[Solved] Can't boot installer

[Hex052]

Hello, I keep on getting a NMI watchdog: soft lockup error, and my fans spin up a lot. I don't know what's happening, I can't even get mint installed. I've tried the compatability mode, swapping to a blank drive (I was just testing things, it didn't help), but it won't even shut down without holding down the power button (if it hasn't hung when booting). I tried following the instructions here viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122257 but that didn't help.

Exactly what happens when I try to boot is it gets maybe 3 seconds past the GRUB screen, then it freezes in the animation (almost always with the leftmost dot being the only lit one, so it's very consistent), and I hear the fans spin up on the laptop to full. The system becomes totally unresponsive at this point, and I can't do anything short of holding down the power button to shut it off.

In compatability mode, it works fine, except as a text terminal, and upon shutdown, responds with an endless stream of NMI watchdog: soft lockup on CPU 5 errors, approxamately every 15-25 seconds, and never shuts down, except by holding down the power button.

This was all with 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit on a Dell Inspiron 5577 with 8GB of ram, a 128GB SSD, a 1TB HDD (where I wanted to install), and the blank test HDD I attempted with was 750GB. If anyone has an idea that would help, I'd love to hear.

[Hex052]

Well, I just got this working, and I have no idea why this worked.

Just because, I tried flashing the image from Windows (still using Etcher), and it got the installer running (still had to force power off). Still didn't boot. The guide from above got it working (I didn't install Bumblebee, should I?). So, if you have this same laptop Inspiron 5577, with a similar issue, try flashing the USB from Windows and not Linux, because for some reason that was the critical part.

[WharfRat]

Hello Hex052

Welcome to Linux Mint and the Linux Mint forum

See if this topic is helpful viewtopic.php?t=231558