(Solved) Random Shutdowns

[alkanator]

Hello. I am new to Linux, but I wasn't sure this fit the provided description of "newbie topics" and I wasn't really sure what else it could go under.

So, on my laptop (Acer Aspire 5315), I have Windows Vista, which had become unbearably sloggish, so I decided to try Linux. I did a little bit of research and tried a few LiveCDs. First, I tried Ubuntu, then Linux Mint 12 GNOME, and then Linux Mint 12 KDE. These all loaded fine, but for some reason, 7 out of the 10 times I booted from any one of these, I would be looking around at some of the basic features, and then I would click on something to open it, (sometimes "computer", sometimes a program, etc.) and the computer would pause for a second, and then the monitor would turn black, and the power light would go off. If I rebooted, and clicked on the same thing, it worked, and no shutdown would occur, but then later I would click something else, and it would shut down again. I thought that it might have had something to do with the fact of it being run from a CD, so I installed Mint GNOME on a separate partition (I sat on the installer for at least an hour, so I don't think it has to do with some sort of timed shutdown).

However, all three times I have booted it up since the installation, it has done the same thing. (twice while I was selecting a desktop background and once while browsing through files on the hard drive)

I hope this was not too rambling. Any diagnostic help would be appreciated.

[Tuxi]

Running linux from an live session not causes this problems (but some operations are not recommended).

Probably you have trouble via your notebook cooler or with a mother driver, becasue i search on the hardware compatibility and the Acer 5315 generrally run well LM. Rarely is that on Win your laptop dont shutdown.

Type Brand Model name Release Status
Laptop or Netbook Acer Acer Aspire 5315 Helena Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Acer Aspire 5315 Helena Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Acer Aspire 5315 Gloria Works fine with some minor problems
Laptop or Netbook Acer Acer Aspire 5315z Debian Works fine with some minor problems
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315 Isadora Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315 Julia Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315 Julia Works fine with some minor problems
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315 Isadora Works fine with some minor problems
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315 Elyssa Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315 Lisa Works fine with some minor problems
Laptop or Netbook Acer aspire 5315 Julia Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315-2381 Debian Works perfectly
Laptop or Netbook Acer Aspire 5315-2381 Gloria Works perfectly

Your laptop come with intel video chipset?

[alkanator]

It probably wouldn't be the cooling system. When I boot it on Mint (Lisa), the computer runs rather quietly, seems to growl less, and seems a lot cooler.
It does have an Intel chipset.
This never occurs when I boot on windows, although it occasionally has random total freeze-ups, where the only way to escape is to remove the battery, but this doesn't happen very often.
So, if it is a motherboard driver, how would I go about fixing that?
Also, where do find lists like that. Thanks.

[Tuxi]

It probably wouldn't be the cooling system. When I boot it on Mint (Lisa), the computer runs rather quietly, seems to growl less, and seems a lot cooler.
It does have an Intel chipset.
This never occurs when I boot on windows, although it occasionally has random total freeze-ups, where the only way to escape is to remove the battery, but this doesn't happen very often.
So, if it is a motherboard driver, how would I go about fixing that?
Also, where do find lists like that. Thanks.

Mmm is rarely , the list of hardware compatibilty is here: http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware, respect your problem if your laptop cooler runs weel and on linux the temperature is standard, i do not have idea.
Have you proven running linux with your laptop conected to energy (without using battery) ?

[AlbertP]

You'd better list some hardware within your computer with the following command if you want to know about drivers:

Code: Select all

lspci

[alkanator]

Here is the lspci list:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (primary) (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (secondary) (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

Sorry about the really long wait between posts.

[AlbertP]

Looks good. This hardware shouldn't cause any problems. I also have GL960+ICH8M chipset in my laptop.

Have you already tried upgrading the kernel on Mint? You can find it in Synaptic Package Manager, at the left Status > Installed (upgradeable), then mark linux-headers (twice) and linux-image for upgrading and click Apply at the top.

[alkanator]

Thank you. I will try upgrading the kernel. It is currently in the 3.0 range. Once I have upgraded, I will try using it for a while, and I will report back whether or not the problem persists.

[alkanator]

Uh oh. Now I can't boot either of my systems. I was going to upgrade the kernel, but at the moment I was doing some cleaning on the Windows partition, in order to unclog it a bit, and free up some room. I have four partitions on my hard drive: a Windows recovery partition, the Windows partition, an empty (completely empty, except for the "$Recycle", ".trashes", etc.) 28 GB partition, and the Linux partition. In cleaning up, I deleted the empty partition, and expanded the Windows partition to use the unallocated 28 GB. It seemed to work perfectly fine, while I was on Windows. However, I shut down, and when I started it up again, I got this:

error: no such partition.
grub rescue>

I looked at some other threads about this problem, but on trying a lot of the suggestions, I just got "Unknown command",
Please tell me what I did wrong, and how I can fix this, or direct me to a thread with instructions that should work for this version.

P.S. Should this be posted in a different thread instead?

[wayne128]

I deleted the empty partition, and expanded the Windows partition to use the unallocated 28 GB. It seemed to work perfectly fine, while I was on Windows. However, I shut down, and when I started it up again, I got this:

error: no such partition.
grub rescue>

I looked at some other threads about this problem, but on trying a lot of the suggestions, I just got "Unknown command",
Please tell me what I did wrong, and how I can fix this, or direct me to a thread with instructions that should work for this version.

Each time you play with partition, such as delete one partition, depending on which software/program you use, most likely it will re-designate a new partition number to those partitions that are higher number than the deleted one.
As a result, those partitions higher will now have different ( new number).
grub, being still with old number, will not find your new partition and thus ask you to help with 'grub rescue prompt'.

To try recover,
boot and run live on your Linux CD
open a terminal, type these commands

sudo os-prober

and post its result, it will tell you what OS were installed in which partition.. hopefully..
then next command will follow to reinstall grub

[alkanator]

How do I shutdown from the grub rescue in order to boot from the cd?

[AlbertP]

Just power down your computer. Booting from CD should be done by your BIOS and not Grub.

[alkanator]

I am wondering how to power off. The power button won't respond, and I can't find a command that will shut it off. Is there some command that will shut off in Grub Rescue, or is taking the battery out safe? (It's a laptop)

[AlbertP]

Holding the power button for some longer should power it off.

[alkanator]

Thank you for the quick replies, but I was able to restore the grub manager using the command prompt. (In between posts I was still searching the internet.) I was able to fix it using this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2, in the rescue mode section. It was like what wayne128 said. When I edited the partitions, the partition that grub manager was located on changed its name from from msdos4 to msdos3. I instructed grub to look in the new directory, and it boots now.
Thank you for your help. I almost had a panic attack at first, thinking I had corrupted my computer. Now, back to the original problem. I can try upgrading the linux kernel. I will report back after I have upgraded and tested it.

[alkanator]

I jumped to the conclusion that GRUB was fixed. Apparently doing the grub rescue doesn't permanently change anything, so I will still need your help on that matter. However, since I was able to boot linux from my hard drive, I didn't need to use the liveCD to use the terminal.

sudo os-prober gave me this:

/dev/sda1:Windows Recovery Environment (loader):Windows:chain
/dev/sda2:Windows Vista (loader):Windows1:chain

Thank you.

[wayne128]

I jumped to the conclusion that GRUB was fixed. Apparently doing the grub rescue doesn't permanently change anything, so I will still need your help on that matter. However, since I was able to boot linux from my hard drive, I didn't need to use the liveCD to use the terminal.

sudo os-prober gave me this:

/dev/sda1:Windows Recovery Environment (loader):Windows:chain
/dev/sda2:Windows Vista (loader):Windows1:chain

Thank you.

Boot from installed Mint, then on terminal , do this

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

sudo update-grub

then , reboot to see what happen

[alkanator]

It works! Thank you ever so much! It boots properly now. That was a lot simpler than I was expecting. (Simpler than a Windows command-line)
Now I can try upgrading the kernel. I will report back when possible.

[alkanator]

I upgraded the kernel, but it still shuts off. I am thinking, though, that it probably is the cooling fan. At first I thought it was running cooler, but maybe I was just checking near the air-out duct (or whatever it's called). This wouldn't have helped much, because the fan doesn't blow when I'm on Linux. (This is probably why it was a lot quieter.) When the computer first boots up, and when I run Windows, the fan blows, but it doesn't on Linux. If I either do a bunch of stuff that requires a fair bit of processor power, or leave it on for a while (presumably building up heat over time), it will make a loud click (like a circuit-breaker) and shut down instantly. This had just begun to happen on Windows, until I opened up the bottom of the laptop and cleaned the dust off the duct (about a quarter-inch of thick dust blocking the airflow. This stopped the problem on Windows, since the fan could blow. On Linux, I am now able to go a bit longer without it shutting off, probably because air can now seep out a bit quicker. When it does shut off, it feels mildly warm around the duct, but rather hot on the main removable panel. It was also very hot on the hard drive panel, but I changed swappiness from 60 to 10, and now it is a lot cooler there.
So I am guessing the whole problem is that Linux doesn't communicate with my cooling fan. How could this get fixed? Or is there still some other possible problem?

[AlbertP]

Windows doesn't drive the cooling fan either on some 5315 varieties and BIOS versions. There is a program from Acer preinstalled on Acer's Windows, that controls your fan.

Could you try upgrading your BIOS (using Windows)?