Can't get repaired laptop to boot with my SSD

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I'll have to excuse myself from the thread: originally thought quick boot-repair advise would be useful but can't be here currently.

Sorry to see you go but I still appreciate your efforts. Thanks!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, I heard back from system 76 and, basically, they are blowing me off since the Ubuntu disk is working fine. Their suggestion is to do a clean reinstall. I challenged them on that. I also questioned that they only replaced the graphics card since the computer wouldn't even power up after it died.

It's going to be a freezing cold day in Hell before I EVER buy anything from System 76 again, especially considering the lousy customer service I've been getting from them!

[MurphCID]

That stinks! I had hoped that they would have at least been helpful. Post a review.

[Reddog1]

I think I see what happened. It's a laptop, they didn't 'replace the video card', they very likely replaced the motherboard, which has the video chip on it. The motherboard version you now have probably has some differences with the motherboard (and the peripherals on it) you had when you installed Mint. I'm not surprised that your ssd with Mint won't boot--if the motherboard was replaced with a MB that wasn't exactly like the first it would be a surprise if it would. You will need to re-install. Hopefully, you can save your /home directory so you can keep your files and some of your personalized settings. All this assumes that the ssd with Mint hasn't failed. If you are having a difficult time booting with live Mint 19, check the ubuntu version that is working and download the Mint equivalent iso, burn it to a usb stick, and see if the boot problem goes away. If it still balks at booting to a live usb, that is a separate problem.

[MurphCID]

Post comments to some of the YouTube guys like Learn Linux, Linux for Everyone, etc. I bet System 76 contacts you then....

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I think I see what happened. It's a laptop, they didn't 'replace the video card', they very likely replaced the motherboard, which has the video chip on it. The motherboard version you now have probably has some differences with the motherboard (and the peripherals on it) you had when you installed Mint. I'm not surprised that your ssd with Mint won't boot--if the motherboard was replaced with a MB that wasn't exactly like the first it would be a surprise if it would. You will need to re-install. Hopefully, you can save your /home directory so you can keep your files and some of your personalized settings. All this assumes that the ssd with Mint hasn't failed. If you are having a difficult time booting with live Mint 19, check the ubuntu version that is working and download the Mint equivalent iso, burn it to a usb stick, and see if the boot problem goes away. If it still balks at booting to a live usb, that is a separate problem.

The graphics card is separate from the mobo. The factory SSD with Ubuntu works fine although boot time is excessive.

Post comments to some of the YouTube guys like Learn Linux, Linux for Everyone, etc. I bet System 76 contacts you then....

After my last nastygram, they responded, asking for the lsblk on my Mint drive. I responded with that info last night.

[MurphCID]

I think I see what happened. It's a laptop, they didn't 'replace the video card', they very likely replaced the motherboard, which has the video chip on it. The motherboard version you now have probably has some differences with the motherboard (and the peripherals on it) you had when you installed Mint. I'm not surprised that your ssd with Mint won't boot--if the motherboard was replaced with a MB that wasn't exactly like the first it would be a surprise if it would. You will need to re-install. Hopefully, you can save your /home directory so you can keep your files and some of your personalized settings. All this assumes that the ssd with Mint hasn't failed. If you are having a difficult time booting with live Mint 19, check the ubuntu version that is working and download the Mint equivalent iso, burn it to a usb stick, and see if the boot problem goes away. If it still balks at booting to a live usb, that is a separate problem.

The graphics card is separate from the mobo. The factory SSD with Ubuntu works fine although boot time is excessive.

Post comments to some of the YouTube guys like Learn Linux, Linux for Everyone, etc. I bet System 76 contacts you then....

After my last nastygram, they responded, asking for the lsblk on my Mint drive. I responded with that info last night.

Good, hope they get it working for you.

[bendipa]

Need to see the output of lsblk -f and cat /etc/fstab and sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/linuxmint/grub.cfg. Note: with the last command, the folder 'linuxmint' in path is sometimes named 'ubuntu' instead. To check which one it is run sudo ls /boot/efi/EFI/ first.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Need to see the output of lsblk -f and cat /etc/fstab and sudo cat /boot/efi/EFI/linuxmint/grub.cfg. Note: with the last command, the folder 'linuxmint' in path is sometimes named 'ubuntu' instead. To check which one it is run sudo ls /boot/efi/EFI/ first.

Here is what I last sent System 76 after they requested it:

Code: Select all

I had one hell of a time getting those readouts you wanted. I have two Mint m.2 SSDs: the original one I installed Mint 19.1 on (later upgraded to 19.3) and the one that was in the computer when it died (made with Clonezilla image, then installed to verify it was a viable disk).

My first attempt with lsblk was with the original Mint SSD in the computer (I wasn't able to get that one to boot, either) and the live USB plugged in. It took several attempts to get to the boot screen when hitting the power button then holding F7. Nothing would happen on screen and the CPU fan would ramp up to B-17 levels, blowing hot air, then computer would shut off after around 1 minute, 15 seconds, then would restart again and repeat the cycle until I pushed and held down the start button until it shut off and stayed off. On the third attempt, I got the boot menu, was able to boot into the live disk, then run lsblk. Here are the results:

mint@mint:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0 7:0 0 1.8G 1 loop /rofs
sda 8:0 1 14.4G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 14.4G 0 part
└─sda2 8:2 1 32M 0 part /media/mint/Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon 64-bi
nvme0n1 259:0 0 477G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 500M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 460.6G 0 part
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 15.9G 0 part
mint@mint:~$

I shut down the computer and replaced the drive with the one that was in the computer when it died. Again, I had the same problems before I was able to get to the boot screen and get into the live disk. Here are the lsblk results for the disk that was in the computer when it died:

mint@mint:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0 7:0 0 1.8G 1 loop /rofs
sda 8:0 1 14.4G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 14.4G 0 part
└─sda2 8:2 1 32M 0 part /media/mint/Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon 64-bi
nvme0n1 259:0 0 477G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 500M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 460.6G 0 part
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 15.9G 0 part
mint@mint:~$

I was also starting to have trouble getting into the factory SSD with Ubuntu installed. I would take about a minute to get to the Login screen and the CPU fan was ramping up a little.

The ball is in your court.

Btw, except for limited amounts of data that programs save in hidden files in Home, all my data was stored on one Samsung 970 Pro 4TB 2.5" SSD (I also had a second one installed but it didn't have any data yet) and one Sabrent Rocket 8TB NVMe SSD.

[bendipa]

I asked for output to lsblk -f, not lsblk, and cat /etc/fstab that I first need to see. It should not be difficult. Please edit your last answer and delete your output. Open Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), widen the terminal box sufficiently so that output does not wrap. Do the first command, highlight and copy output (Ctrl+Shift+C), paste output into your last answer (Ctrl +V), then highlight it and hit code sign button (</>) above. Do same procedure for next command.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I asked for output to lsblk -f, not lsblk, and cat /etc/fstab that I first need to see. It should not be difficult. Please edit your last answer and delete your output. Open Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), widen the terminal box sufficiently so that output does not wrap. Do the first command, highlight and copy output (Ctrl+Shift+C), paste output into your last answer (Ctrl +V), then highlight it and hit code sign button (</>) above. Do same procedure for next command.

Thanks but, sadly, you aren't going to see anything. I can't even get into the boot menu now so I can't get into either of my Live USB sticks. I've informed the vendor of the problem.

[Moonstone Man]

Thanks but, sadly, you aren't going to see anything. I can't even get into the boot menu now so I can't get into either of my Live USB sticks. I've informed the vendor of the problem.

So, when do you plan to buy your next System76 laptop?

Look on the bright side. Your terrible experience with System76 has probably saved a number of people a lot of time, money and trouble. Of course, you've borne all three of those costs, and the experience is still raw, so the sentiment might not hit home straight away. All I can do is empathise; been there, done that, but not with System76.

[MurphCID]

Thanks but, sadly, you aren't going to see anything. I can't even get into the boot menu now so I can't get into either of my Live USB sticks. I've informed the vendor of the problem.

So, when do you plan to buy your next System76 laptop?

Look on the bright side. Your terrible experience with System76 has probably saved a number of people a lot of time, money and trouble. Of course, you've borne all three of those costs, and the experience is still raw, so the sentiment might not hit home straight away. All I can do is empathise; been there, done that, but not with System76.

Lol.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks but, sadly, you aren't going to see anything. I can't even get into the boot menu now so I can't get into either of my Live USB sticks. I've informed the vendor of the problem.

So, when do you plan to buy your next System76 laptop?

Look on the bright side. Your terrible experience with System76 has probably saved a number of people a lot of time, money and trouble. Of course, you've borne all three of those costs, and the experience is still raw, so the sentiment might not hit home straight away. All I can do is empathise; been there, done that, but not with System76.

Lol.

I'm not through with this.

[MurphCID]

So, when do you plan to buy your next System76 laptop?

Look on the bright side. Your terrible experience with System76 has probably saved a number of people a lot of time, money and trouble. Of course, you've borne all three of those costs, and the experience is still raw, so the sentiment might not hit home straight away. All I can do is empathise; been there, done that, but not with System76.

Lol.

I'm not through with this.

Good for you.

[MurphCID]

They keep having laptops go out of stock. The Darter Pro is on its 3rd or 4th generation, and is currently "unavailable". It is odd that only certain laptops get fairly quick refreshes.

[DPM]

I'm not surprised that your ssd with Mint won't boot--if the motherboard was replaced with a MB that wasn't exactly like the first it would be a surprise if it would.

I was lazy when installing Mint on my laptop so that I just pushed a complete disk image from my Mint desktop onto the laptop's SSD - with quite different hardware (but both with UEFI). Amazingly, that worked flawlessly. Mint 20.1, and I did install the HWE 5.8 kernel on the desktop side before pulling off that stunt.

[rene]

Indeed tends to work fine. Its likely a "standard" issue with the new Nvidia GPU needing/wanting a newer kernel (or binary Nvidia driver if latter was installed), i.e., same as the "nomodeset" thing even the Mint release notes go into each time. Now that would mean they'd up- or sidegraded her GPU (-card) which although perhaps unexpected I'd not necessarily consider a douche move any more than them being reluctant to support just any old OS: when their own install worked fine, they were done. There's hundreds of Linux distributions, can not commercially support them all.

Admittedly Mint would be one of the easiest to additionally support when you already support the Ubuntu version it's based on, but still we're at this point seemingly talking about a problem with the 19.x version of Linux Mint in combination with that now current hardware. One that can undoubtedly be trouble-shot in all the regular "Linux Mint hangs when booting" threads on this forum but, hey, they may have better things to do.

Earlier mentioned hitting <Esc> to get that friendly boot splash out of the way so as to possibly in fact see what's wrong --- but it's likely just an nvidia-regular black screen hang and a perfect opportunity to try if Mint 20.x has the same issues, and if not install that.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

They keep having laptops go out of stock. The Darter Pro is on its 3rd or 4th generation, and is currently "unavailable". It is odd that only certain laptops get fairly quick refreshes.

There is a chip shortage indirectly caused by the Pandemic. The pandemic hasn't interfered with the production of chips; it has cause demand for them to dramatically increase as more people are working or going to school from home which has dramatically increased the sale of computers.

Then again, this is System 76 (and Clevo) we are talking about.

On to other news... After they stonewalled me for several days, they finally sent me a shipping label to ship the thing back "so that our hardware team can review everything and get to the bottom of this issue". They also requested that I send both the Mint and Ubuntu SSDs. I just finished packing everything and I'll probably ship it out tomorrow.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I just received this message from System76:

Hi Jeannie,

Happy Friday! My apologies for the time that this repair has taken. The motherboard in your system was replaced, and everything is testing okay now, but your 512GB drive is still not completing its boot, and we're coordinating with the hardware team to get that fixed. I'm checking in with them for another update and to see if they need any other information from us. I'll be back in touch with another update as soon as possible. This is the last remaining issue to fix, so as soon as the boot-up is completing reliably we will have this on the way back to you. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding through all of this!

I knew there was a hardware issue.