I have placed this here because I could not find any place it would fit?


Hey,


Several days ago I was blissfully running Manjaro along side of PCLOS and all was simpatico. For a reason which now does not seem important I rebooted. However this time the reboot did not go as it usually would have gone. I happened to have been using PCLOS at the time. Any way my PC shuts down and restarts however this time it began to make a racket; squeaks and squelches and brrittatt. I thought my PC had finally had it. I pressed the power button and it shuts down. It was not until later did I learned this was not necessary.


At the time I would using the power button on the tower turn my PC on and off in rapid succession. As soon as I heard the noise I press the power button and almost immediately I'd press it again. Sometimes it may have hit a 'sweet spot' and my PCLOS would start up. You can see how this could get on a persons nerves. I should have sought out help then or I might not be in the pickle I am now?


I apologise for this convoluted ranting but I am finding it difficult to make sense out of what I did or the why. Suffice to say at a point I found quite by accident that if I let the computer run noise and what have you that, in a couple minutes it would click in and run normally. This happened a couple days after the first 'Noise' incident. It was about here where I decided to reinstall PCLOS and in the partition I removed the partitions for Manjaro. So PCLOS became the one distro on my PC.


I liked having Manjaro on my PC and so a few days later I decided to install it again and sitz hit the fan. I installed it using the GUI method and it went through its routine as I would have expected. Now Manjaro did not eject the Disc when it rebooted as my PCLinuxOS did. So, when it came to then screen with your choices I would select 'Boot from Hard Disc' or it may have been 'Hard Drive'? I am sure those who use Manjaro know what I mean.


Only this time when I pressed that selection my computer began to produce a series of: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz across the monitor screen. I stepped away in the hope that in a few moments it would 'work' its way back. Five minutes later and the screen was full of zzzzzzzzzzzzz's.


I powered it off, again with the button on the tower. I powered up again, just long enough to remove the disc then shut it down. I restarted it up and as I expected came the 'noise'. A couple minutes later and there was the screen giving me a choice Manjaro or PCLOS. However I discovered the screen was frozen when I selected Manjaro pressed it and nothing happened. I tried to move down to PCLOS but it would not move, and I am referring to the up and down arrows on the keyboard.


I had the 'brilliant' idea of reinstalling Manjaro and making it the one and only disro. As I had done before with PCLOS, I did with Manjaro. There seemed not to have been any problems with the install. However, I found that when I left the disc in I'd get the zzzzzzzzzzzzz's and when I tried it with the Disc out the Grub Screen was frozen.


Over the next day and a half I tried do install various distros I'd burned onto DVD discs. None of them worked, the PCULinuxOS DVD's would geidt to the 'boot' loading screen which began to flicker. The others did not even get that far. I'd put the disc in the tray, this was after I'd stopped the PC and restarted it and then stopped it in order to remove the previous disc.



These ones which included: ElementaryOS, Zorin, Fedora 19, 20 and 21,in addition to Ubuntu 14.04.02. (The PC would make the squelches and what have you but by this time I noticed a change in the pitch sometimes high, sometimes low. Sometimes it would be rapid and then slow.) Only with these it did not reach the install screen instead it would get to a black screen with ISO something or the other at the top and 'Boot' just below.


The Linux Kernel for those particular distros were not installed as they shoulh have been under ideal circumstances. All the ones I tried to install failed in one way or another. Then out of Discs I had used I tried a Ubuntu Disc, the very first Linux Distro I used when I went from Windows to Linux. "Ubuntu 9.04" I watched nervously as it installed. I had Manjaro also on my PC and was given a choice to share with Ubuntu or use Ubuntu exclusively. I decided to go with Ubuntu.

It installed and there was o problem with the reboot. I am using an OLD version of Ubuntu and it works. A side of me wants to see if I can get Manjaro beside this Ubuntu and I am also wondering if I can install a newer Ubuntu?


For the time being I am not going to do anything to screw up what I have at the present.

One final thing when I tried those Discs that had the black scree and Boot, I pressd variout keys and found when I had pressed the Alt buttin/key the screen began running ^[^v ^[^v^[^v^] across the screen with "No Kernel Found" thrown in for laughs.

I need help as to what my next step should be? I apologise for the length of this post.

Only this time when I pressed that selection my computer began to produce a series of: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz across the monitor screen. I stepped away in the hope that in a few moments it would 'work' its way back. Five minutes later and the screen was full of zzzzzzzzzzzzz's.

An update since writing the above non-sequester I was able to upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04.

herakles_14

How old is this computer? If you are hearing noises and having these problems with various distributions, it sounds like it might be hardware related.

Get your system serviced either by yourself or someone else.

You can open up the chasis and see what's making noise. Fan of power supply,cpu, video card or some component of motherboard. Try replacing keyboard with a working one. See zzzz resolve or not.

Thank both of you; yancek and veerain for your suggestions. It is quite possible it is hardware related in some way?

I need to find a good reliable and not to expensive computer repair shop. Do you think it will make any difference that I am running Linux?

I'll take the side panel off, not right now but when I reboot, and see if I can detect where the sound is coming from.

My Pc is a refurbished Dell Dimension 9100 and I have had it more than three years.

Something curious has happened. My PC was running 9.04 upgraded to 9.10 upgraded to 10.04, but this time I removed my PC's side panel so I would have a chance to see where that noise was originating from. What is curious is there was no noise of any sort the restart/reboot went quietly. I did not know it had occurred until I saw the log in screen.

I am willing to accept the possibility that the noise was because the panel was not fitted tightly which allowed the panel to vibrate causing the sound. A theory that is all at the moment. The panel is back in place, I made certain it has a snug fit. So, it was a 'hardware' issue behind the noise or ???

The version of Ubuntu I am running is not supported. A day ago I had the opportunity to upgrade to version 12.04. That attempt failed. The noise issue for the time being is gone but that does not explain why the (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) of the (vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv) or even the (^[v ^[v ^[v ^[v ^[v ^[v ) When I was trying to install the other Linux distros when my upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 failed.

Any theories?

This is an update.

The side panel was apparently the reason for the noise thatI have no doubt. I decided not to attempt an upgrade of Ubuntu. It may have worked. I chose not to risk it, instead I installed PCLinuxOS; a KDE version. The installation and subsequent upgrade went without a problem, except for one that being it took longer to boot up. It was resolved with a restart of the computer.

In the installation, there were none of the zzzz's or vvvvvvvvv'c or any of the other anomalies my computer was displaying.

I may have thought the worse of my PC if veerain had not suggested opening the chassis to see what was making the noise. The noise disappeared with the panel off and with it properly fitted the noise is hopefully gone for good, but should it return I'll open the panel and disipate it to the four winds.