qemu/kvm memory question (programming.dev)

submitted 5 days ago by transporter_ii@programming.dev to c/linux4noobs@programming.dev

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Moved to Mint months back. I had to install Win10 in a kvm for a couple of things impossible on Linux. I allocated 16 gig of ram to the kvm. I can't really find anything on how that works, exactly. According to Stacer, I have a consistent 16 gig of ram being used, but that's between a running Win10 kvm and all of my other running Linux programs. I've never seen my system memory use move higher or lower than 16 gig of ram when the vm is running. Again, that's the kvm + normal Linux programs.

If I allocated 16 gig of ram to the kvm, shouldn't my memory usage be over 16 gig or ram with other Linux programs running?

About once a week, maybe two weeks, I open a new tab on a browser and it hangs my system. Nothing works but the mouse pointer.

I initially thought of a memory leak with Firefox, but it will also do it opening a new tab in Chrome.

The last time it hung up, I think I noticed the virtual machine manager icon was missing from the menu bar. I'm waiting for it to hang up again to verify this.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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[-] transporter_ii@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Have you checked dmesg (or historical system boot logs) and also ran memtest86+ to make sure your RAM isn’t faulty? Even if it’s brand new it can still happen. If you have another system nearby (or even just a phone) you could try to SSH (make sure to enable/start the daemon before it freezes) into the machine and see if it’s still responsive.

I have poked around in logs a little. Nothing has jumped out at me. I'll test the memory and turn SSH on. I used Ubuntu on the desktop for about 8 - 10 years, and then swapped back to Windows ~2018 for work. I used to mess with hardware a lot, but I've fried my brain programming for too many years now.

I do see reports of Linux Mint hanging with nothing but the mouse working, but nothing has jumped out at me as a fix. The reports are going back a while, too. A lot of comments say it is something with the graphics card.

My new pc is a: HP OmniDesk Desktop Computer PC, AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, 32GB DDR5 Memory, 1TB NVMe SSD, Radeon 780M Graphics

Outside of this one issue, it's a beast with Linux on it (I'm not a gamer, though). I bought it right before RAM prices jacked the prices of everything up.

this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026

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