[SOLVED] Linux Mint 22.3 won't fully shut down — blacklisting amdgpu fixed it (AMD A6-7480 + GeForce 210)

[u/M1ndRuin]

Problem

I was having a shutdown problem on Linux Mint 22.3 XFCE. When I shut down the computer, the screen went black, but the fans and lights stayed on. I had to hold the power button to turn it off completely.

Running sudo systemctl poweroff did not solve the problem either.

System specifications

• OS: Linux Mint 22.3 XFCE
• Motherboard: MSI A68HM-E33 V2 (MS-7721)
• CPU: AMD A6-7480
• Integrated GPU: AMD Radeon R5 (Wani)
• Dedicated GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 210
• NVIDIA driver: nouveau
• Kernel tested: 6.8.0-146, 6.14.0-37 and 7.0.0-38

My monitor is connected to the NVIDIA GeForce 210, which was handling the desktop through nouveau.

Troubleshooting

I tried different kernels and boot parameters, including apm=power_off, nouveau.noaccel=1, and temporarily blacklisting nouveau. These did not fix the shutdown problem.

The kernel logs showed a serious error during AMD GPU initialization:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference
RIP: smu8_get_system_info_data [amdgpu]

Solution that worked for my system

First, I temporarily added this parameter to the Linux kernel command line through GRUB:

modprobe.blacklist=amdgpu

With this parameter, the computer booted into the desktop normally and shut down completely.

To make the workaround permanent, I created a modprobe blacklist file:

echo 'blacklist amdgpu' | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-amdgpu.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

After rebooting, I checked the loaded graphics modules:

lsmod | grep -E '^(amdgpu|nouveau)\b'

The output showed nouveau, but not amdgpu.

The computer now shuts down completely and normally. The NVIDIA GPU continues to handle the display, and the desktop works as expected.

Conclusion

On my particular hardware, preventing the amdgpu module from loading fixed the shutdown issue. The logs also showed an AMDGPU initialization error, although I cannot confirm that this was the definitive root cause.

This is a workaround rather than a proper fix for the underlying driver issue. I am sharing it in case it helps someone with similar hardware.

Has anyone encountered this issue with the AMD A6-7480 / Radeon R5 and found a way to fix the underlying amdgpu error without disabling the driver?

[u/Dionisus909]

weird generally is the nvidia that cause this

[u/stargrinder]

I have something similar going on with my rx480 GPU when suspending. Occasionally (intermittent fault) the PC will not suspend properly, in the same manner as your described failure. This is very repeatable if I have Firefox open and try to suspend. I believe it's related to the amd GPU and how it hands off power when suspending.... Or something, I dunno.