The situation is a Compaq CQ60-302AU which my brother asked me to fix, a charge problem, keyboard problem, (both hardware issues) and install a Linux system to dual boot with MS Vista. The hardware issue was easy enough, however installing opensuse 13.2 proved to be an issue.
The following is what I have tried.
Install 13.2, result-- system unbootable- install boot loader manually, system boots, video is unusable- install NV proprietary drivers, video is good- update system to try to fix instability, instability remains (if anything becomes worse) over time YAST fails.
Delete 13.2
Install 13.1 result-- same as above, but the boot loader works.
More partitioning to mult-iboot and install 12.3 (eventually alongside windows and13.2) 12.3 working well with or without NV proprietary drivers.
But, 12.3 is no longer supported, so soon a later version of opensuse will be needed.
I don’t currently have access to the machine as it has been returned to the owner, but will have periodic access.
The machine has 2GB RAM, GeForce 8200M G, AMD Sempron SI-42.
Any suggestions are welcome.(As long as they aren’t excessively abusive!).
Hello again, this issue bugged me more than a little and i came up with some more things to try, so I got the machine back and tried them.
One thought was that the issue may be related to KDE on this hardware for some odd reason, so I reinstalled with LXDE instead, the instability add video issues disappeared completely.
I then installed the KDE and Gnome patterns, however nothing shows up when I logout, so for now I don’t know if KDE will work or if it is the issue. I have started a thread on the logout issue in the applications forum, if anyone can help there I would appreciate it.
The boot loader failure with 13.2 on this machine is a concern because it makes the machine unbootable and this is the type of issue where you hear people say “Linux killed my windows” or even “Linux killed my computer”. Yes, for most of us it is a 2 minute. job to install a bootloader.
In this case I can also, once booted with an appropriate disk install the boot loader from the installed system with yast2, so I have to wonder why the installer falls over on this.
But you hardly describe the boot problem in detail for people to think
about it…
I will try to describe the boot problem better here.
On this system when installing 13.2 and watching the install data the installer tells you it has successfully installed the boot loader.
On attempting to reboot you discover you can not boot to any system, I think it showed GRUB and an error message, unfortunately I do not remember that message, i know that is of no help. When I get the other issues sorted I can repartition to do a separate install of 13.2 to record that info if needed.
I’m using “MBR” with grub2 I have done multiple installs in MBR,Root partition and Extended Partition, and a combination.
I have used both grub and generic code and a combination with the above.
13.2 does not install a usable bootloader on this machine even though the installer states sucess, you can use all options available, it does not work.
But as I stated, once the system is installed I can install a working grub2 easily from yast.
Also 12.3 and 13.1 installers install their bootloaders without issue.
The ISO is fine, burned in K3B with its md5sum checked against the original from opensuse downloads withK3B’s write integrity check, followed by the the integrity check on the DVD itself.
I have also installed 13.2 previously on a machine using MBR instead of UEFI with no problems.
I also have no idea why there is an issue on this machine with boot on 13.2
As I suggested earlier I will attempt another install when I finish other current issues, Please advise on preferred boot loader settings and method of gaining useful data about that bootloader install.
The bootloader issue is not the only strange problem I am having on this machine 13.1 and 13.2 have serious with running KDE, while Gnome and LXDE run fine all run fine on 12.3. When I installed 13.2 with LXDE as the desktop instead KDE, LXDE worked well, I installed KDE and Gnome, I booted to Gnome, all was well, try to boot to KDE and I get a blank screen with my cursor on it, I don’t even get a chance to check stability issues, there is no stability.
Well this machine had hardware problem. So check the drive with smartctl. Could still have some problem that was not obvious. Also Vista gives an idea of it’s age.
I ran gsmartcontrol from a Live CD, the resault was “completed without error”. The disk however could give trouble soon, if I read this correctly.
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-linux-2.6.38.8-pmagic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Scorpio Blue Serial ATA
Device Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-60ZCT1
Serial Number: WD-WXE509KA7339
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2ad7b3eb6
Firmware Version: 13.01A13
User Capacity: 320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Sat Nov 1 02:08:38 2014 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 9960) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x51) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 118) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x303f) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 188 186 021 Pre-fail Always - 1600
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 4687
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 094 094 000 Old_age Always - 4899
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 3389
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 098 000 Old_age Always - 3
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 033 027 040 Old_age Always FAILING_NOW 67
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 205
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 169 169 000 Old_age Always - 94014
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 080 074 000 Old_age Always - 67
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 200 200 051 Pre-fail Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 4899 -
# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 4897 -
# 3 Extended offline Aborted by host 70% 4895 -
# 4 Short offline Completed without error 00% 4895 -
# 5 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 4841 -
# 6 Short offline Completed without error 00% 4841 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
I will do a RAM check and run it over night, and perhaps run a few heavy benchmarks to see if a hardware issue can be found.
It seems that I was a bit premature in stating that Gnome and LXDE were stable on this machine with 13.2, some apps refuse to start and some crash as soon as they are used, of-course some work fine.
I am tempted to keep 12.3 going on this machine untill the next version of opensuse comes and tackle any issues then.
I was running mtest86 on this machine,with fully charged battery and the mains power connected, it had been running for about 45 minutes without errors when I came back to check it and found that the machine had turned itself off. I rebooted and started mtest86 again.
While writing this post the same problem occurred within about 15 minutes of restarting mtest86.
This is looking uncomfortably like a CPU or GPU over heating, and I know the fan works.
On Sun 12 Apr 2015 04:56:01 PM CDT, dvhenry wrote:
I was running mtest86 on this machine,with fully charged battery and the
mains power connected, it had been running for about 45 minutes without
errors when I came back to check it and found that the machine had
turned itself off. I rebooted and started mtest86 again.
While writing this post the same problem occurred within about 15
minutes of restarting mtest86.
This is looking uncomfortably like a CPU or GPU over heating, and I know
the fan works.
Hi
I bet there is a big wad of dust between the fan and the heat fins…
Strip it down and while your at it re do the cpu/gpu thermal compound.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.12.39-47-default
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I am going to check the cooling system on this machine, but I still have an issue, does not a system install produce more heat than 45 minutes of ram check?
I made many install attempts and would have expected an overheating issue to show itself, at least if it can do so on a ram check.
Hi
The RAM test is designed to stress the system. During install it may be reading and writing to the system, gpu or cpu may not be running at full speeds etc during those pauses, so a good chance it may not hit the triggers to shutdown…
I have a CQ56 and a CQ62 here, the CQ56 I rebuilt with a dual core T4400 cpu and it had a dust wad present, both have faulty keyboards, a very common issue with these by the looks. Might turn it into a small server at some point, else will just be bits like the CQ62.