LINUX KEEPS RESTARTING

[u/No-Mention-4812]

​

Weird issue I can't figure out. My desktop (Linux Mint XFCE) randomly restarts, but only when it's hooked up to Ethernet. Unplug the cable or turn off the router and it's totally stable. Right now I'm just tethering internet off my phone through USB-C and it hasn't restarted once.

Stuff I've already checked/ruled out:

- Swapped the router AND the cable for new ones, still happens

- Went through journalctl for the previous boots — no kernel panic, no Oops, no MCE, no thermal shutdown, no watchdog reset. Nothing. The log for the crashed boot just stops mid-sentence basically, no shutdown sequence logged at all

- Ran smartctl on my SSD thinking maybe it was dying — health says PASSED, no reallocated sectors, temps fine. Only weird thing in the error log was a handful of READ commands that got cut off within like 30-40 seconds of boot, which honestly just looks like the power died mid-read, not the drive actually failing

- Also tried moving the PC off the extension board straight into the wall socket, didn't help

It's not instant either — I can be connected and just sitting there and it's fine, but if I actually start using the internet (browsing etc) for like 5-10 min it eventually reboots, sometimes 2-3 times back to back before it stabilizes again.

Onboard NIC, pretty sure it's a Realtek chip but I need to double check. Anyone run into this before? Trying to figure out if this is a dying NIC, some driver issue (r8169 maybe), or something totally different I'm not thinking of. Can post more logs if it helps.

[u/0riginal-Syn]

First Rule #1.
Second I would recommend going to r/linuxmint for issues on Mint.