchased new in 2018. Right out of the gate brand spanking new, it would frequently BSOD at seemingly random times, even when the laptop was not under any noticeable stress…just browsing the web watching YouTube videos or even editing Google Docs.
Most of the BSODs would state “video TDR failure”, but others happened as well (don’t remember them all, sorry. Dell Support was never able to figure solve my problem…especially difficult to the intermittent nature
However, I found that I could help alleviate 90% of the issue by limiting the maximum processor state in control panel to 80%".
Fast forward to today and I upgraded my setup and no longer need this laptop. I installed Linux Mint on it and find that the system will randomly freeze up until I power cycle it just like when I first got it for Windows. Ubuntu yields the same issue. I have not tried many other distros.
Again, I found out that the problem was resolved by downloading a software tool to manually limit the clock speed of the processor. However, I do NOT like the idea of relying on a random third party software tool that may eventually break.
There is no way for me to underclock the CPU in the BIOS.
The internals are not dusty and have been cleaned with compressed air.
I would like to give my laptop away to a relative and would like to keep Linux Mint on it for them.
Is there a better solution to my issue without relying on software that may stop working in the future? What would be the cause of the laptop freezing unless the CPU is limited, even as a brand new system?
Thanks all.
You say it is clean, but have you re-pasted the cpu? How are the thermals?
Also, It is on battery or wall power? Is it using the original battery? Thought there is the voltage isn’t stable.
Is it even possible to remove and reset the CPU on a laptop? I’m kind of ignorant in doing that.
Essentially any laptop I have had has had a tendency to overheat (shitty design or just a limitation of laptops I guess), but I need to get some better temp monitoring software.
I exclusively use wall power, but I use the battery for a backup. It runs on the original battery.
Again, these issues have been present since the thing was brand new, so it’s not simply that the battery is old. But you might be on to something with the voltage being wonky. On some occasions maybe only less than a year into its life, the computer would give me a pre-OS error about the battery when I booted the laptop without the AC adapter. It would boot and charge normally so I just ignored it and the errors were infrequent…I never actually connected the two. It hasn’t shown me that error in years at this point now. You think that this is related?
Yep, usually. May require a bit of work to open and take out. The heatsink is usually screwed to a plate not much different to a desktop gpu with a block on one side and a metal clip on the other. Gpu can need repasting after 7+ years as well
It could, but I am uncertain. My 3 top guesses are temperature, voltage then failing hardware. Temp is usually the cheapest to fix, but most time consuming. Batteries tend to be more expensive and a bit less involved depending on the laptop. Dell has had disassembly manuals on their website in the past. Haven’t looked recently though.
Hardware failing is just, you are screwed-ish. If you have software that works to underclock it, that is at least a workaround.
Edit: CPU is soldered to board just to be clear. Heatsink can be removed, repasted.