I must be going crazy. I repeated the command but ALT-F3 did not work! So I rebooted knowing that the "Wildflower" screen would appear but it is frozen and ALT-F3 DID NOT WORK. I do know that ALT-F3 worked just that once.

I can see all the icons down the left-hand side, the message about network on the right top, and in the middle the label MX-21.3 "Wildflower". Below a window with "welcome" on the left and "About" on the right In the centre is "Install MX Linux" and then 2 columns of options. If I could click I wouldn't know what to click to activate demo since all I see is what the passwords for demo and super user are.

You are at the desktop, but mouse/keyboard isn't working or desktop not responding.
what happens if you press ctrl-alt-f3

Try this:
If it is a keyboard/mouse issue do you have a usb mouse you can plug in before booting?

Hi Colorpurple,
All kinds of problems. This morning I tried to boot up and the screen was blank or just the windmill. On the third try I retrieved the windmill and icons. Unless I made a mistake when entering the code it seems that the process is volatile, especially if I try something else. No permutation of Alt-F3 helped.

USB mouse does not help and the line you suggested in #106 drew a blank.

The following questions may reveal my ignorance but please bear with me. If this Notebook is geared to Windows, could Microsoft have left something within the system even after I had removed their operating system? In which case, should I try to clean the registry [with a third-party "cleaner'}?

I'm using an 8 gig USB which is full after I installed the live MX. Also I only have 4 gig of ram. Could it be that these are insufficient for MX?

If I boot up I go straight to the Grub screen. On the other hand, if I press Esc as I am booting up the system I get the following list: two Scangates [no such system or USB, but somehow the labels have been retained and duplicated]; two 8 gig Trancend USBs one showing "partition 1"; safe graphics; and finally the bios. I had been using the menu item showing partition 1, but am now using the other one with just "Transcend MX..."

4Gb of memory is more than enough for mxlinux, the problem maybe you are using the monthly snapshot and not the current release. I don't have the same hardware for testing, all I can do is run tests in a vm and give suggestions.
something else to try:
processor.max_cstate=0 intel_idle.max_cstate=0 idle=poll init 2

I think this will take you to the console login you mentioned in post 104 -6

Is there a way for me to copy [and paste] a line of code in the Grub menu? Currently I have to type out the code each time.
Will check what version of MX I am using.

You are right. The version I am using is the February version: MX-21.3_February-x64. Is this the wrong version for me?

It was a thought, but after looking at the kernel version difference of the two isos, I don't think it will make a difference.

There is a significant kernel version between lubuntu and mxlinux lubuntu is at 5.15 while mxlinux is at 5.10.
Not when putting iso on with dd, however manually putting iso on usb there is

The reason for asking is that typing into Grub on the Linux line is tough because the font is so small and I am wondering if that is the reason why I sometimes don't get the same result when I re-enter the line on a different iteration. Where I used to get the opening menu [although frozen], I now get just the windmill graphic.

I'll stick to this USB stick with MX for the moment.

here is another combination to try:
Got it from here: https://linuxreviews.org/Intel_graphics

Hi colorpurple,
Nope latest try with "i915" is worse: stopped after 4 lines. I don't understand coding language so this might be a dumb question. Why "mobile"? [I'm thinking phone mobile...?]

Here's what the screen displayed:
I'm going to download the Ubuntu registry cleaner but will first try it out on my old laptop [if I can].

from=usb intel_idle.max_cstate=1 i915.enable_dc=0 xorg=safe video=1024x768

from=usb intel_idle.max_cstate=1 i915.enable_dc=0 nomodeset video=1024x768

from=usb intel_idle.max_cstate=1 i915.enable_dc=0 idle=poll xorg=safe video=1024x768

from=usb processor.max_cstate=0 intel_idle.max_cstate=0 idle=poll xorg=safe video=1024x768

from=usb processor.max_cstate=1 intel_idle.max_cstate=1 idle=poll i915.enable_dc=0 xorg=safe video=1024x768

Thanks, but do I add these in a separate line or do what I have been doing, i.e. replace part of the Linux line?

Got sidetracked last night so I have still to download the Ubuntu registry cleaner.

Replace part of the linux line. Try each combination. Then I'll adjust depending on the results like this:
if they hang or blank alt-f3 ctrl-alt-f3
if none of them work add nomodeset and/or remove xorg=safe to the ones that don't have it.

Edit: Changed boot=usb to from=usb