I've been playing Descenders on Linux on Steam, and it's been running really well until now.

I can play for about a minute before the entire machine does a full reset. It just goes black and then a reboot.

Clearly there is a kernel problem, and I probably did an update when the problem started. This was on Fedora 31, and I upgraded to 32 a few days ago and even after the upgrade the problem remains.

I'd like some advice as to how to debug this. It's likely a driver issue, and the Radeon drivers are of course suspicious.

Any ideas?

@loke Anything in the /var/crash directory (or core dumps elsewhere)?

@modrobert That directory is empty. Then again, that wouldn't capture kernel crashes, would it?

@loke If you don't get any crash logs, and if this is a laptop. From experience, I would guess the motherboard temp is causing GFX (and CPU if combined package) BGA circuit to flex slightly against board (PCB) which over time eventually leads to solder cracks in the solder balls under the BGA. Common problem in laptops. If this is the case, and you have warranty, then manufacturer will replace the motherboard for you. If no warranty (usually the case), then you need to send the motherboard to be reballed by professional who repair. There are temporary fixes where they just reheat the board, but then it will only last like a month before the problem is back.

@modrobert That's not the issue here. This is a fairly new desktop machine, with a separate RX 5700 XT card.

It's somewhat weird that it started happening all of a sudden, and through several kernel updates (including an upgrade of Fedora from 31 to 32) the problem remains.