I have a Ryzen 3 1300X at the moment and it’s always had this soft lock freezing bug on Linux. I used to dual-boot Windows on this machine and Windows never had the same problem, so I think it is an issue with the Linux kernel (I’ve also replaced nearly every bit of hardware that I originally built the PC with, except for the CPU and motherboard, so it probably is an issue the kernel has with my CPU, or possibly the motherboard firmware).
I’ve changed the kernel parameters as suggested by the Arch Wiki. The bug is pretty inconsistent about happening so only time will tell if this solves the issue. But if it doesn’t solve the issue, I’d honestly consider just getting a new CPU that doesn’t have this issue, as completely freezing up, unable to get to a tty or anything, and only being able to power off by physically holding down the power button, is a pretty major issue, even if it only happens sometimes.
So if I do get a new CPU, or maybe just for when I’m next buying a CPU for reasons unrelated to this bug (been considering an upgrade to something that’s better for compiling anyway), are there any good options out there? Intel is investing $25 billion into Israel and the BNC has called for “divestment and exclusion” from it (it’s not officially on the BDS consumer boycott list, but I’m still very much not comfortable buying from Intel). But the Arch Wiki article seems to suggest this bug is applicable to Ryzen CPUs in general, or at least it never specifies a particular model or range of models. So maybe I’m limited to non-Ryzen AMD CPUs?
I’m guessing this is one of the situations where two companies have a complete duopoly over the market and there isn’t an all-round good solution, but thought I’d ask in case anyone had some useful input.
Not 100% sure if it is the same issue as you linked to, but I have an early Ryzen 7 1700 that has a hardware error (google “ryzen performance marginality” to find info about it) causing it not to work properly with linux. I never bothered to RMA my CPU. I’ve made it kinda work anyways, by disabling cool and quiet or whatever it is called, and set a fixed overclock to compensate for the lack of turbo after that. The idea is that the CPU should always run at a fixed clock speed instead of clocking down to save power when idle. Haven’t had any issues with this CPU for a while now after I did that.
BTW I upgraded my desktop with a 3900x and put the 1700 in a server. Never had any issues with the 3900x on linux, so getting a newer generation ryzen for you PC second hand or something might just fix it as well.
Thank you, I’m getting this response a lot. Will be getting a newer gen Ryzen, probably a Ryzen 5 5600X because I don’t want to get an AM5 board (which will only support DDR5 RAM, thus I’ll have to replace my perfectly good DDR4 sticks, etc, just a ridiculous amount of unnecessary e-waste when I’ve had multiple people commenting here saying 5000 series seem to work fine)