Strange booting problem

[Neo]

Hi All,
My computer was working just fine until I changed my monitor.
I am now using an LG tv as a monitor (for work reasons, I was perfectly happy with my six year old 19" monitor.

Anyhow, now when I boot up my computer it is a bit of a crap shoot.
Sometimes it works just fine, but other times it won't boot.
It gets hung up on the splash screen before it normally states "booting system", long before the splash screen changes to the one where the icons appear across the bottom.
Turning off the computer and restarting it does not solve the problem, it hangs at the same place again.

I did a search of the forums but it seems the other threads dealing with booting problems appear different as they hang at a point much further along then I ever get.

When this happens I turn off the computer and restart it, this time when I get to grub I hit F3 and select Safemode, then I change the grub entry text from "splash to verbose" (sorry but I don't remember all of the text) and it boots just fine.

I am running KDE and my system is fully up to date.

When I switched monitors I used PCLinuxOS Control Center to update the monitor settings (I even manually entered the Horizontal and Vertical refresh rates).  It said a proprietary NVidia driver was available and I choose to use it (my video card hasn't changed and so the NVidia driver shouldn't have changed either).

Any ideas what is happening and why?
Or more importantly, how to fix it?

As always I will greatly appreciate any help that you may give.

[AS]

Hi All,
My computer was working just fine until I changed my monitor.
I am now using an LG tv as a monitor (for work reasons, I was perfectly happy with my six year old 19" monitor.

Anyhow, now when I boot up my computer it is a bit of a crap shoot.
Sometimes it works just fine, but other times it won't boot.
It gets hung up on the splash screen before it normally states "booting system", long before the splash screen changes to the one where the icons appear across the bottom.
Turning off the computer and restarting it does not solve the problem, it hangs at the same place again.

I did a search of the forums but it seems the other threads dealing with booting problems appear different as they hang at a point much further along then I ever get.

When this happens I turn off the computer and restart it, this time when I get to grub I hit F3 and select Safemode, then I change the grub entry text from "splash to verbose" (sorry but I don't remember all of the text) and it boots just fine.

I am running KDE and my system is fully up to date.

When I switched monitors I used PCLinuxOS Control Center to update the monitor settings (I even manually entered the Horizontal and Vertical refresh rates).  It said a proprietary NVidia driver was available and I choose to use it (my video card hasn't changed and so the NVidia driver shouldn't have changed either).

Any ideas what is happening and why?
Or more importantly, how to fix it?

As always I will greatly appreciate any help that you may give.

It appear that the only thing you changed was the monitor, so I suppose that for some reason it doesn't forward the proper information to the Xserver.

Try to add the parameter EDD=off   (Jase, please correct me if I'm wrong) to the grub parameters line.

AS

[Just17]

You should try to turn on the monitor well before you turn on the PC to see if that helps.

[Neo]

It appear that the only thing you changed was the monitor, so I suppose that for some reason it doesn't forward the proper information to the Xserver.

Try to add the parameter EDD=off   (Jase, please correct me if I'm wrong) to the grub parameters line.

AS

Here is my Grub entry for PCLinuxOS (I multi-boot eight distro's):

Code: [Select]

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,7)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title PCLinuxOS 2010
kernel (hd0,7)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs BOOT_IMAGE=PCLinuxOS_2010 root=UUID=5904f45f-2b2e-4738-b3bd-efad7acf8705 vmalloc=256M resume=UUID=183f7817-550c-446a-8a0e-70f098303d50 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,7)/boot/initrd-2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs.img


[Neo]

You should try to turn on the monitor well before you turn on the PC to see if that helps.

It happens even on the restart when the monitor is already on.

[pags]

Hi All,
My computer was working just fine until I changed my monitor.
I am now using an LG tv as a monitor (for work reasons, I was perfectly happy with my six year old 19" monitor.

Anyhow, now when I boot up my computer it is a bit of a crap shoot.
Sometimes it works just fine, but other times it won't boot.
It gets hung up on the splash screen before it normally states "booting system", long before the splash screen changes to the one where the icons appear across the bottom.
Turning off the computer and restarting it does not solve the problem, it hangs at the same place again.

I did a search of the forums but it seems the other threads dealing with booting problems appear different as they hang at a point much further along then I ever get.

When this happens I turn off the computer and restart it, this time when I get to grub I hit F3 and select Safemode, then I change the grub entry text from "splash to verbose" (sorry but I don't remember all of the text) and it boots just fine.

I am running KDE and my system is fully up to date.

When I switched monitors I used PCLinuxOS Control Center to update the monitor settings (I even manually entered the Horizontal and Vertical refresh rates).  It said a proprietary NVidia driver was available and I choose to use it (my video card hasn't changed and so the NVidia driver shouldn't have changed either).

Any ideas what is happening and why?
Or more importantly, how to fix it?

As always I will greatly appreciate any help that you may give.

I'm curious as to why you felt this was required...I've not had to do that for, literally, years (and I've hooked PCLOS to number of TVs, LCD and CRT).



As far as the driver goes...is there a chance you did an update (that might have included updating the nVidia driver) around the same time you hooked up the TV?

[Neo]

When I changed the monitor, CC still had my old 19" model selected and I could not find my new model listed anywhere.
I had the option of entering the correct refresh rates as per manufacturer's specs or simply choosing "LG Television".
I have now changed it to "LG Television" to see if that makes any difference (I hope it's for the better).

I do update my system regularly but don't believe a new driver was released for my old card.

[Neo]

This problem is still happening, even when I turn on the monitor during the BIOS splash screen.

Restarting the computer does not resolve this issue.

The only thing that fixes this issue is to enter safe mode and replace "splash=silent..." with "splash=verbose".

It appears the issue is with the splash screen hanging (I think) as the verbose mode always seems to work.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem other than to change the Grub entry to verbose mode?

Any help that you may provide will be greatly appreciated.

[jaydot]

is the earlier monitor available to hook up and test with?

[pags]

When I changed the monitor, CC still had my old 19" model selected and I could not find my new model listed anywhere.
I had the option of entering the correct refresh rates as per manufacturer's specs or simply choosing "LG Television".
I have now changed it to "LG Television" to see if that makes any difference (I hope it's for the better).

I do update my system regularly but don't believe a new driver was released for my old card.

Just select "Plug and Play", and let the monitor/TV inform the video card...works here...

[bicol_willem]

Don't know the answer here also but I have seen some booting problems solved by running a filesystem check. After that all was fine again.

[Neo]

Just select "Plug and Play", and let the monitor/TV inform the video card...works here...

Yup that's what I did and how I ended up with "LG Television".

[Neo]

Don't know the answer here also but I have seen some booting problems solved by running a filesystem check. After that all was fine again.

Well I just ran BleachBit and now we'll see how things go.
It is an intermittent problem so it is hard to test.

I also have been experiencing the occasional problem during shut down where the system hangs at "System Halt" (or words to that effect).

I wonder if these two problems are connected?

[bicol_willem]

Don't know the answer here also but I have seen some booting problems solved by running a filesystem check. After that all was fine again.

Well I just ran BleachBit and now we'll see how things go.
It is an intermittent problem so it is hard to test.

I also have been experiencing the occasional problem during shut down where the system hangs at "System Halt" (or words to that effect).

I wonder if these two problems are connected?

Bleachbit removes unnecessary files, that was not what I meant with "check filesystem".
That is a job for sfck.
What I use to do, to avoid anything going wrong, is run the LiveCD PMagic. Once up and running I run gparted  and am sure all is unmounted that way.
Then simply reboot.
Running gparted (if installed), won't let you unmount "/" of course.
There is a command, "touch with something", which I forgot meanwhile. But that would force a filesystem check at next reboot. Maybe someone can fill up the gap here for you.
For me it is PMagic doing the job here. 

[Neo]

I have recently installed PCLinuxOS 64Bit Test04 on one of my extra partitions.

I have experienced this strange booting problem even with this OS.
It is an intermittent problem.

The "verbose" trick doesn't work with this OS.

Does anyone have any ideas how to correct or prevent this problem from reoccurring?