Booting issue

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Booting issue
started by: bmadden

Posted by bmadden on May 16 2005,21:08

Hi folks -

Booted DSL 0.9.0 (on CD with Linux Bible: 2005 edition) on my older Dell laptop. No problem. Did same on my no-name desktop at home. Again no problem. In our school lab we have 24 Dell GX260's. Only modifications are:
All 24 PCs have removable HDs, replacing the fixed drive that normally ships with this model.
23 of the PCs have an ATI Radeon video card installed as the default video (over the onboard video that ships with this model).

To boot (even from the CD) the HD must be in place. Did so on the one machine with onboard video. On the way in, DSL reported a video error and required me to choose a resolution (chose 80x60 characters). It then continued booting to the DSL desktop (with hatched background). Seemed to be working, except for the hatched video background. Did a shut down. Upon trying to reboot, the fan comes on, the HD lights come on, and the CD-ROM lights flash, but no video - not even the pre-BIOS video check at the VERY beginning. No beep codes at all. No keyboard lights.

Repeated the process on another GX260 (with Radeon video). This time it went in to the DSL Desktop just exactly like my laptop and home PCs - no problem. This was encouraging. Did a shut down. After that the machine was not bootable in exactly the same way as the first machine.

We swapped several other known good HDs in and out on the two 'bad' machines. Still wouldn't reboot.

We mounted the HDs that were in the two 'bad' machines into other known good machines and they rebooted fine.

I haven't been able to get inside the boxes yet to check (or reset) any jumpers.

On a third machine (GX260 with Radeon video) I installed Fedora core (from DVD) - no problems whatsoever.

Any ideas, folks?

Bill

Posted by cbagger01 on May 17 2005,21:55

The problem is with the integrated video and the BIOS.

Unplug the computer for 5-10 seconds and plug it back in again and it will work fine.

My guess is the "ATI" GX260s are working fine, but I don't have one to verify.