Laptop issues

[CRR^2]

I am having issues with my laptop. It dies if I let it sit idle for more than a few minutes. It stalls during booting up with a black screen and the caps lock button lit but nothing else, no mouse cursor, no activity from any attempt to get it going. Only thing to do is power it off by holding down the power button until it shuts off.
It is a Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 purchased in Feb 2024 running Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS. No other OS installed, I overwrote the Windows OS when I installed Pop!_OS. It was running fine until it started giving firmware update messages, but the firmware (Dell System Firmware 1.19.0) fails to install when I hit the update button. Instead it comes back with "error in fwupd client: calling Install method failed: failed to set /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/fwupd-c5e1348e-99ce-4861-9cab-b98919ce9d28-0-0abba7dc-e516-4167-bbf5-4d9dlc739416 as mutable: failed to open: No such file or directory.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Let's hope your BIOS wasn't bricked by failed update, can you enter BIOS?
To enter BIOS you keep pressing F2 key as soon as laptop starts powering on (but before Linux starts loading).
Keep pressing F2 until you enter BIOS.

 

[CRR^2]

I will try. Back after.

 

[CRR^2]

No issue entering BIOS.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

OK then your laptop is fine, but how to fix OS I'm clueless, it doesn't look like easy to do.
You can try booting live ISO to see if everything work, and then either do fixing, backup etc. or reinstallment.

Maybe someone can help with how to fix.
If you reinstall disable fwupd so it doesn't mess again.

 

[Brickwizard]

(Dell System Firmware 1.19.0) fails to install when I hit the update button. Instead it comes back with "error in fwupd client:

I think that needs windows to run,

To update Dell in linux see https://linuxvox.com/blog/run-administrator-dell-suu-linux/

 

[CRR^2]

Am I correct in the implication that trying to run the update without being root is likely to cause it to fail? I get this from the link you sent that they use sudo to run the SUU updater. I don't find an efivars directory in the efi directory, just the following "002d7b2da752352d8aac877a667088e5 EFI loader". So it makes sense that the updater is failing as it isn't finding what it needs to continue. I can ignore the firmware update message, but that doesn't feel right.

 

[Brickwizard]

m I correct in the implication that trying to run the update without being root is likely to cause it to fail

yes
you are trying to make major changes to your firmware that can, if not done correctly, bulk your machine all such major changes can only be done in admin/superuser mode

 

[theLegionWithin]

you can get into the bios - can you factory reset it? after that, set your primary boot device to the internal ssd and see what it does.

if errors persist, try setting the primary boot device to a usb stick and boot to a live environment for basically any distro (testing to see if the issue has to do with the internal ssd). if no errors occur then the issue is either hardware (bad ssd) or a bad distro on that ssd so reinstall whatever distro you've been using.

if the errors persist, replace the ssd.

 

[Condobloke]

Nuclear option ^^^^^^...?

 

[theLegionWithin]

Nuclear option ^^^^^^...?

maybe?

with OP's initial description - to me, that sounds like a hardware issue. I guess OP could run a SMART check against the disk in a live environment, but if it was me and I'd already gone through a reinstall and the issue persisted I'd rip out the ssd, toss it, and get a new one (OEM warranty processes being what they are it's much, much faster to do it yourself). in the grand scheme of things a replacement m.2 isnt that expensive - given that without storage booting is basically impossible unless you want a usb drive permanently hanging off of your laptop (just asking for it to be cracked/bent in the port).

 

[wizardfromoz]

G'day @CRR^2

I have a Dell Inspiron (2019) but it is not a 2-in-1.

Before trashing an SSD, I would advise the following:

• Use a sufficiently sized USB stick or an external drive to save your personal data
• Replace Pop with something else mainstream, eg Linux Mint. I have found Pop to be problematic whenever I have installed it, and I run 83 distros, on on this rig, so I have a good idea on functionality. Pop is designed for System 76 computers, and using anything else could be a gamble.
• If the new distro does not work OK, then you are a step closer to identifying it as a hardware issue.

So far, in my experience, the only distro produced by a computer firm that works fine with my Dell is TuxedoOS , which you can also get from DistroWatch.

HTH

Wizard

 

[Brickwizard]

Pop is designed for System 76 computers, and using anything else could be a gamble.

*I dont know how many times we have said this to members, When Pop works OTB without issues then it works well, but if for some reason it doesn't then you can spend days trying to make it work.
I have been using Dell lappies since 2010 and had only one incident of a bios problem , and that was just a question of working my way through the security settings to get the right combination [it was like all my machines a refurbished business machine and the previous owners had some stronger than normal settings.
I have never needed to update a dell BIOS [I have with Acer several timres]

 

[CRR^2]

This can be marked as solved. The reset of the BIOS to factory original worked. I have given it a good chance to have issues and it has done well.

Many thanks,

CRR^2

 

[MikeWalsh]

@CRR^2 :-

IIH, I tend to avoid firmware "updates" like the plague. They're very rarely needed unless required to fix specific, existing 'issues', and are frequently more trouble than they're worth...

But thanks for bringing us up to speed on this. So many people don't, with the end result that we're never entirely sure whether we've helped people or not!


Mike.

 

[Loude]

It seems that the problem here is more related not to Pop!_OS itself, but to EFI/fwupd and the way Dell pushes firmware updates through Linux. The efivars error often appears when EFI variables are either not mounted properly, or Secure Boot/UEFI behaves crookedly after previous updates. I would first check if the system is actually booted in UEFI mode, and not in Legacy, because fwupd really does not like mixed configs. Also, hangs after sleep are very similar to an ACPI or firmware regression problem - this happens more often than we would like with Dell, especially on new Inspirons.

As a temporary workaround, you can simply completely disable suspend and sleep until you figure out the BIOS, because constant hard shutdowns can later cost more nerves, money and time than the problem itself now. I once had a similar game with Lenovo under Fedora - black screen, Caps Lock is on and no reaction, and the culprit turned out to be a crooked firmware update plus modern standby.

I would also try updating the BIOS manually via USB and Dell BIOS Flash Update directly from UEFI, rather than via fwupd in Linux, because sometimes it works much more stably on Dell.

 

[Kojack]

I have 3 dell laptops and 2 of them exhibit this behavior. One is on Zorin, the other is on windows 11. I would love to know how to solve this on both as well. My windows machine will sometimes show the dell boot and then the screen will go black and white snow or black and red snow, like an old tv without signal.

I would love to figure out the boot/sleep issues on both however. TIA!