4

The laptop is dual booting with windows 7 and ubuntu 11.10. For 11.10 to boot, I had to add 'nolapic' in GRUB boot options.

I downloaded 12.04LTS LiveCD yesterday and made a CD and a bootable USB stick. With both USB and LiveCD, occasionally I can boot into 12.04. But many times, the boot process stuck at some point.

For USB boot, sometime it works. But other times, it seems to stuck right after seeing the message:

NMI watchdog enabled.
takes one hw-pmu counted
[0.408590] #2

The number in [] changes. Some times it stuck at #2, and sometimes at #3.

For LiveCD boot, sometime it works. But when it stuck, it stuck at different places. At times, the boot process go directly to a blank screen with a blink '_' at up left corner. Sometime it went a bit further, after showing options to try/install ubuntu then stuck with a blank screen with blink '_'.

Anything I can do to get around of this?

G. He
  • 910
  • It would be helpful if you can try some of the "common kernel options" such as noapic - add what you have tried to your question. thanks. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions – fossfreedom Apr 30 '12 at 11:38
  • Did more tests on LiveCD booting today. Still could not figure out a way to consistently boot it. At most times, I can hear the CD spin up, then stop, the boot process would not show any message but stuck at a blinking cursor. Occasionally, I was able to see the language selection, but once I got to that spot, I don't need to select any special boot options and it seems always continue from there to completing the boot process. – G. He May 01 '12 at 01:35
  • I sure you have already done this - but did you do a md5 check sum on the ISO & CD? – fossfreedom May 01 '12 at 06:26
  • Yes, I did. It matched. – G. He May 01 '12 at 11:35
  • 2
    Its worth still trying some of the bootoptions in the link - if you have a broken bios for ACPI support, its worth also checking what version of bios you currently have and what is the latest version is available from the manufacturer. Remember to edit your question with any extra information including your comment above. Thanks! – fossfreedom May 04 '12 at 12:18
  • have you tried running this script? http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/. Boot Info Script is a bash script which searches all hard drives attached to the computer for information related to booting. Its primary use is for troubleshooting booting problems. For instructions see: http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net. You need to post up the output from this for us to see and examine please. Good luck – Sun Dial May 06 '12 at 09:01

2 Answers2

1

I have an Asus u46e-bal7 with the BIOS 206.

I had the same problem. And I've found two solutions:

  1. Ugly one, that made my PC get hotter — enable option noapic in GRUB
  2. Nice one — disable VT-d in BIOS. I use VirtualBox that uses VT-x, and it worked the same way as before.
Gustavo Garcia
  • 11
0

Old way to fix Ubuntu in ASUS

Try this:

Go to BIOS > Security> I / O interface Security> "New Card Interface". Set it to Locked.

I also had this problem before but after I did that Ubuntu worked. But my ASUS Computer only shows a blinking line, nothing else.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1662577&page=3

Or read this

http://ehow.com/how_7641485_edit-acpi-bios.html and disable acpi.

Emerson Hsieh
  • 6,900
  • 1
    I tried that after reading your post. But I don't see "New interface card" under I/O interface Security. Maybe the BIOS is different? – G. He May 03 '12 at 18:12
  • Sorry- it's the New Card Interface. I checked my BIOS. And since I also have an ASUS, I think the BIOS may be similar to yours. – Emerson Hsieh May 03 '12 at 23:13
  • In my BIOS, the following are the items under security>i/o interface security: Lan Network Interface, Wireless Network Interface, Audio Interface, SATA Interface, USB interface security. – G. He May 04 '12 at 03:05
  • The USB interface security item can be further expanded into the followings: USB Interface, External Port, Blue tooth/UWB, CMOS Camera, Card Reader. – G. He May 04 '12 at 03:07
  • Is there anything in your BIOS that lets you to disable the New Card? I know that Ubuntu dropped support for acpi since 10.04, and most ASUS computers comes with it by default. Disabling the New Card disables it. – Emerson Hsieh May 04 '12 at 03:17
  • Does your BIOS look like this: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/mainboards/asus-commando/bios1s.jpg or this: http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/mainboards/asus-commando/bios1s.jpg – Emerson Hsieh May 04 '12 at 03:20
  • no. My BIOS screen is quite different from yours. BTW, how do you capture BIOS screen image? – G. He May 04 '12 at 11:25
  • let us continue this discussion in chat – G. He May 04 '12 at 15:50
  • or this? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AEkbIlpEeCU/T2sLUSvHqbI/AAAAAAAADeE/-WCHZHnlbsk/s1600/BIOS.gif – Emerson Hsieh May 05 '12 at 05:26
  • no. My bios is different from yours. See picture: http://68.46.181.237/IMG00116-20120505-0742.jpg – G. He May 05 '12 at 12:00
  • read this http://www.ehow.com/how_7641485_edit-acpi-bios.html and disable acpi. – Emerson Hsieh May 05 '12 at 19:08
  • any down side from disabling acpi? – G. He May 06 '12 at 11:47
  • Well, after I disabled the New Card and booted into windows it had an error, so it boots into the recovery partition. Next it fixes the error by itself and windows worked properly. So did Ubuntu. – Emerson Hsieh May 06 '12 at 19:50
  • Maybe you should read this : http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=978 . Although disabling it did not cost anything for me, check to see if you have a hidden recovery partition in your computer before disabling the acpi. – Emerson Hsieh May 06 '12 at 19:52
  • It looks like a risky proposition to disabling acpi. I'll stay at 11.10 for now and see if there are other solutions to my problem. Thank you very much for your help. – G. He May 07 '12 at 11:19