Total system freeze since last stable update

Hi everyone!

So, since the last stable update my system freezes suddenly and it’s completely unresponsive to any input and it’s only fixed by a reset.
Now, I think I isolated the problem: it only happens when I’m playing Hearthstone via Lutris, so from time to time my system freezes midgame.
Hearthstone it’s not my main concern, if I have to give it up to have a stable system so be it, but I want to know what is causing the issue and I’m not competent enough to find/understand the information from the journal so I’m asking for help.
It all was just fine before the last update and I think it’s very strange that it affects only that application.

Again, I’m not asking for support on lutris/hearthstone, I just want to know how to isolate and track down what the issue is and maybe learn how to troubleshoot this kind of problems in the future!
Thank you in advance and a have a great day!

inxi -Fazy

     System:
      Kernel: 5.4.97-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
      parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4-x86_64 
      root=UUID=5f7a7ef9-ca3d-413a-8734-f763cb82c6ef rw pci=noaer quiet apparmor=1 
      security=apparmor resume=UUID=bc81d4a7-d397-440e-9225-c2eae38cb1df 
      udev.log_priority=3 
      Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 tk: Qt 5.15.2 info: latte-dock wm: kwin_x11 
      dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux 
    Machine:
      Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: X541UAK v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
      Mobo: ASUSTeK model: X541UAK v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
      UEFI: American Megatrends v: X541UAK.311 date: 03/14/2018 
    Battery:
      ID-1: BAT0 charge: 24.4 Wh condition: 28.5/34.6 Wh (83%) volts: 10.8/10.8 
      model: ASUSTeK ASUS Battery type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: Discharging 
      cycles: 490 
      Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 
      model: Logitech G305 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse serial: <filter> 
      charge: 100% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
    CPU:
      Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-6006U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
      arch: Skylake family: 6 model-id: 4E (78) stepping: 3 microcode: E2 
      L2 cache: 3 MiB 
      flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
      bogomips: 16006 
      Speed: 730 MHz min/max: 400/2000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 730 2: 735 3: 743 
      4: 728 
      Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
      Type: l1tf 
      mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
      Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
      Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
      Type: spec_store_bypass 
      mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
      Type: spectre_v1 
      mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
      Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
      IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
      Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
      Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
    Graphics:
      Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 
      v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:1916 class ID: 0300 
      Device-2: IMC Networks USB2.0 VGA UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
      bus ID: 1-6:3 chip ID: 13d3:5a01 class ID: 0e02 serial: <filter> 
      Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
      loaded: intel display ID: :0 screens: 1 
      Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") 
      s-diag: 414mm (16.3") 
      Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 102 size: 340x190mm (13.4x7.5") 
      diag: 389mm (15.3") 
      OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 
      direct render: Yes 
    Audio:
      Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
      driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl bus ID: 00:1f.3 
      chip ID: 8086:9d70 class ID: 0403 
      Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.97-1-MANJARO 
    Network:
      Device-1: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK 
      driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.2 chip ID: 10ec:8136 
      class ID: 0200 
      IF: enp2s0f2 state: down mac: <filter> 
      Device-2: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lite-On 
      driver: rtl8723be v: kernel port: d000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:b723 
      class ID: 0280 
      IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
    Bluetooth:
      Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
      bus ID: 1-8:4 chip ID: 0bda:b721 class ID: e001 serial: <filter> 
      Message: Required tool hciconfig not installed. Check --recommends 
    Drives:
      Local Storage: total: 577.55 GiB used: 170.18 GiB (29.5%) 
      SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
      ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Crucial model: CT500MX500SSD1 
      size: 465.76 GiB block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
      rotation: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 023 scheme: GPT 
      ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Crucial model: CT120BX500SSD1 
      size: 111.79 GiB block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
      rotation: SSD serial: <filter> rev: R013 scheme: GPT 
    Partition:
      ID-1: / raw size: 161.13 GiB size: 157.6 GiB (97.81%) 
      used: 73.15 GiB (46.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5 
      ID-2: /boot/efi raw size: 500 MiB size: 499 MiB (99.80%) 
      used: 320 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda6 maj-min: 8:6 
    Swap:
      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 3.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
      dev: /dev/sda7 maj-min: 8:7 
    Sensors:
      System Temperatures: cpu: 33.0 C mobo: N/A 
      Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2100 
    Info:
      Processes: 177 Uptime: 15m wakeups: 4 Memory: 7.66 GiB used: 1.8 GiB (23.6%) 
      Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 clang: 11.0.1 Packages: 
      pacman: 1571 lib: 497 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.0 running in: konsole 
      inxi: 3.3.01

FWIW I also experienced a freeze after the update. KDE but 5.10 kernel. It happened as I was changing the audio output device in discord. Since you mentioned you were playing a game, I would not be surprised to find out it has something do with audio.

Hi @patrick,
That is strange indeed, I’ll look more into that!
I tried with kernel 5.10 and the issue didn’t present itself, but gaming performance on that kernel are terrible for now, at least for me and I didn’t test it extensively.
I need every last bit of power I can squeeze from my poor old core i3 :joy:
Thank you!