Suddenly I can't reboot my computer

colorpurple21859 · 07-21-2020, 11:35 AM

Quote:

But since I start X from the console and go back to the same console when X terminates, I don't see how it could make any difference.

If it was me I would at least check it out by rebooting without starting X and, rebooting after starting X and exiting out of X. I have seen some weird things happens over the years involving computers and electronics.

hazel · 07-21-2020, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

I can take these as done, I suppose but have you checked permissions

The permissions do look a bit odd to me. halt and shutdown are both universally executable. I would have expected them to be either executable by root only or set to run suid.

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Issued 'reboot -f' as root?

I don't want to use reboot -f. Not using shutdown is an emergency procedure.

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Looked for stale files?

Which ones?

business_kid · 07-22-2020, 04:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

The permissions do look a bit odd to me. halt and shutdown are both universally executable. I would have expected them to be either executable by root only or set to run suid.

I don't want to use reboot -f. Not using shutdown is an emergency procedure.

Which ones?

If they look odd, fix them. you can always break them again

Use reboot -f at least once, because this might be in the BIOS. We're eliminating possible causes here. What you want to do comes later. 1. reboot -f & 2. reboot

hazel · 07-22-2020, 08:11 AM

Good catch colorpurple! I tried today rebooting from the command line without having launched X at all. This was the sequence I observed:
1) Kernel announced a reboot at the end of shutdown
2) Monitor's built-in screensaver appeared (meaning I assume that there was no further output to the screen from that session)
3) Screensaver vanished. At this point there may have been a POST bleep but I can't remember. I will check for that next time.
4) Message from UEFI appeared: Press Enter to interrupt normal startup.

And that was it! The next step should have been the appearance of the elilo menu but that didn't happen. So the UEFI does start but it doesn't load anything from the drive.

@business_kid. I'll try your forced reboot today and report back in due course. btw I tried running shutdown without being root just to find out what would happen. It said "You have to be root to do that!". Evidently the program checks your UID right at the beginning so the system doesn't need to use permissions to prevent abuse.

colorpurple21859 · 07-22-2020, 08:46 AM

Do you get the same results from the lfs install?

hazel · 07-22-2020, 08:48 AM

Dunno. Haven't tried it yet.

colorpurple21859 · 07-22-2020, 10:01 AM

What happens if you unmount the efi partition before rebooting?

hazel · 07-22-2020, 10:12 AM

I don't normally have it mounted. And when I do mount it to do something to it, I always unmount it by hand because I once ran into some kind of filesystem warning on that partition. I can't remember the details, but I cleared it and have been very careful ever since.

colorpurple21859 · 07-22-2020, 10:50 AM

Well scratch that idea, what is the output of efibootmgr, parted -l? What happens if at the

Quote:

Press Enter to interrupt normal startup.

message you do alt-ctrl-del or just before that message? Has something changed in your bios settings?

hazel · 07-22-2020, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colorpurple21859

Well scratch that idea, what is the output of efibootmgr, parted -l?

Code:

$ sudo  /usr/sbin/efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0005
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0005,0006,0001,0000,0007
Boot0000* ubuntu
Boot0001* rEFInd
Boot0005* Slackware
Boot0006* UEFI OS
Boot0007* ubuntu

Code:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WD5000AAKX-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name                  Flags
 1      1049kB  1050MB  1049MB  ntfs                                  hidden, bios_grub
 2      1050MB  1322MB  273MB   fat32           EFI system partition  boot, esp
 3      1322MB  1847MB  524MB   fat32                                 hidden
 4      1847MB  7089MB  5243MB  linux-swap(v1)  swap
 5      7089MB  112GB   105GB   ext4            data
 6      112GB   134GB   22.0GB  ext4            slackware
 7      134GB   167GB   32.9GB  ext4            LFS1
 8      167GB   199GB   32.5GB  ext4            LFS2
 9      199GB   232GB   32.2GB  ext4            BSD
11      232GB   264GB   32.2GB  ext4
10      474GB   500GB   26.2GB  ntfs                                  hidden

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What happens if at the message you do alt-ctrl-del or just before that message?

Nothing. The keyboard is dead. Enter has no effect either.

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Has something changed in your bios settings?

No. Not for a long time.

colorpurple21859 · 07-22-2020, 11:17 AM

Are there any warnings about the "protective mbr boot flag set" with

Code:

sudo gdisk /dev/sda

To exit out of gdisk press q

hazel · 07-22-2020, 11:25 AM

I don't have gdisk. fdisk gives no warnings.

hazel · 07-22-2020, 01:00 PM

OK. reboot -f worked from Slackware. I rebooted into LFS, logged on as root and used shutdown -r to get back into Slack. Surprisingly that worked too. Now I don't know if those results were one-offs or if there's something significant here. Too tired to think about it now. I'm shutting down for the night!

hazel · 07-24-2020, 05:56 AM

I'm going to make a link to an earlier post I made about an occasional buzzing noise from this computer because I'm beginning to think the two things are linked in some way.

The buzz comes directly from the vibrating case, specifically from a built-up section of it that acts as a carrier handle. The power switch and disk indicator light are set into this structure. Putting a hand on it usually stops the sound. But the vibration must initially come from either the cpu fan or the disk drive. There are no other moving parts in this machine because there is no internal power unit.

Now I have noticed that the buzz usually occurs when the machine is idling. That makes it unlikely that the fan is involved. On the other hand, disks are often busy syncing when there's nothing else going on.

Last night I tried to reboot (using shutdown from Slackware) and it failed again. But after a few moments, I heard the buzz, more loudly than usual. And when I put my ear to the main part of the case, I heard a smooth, quiet sound which I think may have been the disk rotating. It was different from the irregular scratchy sound of a disk being read or written to.

The last detectable act in a failed reboot is when the UEFI program activates the video. The Lenovo logo comes up together with that message about the Enter key. Then there is a bleep (I can confirm this now) so there is a successful POST, like with a cold boot. The next step should be reading the bootloader from the disk. That's where it stops.

Now can any hardware mavens make a guess as to whether these things are related?

cordx · 07-24-2020, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

The buzz comes directly from the vibrating case, specifically from a built-up section of it that acts as a carrier handle. The power switch and disk indicator light are set into this structure. Putting a hand on it usually stops the sound. But the vibration must initially come from either the cpu fan or the disk drive. There are no other moving parts in this machine because there is no internal power unit.

i recently came across a discussion about "coil (or cpu) whine". since i had never heard of it, i found a few articles that all said something similar to this one:

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Coil whine is a high-pitched sound some devices inside the computer case can create under certain situations. This hiss or squeal resembles a dull, boiling teapot sound, only usually much quieter.

previously i would have also assumed that any noise (or vibration) would have had to have been caused by a moving part as well. apparently that is not always the case.