I recently installed Gentoo alongside on my (quite old) laptop. All was going well, until now. I shut it down, took it home. When I got home, I plugged it in to the power and network, and started it up. Just a little flashing white line at the top right. No BIOS logo, nothing. I get scared, force-shut it down, take out the power, network and battery, wait a while, put the battery back and started it up again. I see the Acer Travelmate logo, and think "Thank God". Then, no progress - the normal message saying press F2 to enter setup doesn't appear. I get scared, and wait. And wait some more. Nothing. I take out the battery to shut it down again, put it in again, and try again, and I only get the line again. I repeated this several times, and then gave up. What could have done this?

EDIT: Working now, but I'm not sure it it will be permanent...

BACK UP NOW! Sounds like hardware getting flakey. Do you have a live CD like Knoppix, etc to run? I would try to run with one of those. If you are still getting the same errors then you likely have a processor or motherboard problem. (Unfortunately, I just went through this.)

It wasn't getting anywhere near letting me tell it to try and boot to CD, so I doubt a live CD would help. Unfortunately my warranty recently ran out on this (it has probably spent about 20% of it's life sent off to repair...) so I can't get the mobo replaced, which would be my first test. It would probs cost the same to buy a new, better laptop than repair the screen (which is kinda buggered but I can live with it) and the countless other problems I will no doubt run into. Back to the point, anyone have any idea of a fix/workaround?

Ok, after it worked, I shut it down, and when I next tried it didnt work. I gave it to my IT dept, and after a while they said it was working. I booted it up into win xp and it worked. Then I shut it down and booted it into gentoo. Then I shut it down. When I next tried to start it up, it wouldn't, although after repeatedly trying for a while, I got it to boot. Thinking Linux might be causing it, I booted into windows, but when I shut it down it still didnt work. I tried a bit more and couldn't start it.

Any ideas?

You mentioned it is a quite old laptop.

You mentioned it has problems booting into XP.

There is no software explanation for the symptoms you have described. Linux does not suddenly
transform a working system in a pile of old junk. The opposite transformation is sometimes possible
(worn out obsolete Windows servers given a new lease of life as Linux systems).

The likeliest explanation is that some piece of hardware has finally given up, and unfortunately this
coincided with your linux experiment.

You could try running the mfr's diagnostic in Windows, if they have one. Laptops wear out pretty fast.

Cheers,

P.

It's really capricious - currently it seems to be working fine. I'm gonna try a backup to my other computer, then send it off to repair (they wont appreciate Linux, and will just wipe it...), unless this spell of working keeps up.

Definitely take advantage of the current "it's working now" phase to back up all your important data. Based on what you've described, it does sound like the machine is on the verge of giving up the ghost, however it may simply be that your display is going bad. Overall, if it's a company laptop, I'd say it's time to ask for a replacement as the costs associated with a new display often are just as much as for a brand new machine -- J.W.

The plan is, when I have enough money, to get a new laptop. It'd be nice if it lasted though.

same thing happened to a very old pc of mine after a Debian online installation. It worked fine untill i had to reboot it ( P1, 32ram ). I trhew it away as it was non fixable

This is REALLY NOT a software problem.
On laptops old or new the display is connected to the mainboard by a flat cable, or a cable containing 20 or more very thin wires. Believ my 26 years experience in repairing computers. HERE IS YOUR PROBLEM but take care this kind of 'broken wire symptom" can make disaster if you insist too much. Take it to someone with good eyes to repair it. Good luck

I trust you about the screen problem, but I'm not up for sending it off to repair for a month (I use it to take notes), them wiping my lovely new Gentoo install, and then sending it back only to have it break again soon enough.

The not being able to boot problem is far more pressing, although I haven't had it for a while, and (touch wood) think it might have resolved. On the other hand, my second theory is that it is temporarily caused by the laptop being carried around in my bag, to and from school etc. and these long spells of working follow not being carried around...

Did you tried to use a display on the VGA port of you laptop ???