I run Ubuntu 10.04 on an Acer Aspire. Booting is erratic, and often the screen fails.
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I run Ubuntu 10.04 on an Acer Aspire. Booting is erratic, and often the screen fails.
Sometimes the screen displays four miniature versions of itself. Sometimes there is no display of the pre-boot message. When normal boots occur, often the screen display disappears entirely and irrevocably after about ten or twenty minutes.Sometimes everything behaves well with no troubles. Any suggestions?
Distribution: Debian Wheezy, Jessie, Sid/Experimental, playing with LFS.
Posts: 2,900
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
Sometimes the screen displays four miniature versions of itself.
Sometimes? Could you be a little more specific?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
Sometimes there is no display of the pre-boot message.
pre-boot message? Are you referring to the POST which is from the motherboard itself or are you referring to the Ubuntu logo with the flashing dots? If you're referring to the Ubuntu logo the issue will probably have something to do with Plymouth. To even begin to help you we need you to be more specific.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
When normal boots occur, often the screen display disappears entirely and irrevocably after about ten or twenty minutes.Sometimes everything behaves well with no troubles. Any suggestions?
Do you think maybe your video card is playing up?
With the little information you have given I'd say you could have a motherboard problem developing, OR, Plymouth is causing issues at boot (you should have been around when we were testing for 10.04, there were alot of angry people because of Plymouth), OR, you have a display adaptor (video card) starting to develop problems.
Hi,
a) "sometimes" means about once in about ten to fifteen boots.
b) the pre-boot message is called PXE and it checks for a possible wired network.
c) I have no idea what Plymouth is or does.
Thanks .... Fred.
Quote:
Originally Posted by k3lt01
Sometimes? Could you be a little more specific?
pre-boot message? Are you referring to the POST which is from the motherboard itself or are you referring to the Ubuntu logo with the flashing dots? If you're referring to the Ubuntu logo the issue will probably have something to do with Plymouth. To even begin to help you we need you to be more specific.
Do you think maybe your video card is playing up?
With the little information you have given I'd say you could have a motherboard problem developing, OR, Plymouth is causing issues at boot (you should have been around when we were testing for 10.04, there were alot of angry people because of Plymouth), OR, you have a display adaptor (video card) starting to develop problems.
Distribution: Debian Wheezy, Jessie, Sid/Experimental, playing with LFS.
Posts: 2,900
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
Hi,
G'day
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
a) "sometimes" means about once in about ten to fifteen boots.
hmmmm, ok.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
b) the pre-boot message is called PXE and it checks for a possible wired network.
That sounds like a motherboard issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ruislip
c) I have no idea what Plymouth is or does.
Plymouth is a "splash screen" that runs hiding all the regular OS start up code that would be on the screen otherwise.
My guess is you've got a problem with your motherboard. If your Aspire is a desktop and you're reasonably confident you could pull a side panel off and, with all power turned off and disconnected, check the connections inside and also check to see how dusty it is inside. If it's a laptop it's going to be difficult to fix if it's a motherboard issue.
If it's a desktop is your display connector part of the motherboard or is a separate card?
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628
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Plymouth is actually your boot manager as well as the splash screen. There are 2 parts to it. Plymouth (energy sapping eye candy) and plymouth.d (ineffective boot manager responsible for boot logs, etc).
The motherboard is definitely a suspect. Plymouth could be too.
Check Plymouth by hitting "e" on the highlighted menu entry in your menu when it comes up. This will allow you to edit the menu entry for that boot only (no permanent change). Remove "splash" from that menu entry then hit Ctrl+x to boot. See if that makes a difference.
If you do not ever see the menu you have a few seconds of black screen at the start. Hit the space bar to see the menu and hit the "e" right away as you have 5 seconds or less before the default boot starts.
Distribution: Debian Wheezy, Jessie, Sid/Experimental, playing with LFS.
Posts: 2,900
Rep:
@ Widget. I'm leaning towards the motherboard, if it has an integral display adapter, simply because Plymouth wouldn't be running when the PXE text is/should be on the screen. I also think the Display adapter, if it is an add on card, is possibly more of a problem than Plymouth and that could be the reason for the multiple instances of the screen display within itself.
Overall my gut feeling is it is a hardware issue not a software issue so I do not actually think Plymouth is the culprit. Stranger things have happened though so it would be good to go through the procedure you've outlined and see what it tells us.
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by k3lt01
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My son recommended this one when he recommended Ubuntu 8.04 to me.
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