Intermittant Booting

[Tod Merley]

On 6/25/06, pansy309 at tds.net <pansy309 at tds.net> wrote:
>
> Greetings
>
> I recently installed FC5 on a dual boot system.  About 50% of the time
> when I boot it up, it goes cleanly through the boot process until it is
> ready to open the sign-in screen.  At that point the mouse pointer appears
> briefly, then the screen goes black.  About 30 sec later, a click can be
> heard from the monitor and the machine is locked up with a blank screen.
> Nothing short of pushing the power button will do anything.  When I do this,
> the hard drive will operate a bit and then it will shut down.  When I have
> to do this, the CMOS loads defaults.  I suppose that is caused by the
> unusual shutdown.  I have a Radeon 9000 video card and a Dell M781P
> monitor.  The other 50% of the time it boots up perfectly.
>
> Does anyone know why, and if so, how can I fix it?
>
> DAR
>
>
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Hi DAR!

I would guess a bad CMOS battery or connections to the battery (the CMOS
loading defaults on your shutdown is my hint).

0. Ok, this is in the box hardware stuff so remember to disconnect power to
the box and everything associated.  Also remember that static builds by any
contact with moving air (or any movement on such things as carpet or
floors).  The easy way to "discharge" yourself is to keep in contact with
metal of the case (remember - power is disconnected from the box and all of
it's associated connections - work on a "free and clear" box).
1. Replace the battery.  (Since it is a battery I will not mention the parts
about establishing good static equal potential before touching the part).
2. Make sure the connections are clean when you do (99% isopropyl alcohol
(use technical grade - do not use "rubbing" alcohol it has skin softeners in
it and leaves a residue) on swabs or a very dilute solution of dish cleaner
in water - dry - rinse with distilled water -- all on swabs),  Check/clean
the battery as well.  If you use the soap and water approach use a dust
removing spray of compressed gas to evaporate any water residue before you
apply battery or power.  Use as little of the soap water or rinse water as
possible.
3. If you have them, use a memory test perhaps from a live CD and check out
the memory thereby.
4. Check the power supply connections to everything ("snug" them) and give
the cards and memory sticks a little "press" hug (see they are seated
properly).  Nice to do on the rest of the connectors as well.

I am in the process of the study of the boot process.  I will respond more
if I find something interesting in the last part of it.  My instinct is to
check out the connections (hardware of course and software as well) to the
video card (peek at /etc/X11/xorg.conf and also look at dmesg,
/var/log/messages, and /var/log/Xorg*.*.  Also, I know that if I boot my
Ubuntu utility machine while the four port KVM switcher has the Keyboard
Monitor (Video) and Mouse looking at my daughter's XP machine Ubuntu will
not have it's chance to "talk" with the monitor and X defaults to a very low
and cruddy resolution.  Check the connection to the monitor!.

Good Hunting!

Tod
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