I'm getting a bit frustrated.
Firstly, I'm not talking about booting off the CD-ROM, I can do that fine. I've installed Knoppix to the hard disk of a computer, with great ease I might add, so it's now meant to be a Debian system (see other thread somewhere or other...)
Every time I boot the system from cold it freezes half way through booting X at a sickly grey screen and an immobile X cursor in the centre. If the computer has been turned on a while and I shut it down, it boots up again fine. I don't quite know what to do, I suspect it could be a hardware problem? The hardware is all quite a few years old and from various dubious second hand locations. (A poor geek has to get his kit from somewhere, can't afford to buy it new!)
Thanks in advance
Ben "tola" Francis
On Saturday 07 June 2003 10:22, Ben Francis wrote:
Every time I boot the system from cold it freezes half way through booting X at a sickly grey screen and an immobile X cursor in the centre. If the computer has been turned on a while and I shut it down, it boots up again fine.
Sounds like X is starting but the windows manager isn't. It could be a graphics card problem. But whenever I have had these "starting from cold the first time" problems it has usually been down to the Power Supply, normally however that manifests itself at the Power on Self Test stage in the bios and not after the OS has loaded.
If you live anywhere near Bury St Edmunds you are welcome to pop over to my office and borrow bits to swap out to help you isolate the fault.
Wayne
could be a graphics card problem.
I have had problems with the graphics config with it using generic drivers and I'm currently running a 1024x768 resolution on a 14" monitor which is less than comfortable! It seems to only like 1024x168 and 640x480 and when I try and force XF86Config to use 800x600 it seems to default to 640x480 and the taskbar doesn't fit on the screen! Although I can't be sure because I don't know where you can find out what resolution is currently running.
There's a listing of the graphics parts of my XF86Config files here http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2617 if you're interested.
But whenever I have had these "starting from cold the first time" problems it has usually been down to the Power Supply, normally however that manifests itself at the Power on Self Test stage in the bios and not after the OS has loaded.
odd
If you live anywhere near Bury St Edmunds you are welcome to pop over to my office and borrow bits to swap out to help you isolate the fault.
afraid not, but thanks for the offer.
Ben "tola" Francis
On Saturday 07 Jun 2003 11:22 am, Ben Francis wrote:
I'm getting a bit frustrated.
Firstly, I'm not talking about booting off the CD-ROM, I can do that fine. I've installed Knoppix to the hard disk of a computer, with great ease I might add, so it's now meant to be a Debian system (see other thread somewhere or other...)
Every time I boot the system from cold it freezes half way through booting X at a sickly grey screen and an immobile X cursor in the centre. If the computer has been turned on a while and I shut it down, it boots up again fine. I don't quite know what to do, I suspect it could be a hardware problem? The hardware is all quite a few years old and from various dubious second hand locations. (A poor geek has to get his kit from somewhere, can't afford to buy it new!)
Thanks in advance
Ben "tola" Francis
Most likely a RAM problem. Happened to me a few years ago. Try re-seating them or swapping them round. If your problem was the same as mine this will not cure it but the failure point changes. Solution is new RAM.
Ian
Ian Bell ian@redtommo.com wrote:
not cure it but the failure point changes. Solution is new RAM.
Poor hackers might like to try the badram patch, if it's still available. It's been a few years since I used it.
On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 11:09 am, MJ Ray wrote:
Ian Bell ian@redtommo.com wrote:
not cure it but the failure point changes. Solution is new RAM.
Poor hackers might like to try the badram patch, if it's still available. It's been a few years since I used it.
In my case the problem was also time/temperature related i.e the bad RAM location was not constant. Does the badram patch cope with this?
Ian
On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 02:45:48PM +0100, Ian Bell wrote:
On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 11:09 am, MJ Ray wrote:
Ian Bell ian@redtommo.com wrote:
not cure it but the failure point changes. Solution is new RAM.
Poor hackers might like to try the badram patch, if it's still available. It's been a few years since I used it.
In my case the problem was also time/temperature related i.e the bad RAM location was not constant. Does the badram patch cope with this?
the badram patch only deals with bad ram in known locations, if you had the badram moving around then that sounds a bit nasty and time to put the module in the bin!
If you are buying RAM I can recommend using crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk they are cheap to the point of not being crap, and they have good warranties.
Adam
On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 3:18 pm, Adam Bower wrote:
If you are buying RAM I can recommend using crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk they are cheap to the point of not being crap, and they have good warranties.
I concur, good prices for ram as good as you will get anywhere, they also do weird and wonderful stuff that's difficult to get hold of.
Cheers, BJ
On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 3:47 pm, John Woodard wrote:
On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 3:18 pm, Adam Bower wrote:
If you are buying RAM I can recommend using crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk they are cheap to the point of not being crap, and they have good warranties.
I concur, good prices for ram as good as you will get anywhere, they also do weird and wonderful stuff that's difficult to get hold of.
Equally good value for laptop RAM too.
Ian
From: Ian Bell On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 3:47 pm, John Woodard wrote:
On Sunday 08 Jun 2003 3:18 pm, Adam Bower wrote:
If you are buying RAM I can recommend using crucial http://www.crucial.com/uk they are cheap to the point of not being crap, and they have good warranties.
I concur, good prices for ram as good as you will get anywhere, they also do weird and wonderful stuff that's difficult to get hold of.
Equally good value for laptop RAM too.
However I recently bought a 256M PC100 DIMM from Maplin in Norwich for 48.99, which was as cheap as anything I'd seen on the web (once you take the cost of P&P into account).
Regards,
Keith ____________ CLAIRVOYANT, n. Persons who have the power of seeing that which is invisible to their patrons, namely, that they are fools. Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary
On Mon, Jun 09, 2003 at 09:31:05AM +0100, Keith Watson wrote:
However I recently bought a 256M PC100 DIMM from Maplin in Norwich for 48.99, which was as cheap as anything I'd seen on the web (once you take the cost of P&P into account).
You were ripped off there! could have saved 83p buying from crucial (although you could have bought PC133 RAM from them which would have cost 41.11 and works in 99.9% of cases where you need PC100).
The other reasons I buy from crucial is that they seem to have a no quibble replacement policy on faulty RAM (the one time i returned some RAM they replaced it within 24hours) and you also know it is not going to be like no-name RAM which I have had so many problems with in the past.
Adam
On Mon, Jun 09, 2003 at 09:51:09AM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
You were ripped off there! could have saved 83p buying from crucial (although you could have bought PC133 RAM from them which would have cost 41.11 and works in 99.9% of cases where you need PC100).
The other reasons I buy from crucial is that they seem to have a no quibble replacement policy on faulty RAM (the one time i returned some RAM they replaced it within 24hours) and you also know it is not going to be like no-name RAM which I have had so many problems with in the past.
Crucial are amazing. Full stop. Next day delivery, excellent support etc. Just what every company should be doing in this damn world!
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Adam Bower -
Ben Francis -
Craig -
Ian Bell -
John Woodard -
Keith Watson -
MJ Ray -
Wayne Stallwood