New ROM drive showed up today. Here's the syslog output from the first attempt with the new drive and booting off the Ubuntu disc.

Attached Files

syslog.txt (86.8 KB, 14 views)

Hey there!

Okay, from what I can tell, you booted off of the CD-ROM drive and things are looking good!
How'd the install-to-harddrive go?

Unfortunately, the same as before. Best case was install would complete, but then the system would hang as soon as I tried to log in. I was only able to get this to happen one time. What happened most frequently was the install would hang. This seemed to occur at different points each time, so it doesn't look like there's some magic point that it reaches and then dies on. I ended up unhooking all hardware from the system besides the new ROM drive and the hard drive, and still the same results. Any more ideas, or any other info I could try and provide when booted off the CD?

But...but...argh! I can only imagine your frustration at this point (Hell, I'm starting to get pissed.)

Okay, let's review;

1) Memtest showed no errors
2) Knoppix has trouble booting.
3) Using just the Onboard cards, and booting off either stick of RAM still don't nail it.
4) Burned Ubuntu at 10x, which kinda worked.
5) Checked/swapped all cables to/from the ROM drive.
6) Disconnected the USB card reader, too.
7) ROM drive replaced. Boots on first try (right?). But system still crashes when you try to login for the first time after install.

Now for some new ideas;
1) Motherboard:
This may have taken a hit, which means anything from actual damage, to just it's NVRAM settings have a bit flipped instead of flopped.
a) Is there an option in the BIOS to "Reset to Default"?
b) Do you have the Make/Model of the Mobo? (There might be a BIOS update available for it).

2) CPU:
Also could have taken a voltage hit. This could manifest itself in several ways, I've had an Athlon X2 64 bite the dust before because of a voltage issue (powersupply blew-out).
a) We need to stress-test the CPU.
b) There might be a way to under-clock it (either BIOS or OS).

3) HDD:
The disk (a 250GB SATA if I'm not mistaken) might have taken a hit.
a) boot knoppix with "knoppix failsafe" (should take you to runlevel 2, text-only). If you get that far,
b) Run two commands, the first is "tail -f /var/log/messages &" (the & will background the command)
Note: Make sure the /var/log/messages file exists first. Check /etc/syslog.conf to see where it's logging.
c) Read off of the drive with "dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null &"
Note that this could take a while ("hdparm -t /dev/sda" to check the speed);
@125MB/sec = ~33 minutes.
@67MB/sec = ~1 Hour.
@22MB/sec = ~3 Hours

Stress Testing for Linux (Live CDs)
StressLinux
Phoronix Test Suite - Desktop Live 2010.1

Have you tried to burn at 4x? You had asked about free software and I recommended "Nero 10 ROM Burn," free for 15 days.

Cdburnerxp is free and works good.

That's all basically true except that even booting off the new ROM drive isn't consistent. At times it will hang trying to boot off the new drive.

I've tried resetting to default in the BIOS numerous times as well as tweaking the settings. I can probably find out the make/model on the Mobo. I've never updated the BIOS from what was on it when I originally got the system so it's quite possible there's an update out there.

In terms of the BIOS, I've got no options for under-clocking. Frankly, if the CPU did bite it, then the system is getting trashed.

You are correct the HD is a 250GB SATA in the logs I provided yesterday. I had thought this drive could be the problem, so I've also attempted this with a brand new drive as well, but I get the same results with either drive.

I can attempt to boot knoppix in failsafe mode, but on previous attempts, this always hung the machine before I could ever reach a command line to try anything further. I can give it another shot with the new ROM drive installed, but considering the results I've seen thus far, I don't expect much from that.

I can give these a shot as well. Anything in particular I should be looking for from them?

No, I haven't. I'd been waiting on the new ROM drive to show up and hadn't given this much thought. I'll look in to burning a copy at an even slower speed than 10x tonight.

---------- Post added 02-09-11 at 11:54 AM ----------

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Anything that can stress-test the CPU. If that checks-out, then go to the RAM tests.

Regarding the rest of the system....this is starting to look like a lost-cause. Any chance you have a powersupply you can gack out of another box to test?

Same as the other burner software on my functioning laptop, cdburnerxp won't let me set the burn speed below 10x. Nero won't install because this laptop is missing Vista SP1, which for some reason will not install either.

As far as updating the BIOS, the mobo is some proprietary HP thing, so the only updates I've found anywhere are designed to be run from Windows.

I don't have any other power supplies around, so basically unless someone suggests the magic solution for this, I'm just ordering a kit and putting something new together because this thing has been sitting around just collecting dust for over 3 months now.

Check this 1 out
http://cdburnerxp.se/help/Data/burn-iso

The current version doesn't look exactly like that. I get a drop down menu of speed choices. 10x is the lowest choice offered. This is the same for the other burning programs I've tried on that laptop.

Lately I've been using wins7 burner which allows burn speeds as low as 4x.

I discovered one last thing I could unhook from the front panel, either a firewire or usb controller (maybe it was for both). In addition, I hooked up the HDD and ROM to power connections on different sets of wires coming out of the power supply. Strangely enough, when I did this, I was able to install Ubuntu and was able to successfully login to the installed version.

When I tried all this, I was running with only a single 512MB stick of RAM. I tried swapping around the RAM, and generally I was still able to login in successfully. The only exceptions were a couple times the system hung before ever getting to the logon screen. On these occasions, there was a dump of text to the screen, but upon restarting, the system would then boot up and allow me to login.

I basically have everything disconnected at this point, so I guess I can just start reconnecting things and see how far I can go before problems reoccur. I don't really care about the front USB/firewire connections or the front audio jacks. The only things I'd like to get back to a functional state are the sound and video cards, but if those won't work, it's not a big deal.

Any ideas as to why it now seems to work something like 80% of the time?

Disable some of the running processes. On mine I disabled compiz so I could login.Even the splash at login screen seems to be in motion.