My Gateway MX6440 Laptop, which has Deabian 64 Bit loaded on it, will no longer successfully boot. After selecting which kernel to boot (2.6.22-3 AMD64) at the GRUB menu, it begins the usual Linux bootup sequence, and then BAM!

PCI: MSI quirk detected. MSI deactivated

After that, nothing whatsoever (even let it sit overnight to see if it was just something that was taking a long time to get through).

I did the usual web search for the specific message, and came up with a lot of hits. Unfortunately, most of those were just from within log files other people have posted for assorted other problems. And the couple hits where
someone else was having the same problem, presented no solution whatsoever.

Any tips on how to fix this and get this little beastie operational again?

What did you change? Does a previous kernel work?

Nothing changed. I had a system crash while trying to access a shared drive that suddenly went south on me. When I rebooted, the above error occurred. I also tried one of the older kernels that was still on there, and still got the freeze up. Likewise, I got the same error when booting up with an Ubuntu disk.

I saw something during my searches about disabling something like ACPI or some junk in GRUB, but I have no clue how to use the GRUB shell for this at the GRUB menu.

I guess I could pop the drive into one of my testing and maintenance stations with the IDE adapter and manually edit menu.list that way, but I am still unsure how to actually do this.

Anyone here at all have any clue where to begin troubleshooting this? Surely I am not the first and only one to ever encounter this problem.

Install and boot to a newer kernel, or use some kernel parameter like acpi=off so as to continue past that and troubleshoot.

Thanks for the advice. Installing a newer kernel isn't possible, since even booting up with a live CD like Knoppix or Ubuntu fails the same way.

That acpi=off option sounds like what I am looking for. Now, how do I pass kernel parameters like that? That is something I have not been able to figure yet.

In fact, I am guessing that I should be able to put that permanently in GRUB's menu.lst file. However, I am still not quite certain of the format for stuff like that.

Then something in your laptop has died. Sorry.

knoppix usually shows you the log as it boots, looking at where it falls over may help you diagnose the (hardware) problem.

Edit: You might try memtest-86 at the knoppix or 'buntu boot menu /Edit

try something like this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=335347

basically, you press 'e' at the boot screen, before the timer runs out, then you edit the line of the kernel you want to use TO INCLUDE 'acpi=off'. Then you boot by pressing 'b'. I haven't done this in a while, so I don't know if it will work for you... turning off acpi might not even address your problem. Hope this post is helpfull.

But:

- The PC was working before.
- There is no evidence presented that the shared drive "went south". It is more likely that the laptop "went south", as it will now not boot anything.

-This is not normal behaviour.

-> It's most likely to be a hardware fault.

I guess my describing the problem with the network drive may have been a bit confusing. When I said it went south, I just meant I lost access to it at the time the laptop crashed. There was one other system also accessing said drive, and it lost access as well and crashed (but was otherwise unharmed).

So that may have just been coincidence. But felt it was relevant because it was what was going on at the time the problems started manifesting. Guess I should cycle the power on that drive soon to make sure it is okay, since I have not done anything with it since then, and still can't access it (USB drive daisy chained into a NAS drive that does still work.)


So now that that bit of overinformation is out of the way, here is another update:

I edited the boot parameters with acpi=off and noapic, and neither of those allowed me to get past the MSI Quirk message.

After that, I remembered that when I tried one of the older kernels that was still installed and also tried Knoppix, it halted at Initializing USB (or something related to USB). So with that in mind, I went into the BIOS and disabled Legacy USB support, since that was the only USB related settable BIOS feature.

Now, the computer won't even POST, and I can not seem to figure out how to even reset the BIOS back to the defaults. I tried pulling the battery hoping that would reset everything, but no dice.

I'm now beginning to think that this may in fact be a failure of the onboard USB controller. I figure that if I can get it to POST, I may be able to toss in a different drive and throw a quick Windwoes install on just to see if any assorted Win-based diagnostic tools can help me troubleshoot it.

And if it is truly a failed USB controller (one of the ports, I recall, does only provide power and nothing else now), then hopefully I can find some sort of guide for replacing the controller myself, as replacing the laptop is currently not a viable option for me.

If it won't even get as far as POST then the hardware is broken.
Top suspect culprit = PSU
I'd take it to my local repair shop and let them have a look at it (desktops are easy to work with - lots of standard parts, laptops not so easy).