Dell OptiPlex 745 reboot problem -- BIOS update went poorly

[Tod Merley]

Reply below V  V

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Johnathan Hegge
<johnathan.hegge at bluecoat.com> wrote:
>>
>> > -------- Forwarded Message --------
>> > From: Bjørn Tore Sund <bjorn.sund at it.uib.no>
>> > Reply-To: Community assistance, encouragement, and advice for using
>> > Fedora. <fedora-list at redhat.com>
>> > To: fedora-list at redhat.com <fedora-list at redhat.com>
>> > Subject: Re: Dell OptiPlex 745 reboot problem
>> > Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:21:46 +0200
>> >
>> > Tony Molloy wrote:
>> > > On Friday 05 September 2008 16:05:04 Mike McCarty wrote:
>> > > > Tony Molloy wrote:
>> > > > > Hi,
>> > > > >
>> > > > > I've just installed Fedora-9 on a lab of Dell OptiPlex 745 (SFF)
>> > > > > machines. ( only in 1 lab TG )
>> > > > >
>> > > > > After running firstboot when I went to reboot the machines they just hang
>> > > > > and I had to do a hard reboot. I thought this was a minor glitch and
>> > > > > ignored it.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > Now however when the machines boot into Fedora-9 the "reboot" and
>> > > > > "suspend" buttons do not work. The windowing system just shuts down and I
>> > > > > get a text prompt and the machines just hang there.
>> > > >
>> > > > Hang? That's a vague term. If you type on the keyboard, do characters
>> > > > get echoed? If you have a text prompt, then can you not do a
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > > Hang means exactly what it means. The machines just go dead!!! No input from
>> > > the keyboard accepted. Only thing to do is a hard reboot.
>> >
>> > Got tons of Dell Optiplex 7XX, had that exact problem.  Solution is
>> > two-step:
>> > 1. Flash up the bios.  The ones they're shipped with suck bigtime.
>> > 2. Add the kernel parameter "reboot=bios" to all kernel lines in
>> > /boot/grub/menu.lst
>> >
>> > Solved it for us.
>> >
>> > -BT
>
> Ugh, I was having the same problem with my 745.  So, I drug out a USB
> floppy and applied the latest BIOS -- going from 2.3.1 to 2.6.2 from
> Dell.  Whoops.
>
> Starting up looks fine, all services showed OK.  Gets to local, X starts
> and the box freezes at the spinning dots with a frozen mouse.  Can't
> break with Ctrl-Alt-Del or Ctrl-Backspace.
>
> Hard power, restart, interactive init.  Allow all, but skip local.  X
> starts fine.
>
> rc.local contains:
>
>
>> #!/bin/sh
>> #
>> # This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
>> # You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
>> # want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.
>>
>> touch /var/lock/subsys/local
>
>
> Reset BIOS to defaults for kicks, no change.  I have a PCI Express
> graphics card, ATI x1300 installed.
>
>
> Any ideas?  I guess I can revert BIOS one by one backward to see if it
> works.
>
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Hi Johnathan Hegge!

Did you try doing a CTL+ALT+F1 (evokes a login terminal - as does
CTL+ALT+F2 to F6 - F7 to X and F8 to just before the start of X)?

>From there, or by using a rescue or Live CD booted to a terminal you
can check several places in /var/log - I would look at Xorg.0.log,
messages, dmesg, and possibly syslog.  Doing a word search on "EE" in
Xorg.0.log and "fail" or "error" etc... can often get you to the
problem quickly.

You may also try some boot options designed to help in other areas.

The problem you mention, espically with the small form factor machines
seems to have a history.  Amongst many I found this link:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/3/12/201