[Solved] PC not booting

[Loveid]

I have been running Mint for 3-4 years stepping over from Windows due to lots of crashes, and Mint has been faultless till recently. The last half year or so it's been Mint 20. Some weeks ago when I turned on the computer I heard the hardware start like normal, got the BIOS screen (TUF) and then I noticed that the light in the mouse went out. The screen was dark (I could see some backlight only) and that was it. After a while I turned it off holding the power button in, and tried again. Same "result". After one more try I chose recovery mode when starting over (got that choice from the system) and with that everything went fine. Next time I started - same procedure. It was a couple of months since last update, so I used the opportunity to upgrade to Mint 20.2 First reboot went fine, then the same. Tried a clean install - no use. Even downloaded MInt 19 to check if that solved anything, but no. The strange (to me) thing is that I have no problems starting and using the computer as long as it's started in recovery mode. But normal startup get me nowhere. There are no messages to start from either. Have not gone back to 20.2 as I see no point before I can start normally. I have as I said used Linux as a more stable alternative to Windows, but don't do more "code writing" in the system window than I have to.

When running the inxi command the result is this (with a recent install of Mint 19.3:

Any ideas if this is bios- OS- or hardware-related?

Code: Select all

System:    Host: KontorLinux Kernel: 5.0.0-32-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.5 
           wm: muffin 4.4.1 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: TUF Z390-PRO GAMING v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
           UEFI [Legacy]: American Megatrends v: 0605 date: 08/31/2018 
CPU:       Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i5-9600K bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Kaby Lake rev: C L2 cache: 9216 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 44352 
           Speed: 2437 MHz min/max: 800/4600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1400 2: 1306 3: 1358 4: 1551 5: 1153 6: 1441 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel vendor: ASUSTeK driver: N/A bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:3e98 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Caicos [Radeon HD 6450/7450/8450 / R5 230 OEM] 
           vendor: PC Partner Limited driver: N/A bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 1002:6779 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: vesa resolution: 1920x1080~N/A 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 8.0 256 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 19.0.8 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           chip ID: 8086:a348 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.0.0-32-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: ASUSTeK driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: efa0 bus ID: 00:1f.6 
           chip ID: 8086:15bc 
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek type: USB driver: r8152 bus ID: 2-2.4:3 chip ID: 0bda:8153 serial: <filter> 
           IF: enx00e04c37acd0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 2.73 TiB used: 7.83 GiB (0.3%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: DT01ACA100 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: A750 scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST2000DM001-1ER164 size: 1.82 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm 
           serial: <filter> rev: CC25 scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 915.89 GiB used: 7.83 GiB (0.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com tricia main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ bionic partner
Info:      Processes: 208 Uptime: 1h 01m Memory: 15.50 GiB used: 2.31 GiB (14.9%) Init: systemd v: 237 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
           gcc: 7.4.0 alt: 7 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.32

[Moonstone Man]

... The screen was dark (I could see some backlight only) and that was it. After a while I turned it off holding the power button in, and tried again. Same "result". After one more try I chose recovery mode when starting over (got that choice from the system) and with that everything went fine. Next time I started - same procedure.

Given all of that rigmarole you're having with your machine, I wrote a tutorial just for you: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=354027

[Loveid]

Thanks - Feared that it could be hardware related. I'll start pushing and pulling (and huffing and puffing ) and see what crops up...

[Loveid]

When picking the PC apart, I remembered that when building the machine some time ago, I installed a video card to have possibilities to connect via several types of connection; HDMI and two different monitor plugs. The motherboard had a HDMI port, but I needed a different solution for a while. Later - with a new screen - I just used the HDMI-port on the motherboard but without removing the video card. Now it seems that there was some kind of problem with this combination. When I removed the video-card the machine booted up as it should.

Of course I had made more than one fresh install of different Mint versions, and when I found the computer worked, I was in 19.3 mode and had to go all the way through upgrades to 20 and 20.2 but got there in the end.

Thanks for being directed into the right path

[Moonstone Man]

Thanks for being directed into the right path

With my compliments.