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I have a Lenovo P50 laptop with the following specs:

CPU: i7
Ram: 32GB
Video: NVIDIA Quadro M1000M
SSD0: 1TB
SSD1: 512MB
SSD2: 512MB

I have tried the following Ubuntu versions:

14.04.6-desktop-amd64
18.04.5-''
20.04.1-''

I have closely followed the instructions found on the Lenovo site found here

My problem is the same on every installation. When I launch Firefox or Opera, they both freeze and or crash. Sometimes, I can get Firefox to work for a little while and Opera usually works for about 5-10 minutes before crashing. I am entirely new to Linux and I don't have the slightest clue on where to begin. I have a hunch that I'm having a problem with the NVIDIA but I don't really know. What am I doing wrong?

Edit: I am not using any add-ons and I have turned off hardware acceleration.

Edit: I updated the BIOS but still experience the issue.

Edit: ###### UBUNTU IS NOW FREEZING RANDOMLY TOO ######

NoOne
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  • Have you done any driver or hardware enablement actions on the machine, yet? If not, open a terminal and run this: sudo apt install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-20.04. This may resolve your graphics issues while also enabling some of your other devices to work better –  Feb 10 '21 at 23:02
  • Thanks, will do. I will re-install 20.04 and get back to you. – NoOne Feb 10 '21 at 23:03
  • Only supported releases of Ubuntu (standard support) are on-topic for this site. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is EOL (end-of-life) thus off-topic, and Ubuntu 14.04 ESM is in extended support and only supported by Canonical via Ubuntu Advantage thus also off-topic here. Refer https://askubuntu.com/help/on-topic https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2019/05/02/ubuntu-14-04-trusty-tahr-reached-end-of-life-on-april-25-2019-esm-available/ I realize the other releases are on-topic, but why not have tried 16.04 or something supported & thus on-topic for this site – guiverc Feb 10 '21 at 23:56
  • opera is not default on any official installation, thus what firefox are you using? have you tried snaps if so which? what package version(s) did you try? given the opera also implies you're not just using default browsers. – guiverc Feb 10 '21 at 23:57
  • Thanks Matigo, when I run that command, the result is "linux-generic-hwe-20.04 is already the newest version..." – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 00:24
  • The firefox version is 79.0 and I only installed Opera because firefox wasn't working and to show that it doesn't seem to be an issue related to firefox. – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 00:26
  • Open System Monitor - Resources tab, and watch to see what might be tanking. – user3169 Feb 11 '21 at 05:24
  • Thanks, user3169. Unfortunately nothing notable in System Monitor when Firefox freezes. All 8 cpus are at 10% and memory is at around 8%. – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 05:44

1 Answers1

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Looks like RAM issue. Check it by memtest86

ExploitFate
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  • Thanks. I searched how to use memtest and I found that the process for brining up the grub menu are (1) reboot and (2) hold the shift key. It doesn't work. I can't get the grub menu to appear. – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 00:21
  • Ok, I managed to make a bootable USB for memtest and it ran with no errors. Do you have anything else I can try? – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 04:53
  • Did you run quick test or full? I think it's hardware issue. You can test browsers with disabled hardware acceleration https://www.itechtics.com/disable-hardware-acceleration-in-google-chrome-firefox-opera-and-vivaldi/ – ExploitFate Feb 11 '21 at 08:43
  • Yes, I have tried disabling hardware acceleration and made certain no add-ins are installed – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 14:16
  • As far as the Ram test, when memtest booted, it started on its own and was anything but quick. So I don't know if it was the "quick test" or not. I can't get memtest86 to show up in Grub so I downloaded the most current version 9. When it started, it's image wouldn't display properly, so I then used version 4. I'm not sure how UEFI works over legacy BIOS but my system is supposed to be capable. – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 14:24
  • I let memtest run for another 5 hours and not a single error. One thing to note, my SO-DIMM slots are not equal. There are four slots available and only three are used. Two have matching 8GB sticks and the other has a 16GB stick. I'm not sure on the speeds. However, if there was truly a problem with memory, why would Ubuntu keep going and Firefox freeze? – NoOne Feb 11 '21 at 22:08
  • Now the OS is also randomly freezing. I think you're right, there is a hardware problem but I'm not sure it's memory. – NoOne Feb 12 '21 at 01:21
  • It looks like it's some kind of CPU problem. When I turn off mutli-processing in BIOS, it works fine, but everything is obviously slower. Is there some way I can control the i7 core processor??? – NoOne Feb 12 '21 at 02:57
  • You can install gnome shell extentions like https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/841/freon/ to monitor temperatures and https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/945/cpu-power-manager/ to manage CPU perfomance – ExploitFate Feb 12 '21 at 15:06
  • Thanks, I will try that. When I disable Core Multi-Processing in BIOS, everything seems to work great. However, even with Intel (R) Hyper-Threading Technology enabled, I only have two cores. It's a four core processor and with hyper-threading, I could have eight, which would be optimal for me. – NoOne Feb 12 '21 at 15:34