BIOS Issue

K

Kryyll

Guest
So I got this new old laptop that I'm playing with instead of studying for finals and I ran into a little problem. After I updated my system, the screen stays black until Slackware loads the video drivers. However, I tried to boot off a thumb drive and it wouldn't boot, in fact I couldn't even get the screen to turn on. The only system that will run is the Slackware system I have installed on the hard disk. Any ideas?
 


What is the make and model of your laptop?

Does the BIOS/Boot Order allow for booting from USB?

Might it be a problem with USB1, USB2?
 
It's a Dell Latitude D820. Yes it does allow that's how I installed slackware. And I don't think so, I can access the thumb drives when I'm in the slackware system.
 
What's on your USB stick that you are trying to boot from?

Have you able to try booting the USB stick on another computer?

Have you got the Nvidia drivers on the USB stick?
For the graphics chip in the Latitude D820 you can use both the open source nv module and Nvidia's proprietary one. For installation instructions, you can view our Configuring a nVidia graphics chip guide. For 3D support, you will need the proprietary module. Some older versions of X may not have support for the Nvidia Quadro FX 110M, in this case you will need to use the proprietary module.

Some versions of the D820 include the Nvidia Quadro NVS 120M and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. Neither of these have been tested yet.
Click to expand...
- http://www.linlap.com/dell_latitude_d820
 
It's puppy linux actually. I would imagine it has the drivers because I've booted it off tons of machines before. And yes I boot it off of my desktop fine. I'll look into the drivers though
 
Something interesting that may help: The brightness adjustment doesn't work anymore. Before I updated the system, the brightness worked.
 
I think I found where the problem came from. When I installed lilo I installed it to the MBR.... Could that cause the issue?
 
That might be it. You are attempting to start from the USB stick but lilo is not there...
 
I'm sorry but I think my last post was wrong. (Overtired?) Still thinking.

The USB stick works on other computers, should not involve lilo for Slack..
 
What's strange is that even if I boot without the hard disk in it still doesn't work. I think I'm gonna try and flash the BIOs.
 
I have many many old computers(7+) and they only have USB Drives for USB 2.0+ and not 1.0. Just too old, sorry.
 
It's been a while but I've got some news about this topic. During a my thanksgiving break I decided to pull this old laptop out and try and figure it out. Turns out I'm on to something!

So, basically it wouldn't boot on to ANY. Until I tried the lasted version of Gentoo's liveDVD, Iron Penguin. What is strange is that it boots just like Slackware did when I had it installed on the hard drive. So I explored this idea farther and turns out that for some reason the screen doesn't turn on until Gentoo loads something. What that "something" is, I don't know. It will run any OS you plug in, it just won't show the picture on the laptop's screen. That being said, I can use an external screen and it'll work.

This was very strange so I tried to figure out more. I ran a hardware test on it (holding F5 while booting causes this). Everything passed except the LCD screen test. What doesn't make sense is that Gentoo can get the screen to work but nothing, including it's own BIOS, can!

I've been looking around the drivers on the Gentoo liveDVD and it includes nouveau, the open source nVidia driver, and thought that maybe that's why. I was wrong, Puppy Linux has nouveau and it will NOT turn the screen on.

Needless to say, I need some advice on what could be causing this! Is it a hardware problem? Software? Firmware? Is the BIOS the real issue? Any idea?!
 
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