Help needed

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AndrewB
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:09 pm

Help needed

Post by AndrewB »

Hi,

I am hoping someone may be able to offer advice as to what to do about a problem I have with my Fit PC2. I bought one about 6 months ago, and soon after receiving it I loaded it with the Linux Ubuntu server OS, but didn't make much use of it.

Recently, I have finally had more time to do what I want to do with the PC2 - set up a web server, so I decided to first update the OS to the latest version of Ubuntu server (11.04). I prepared a USB drive and started the install. However the install has failed about 7 or 8 times now. Every time I try it, the machine freezes at some point before the install completes. It freezes at different points each time, one time it was during the final part of the install. Sometimes, when the freeze occurs, the graphics become corrupted (then remain frozen), but this does not happen all of the time.

Is there something I can do to isolate what the problem is? At the moment my PC2 is unusable.

Thanks,
Andrew

prj
Posts: 90
Joined: Tue May 12, 2009 9:13 am

Re: Help needed

Post by prj »

Here are some basics that you can try.

* Check USB drive for defects
* Check your memory with memtest
* Check HDD for defects
* Make sure you're not affected by the ACPI C-state bug (http://fit-pc2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=361)

Have you tried installing the previously working version of Ubuntu server again? Perhaps you can do an upgrade into 10.04 instead.

AndrewB
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:09 pm

Re: Help needed

Post by AndrewB »

Thanks for the reply. I will try these things to see how it goes.

Andrew

AndrewB
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:09 pm

Re: Help needed

Post by AndrewB »

I have been doing some more testing, and I am no closer to getting the system working, unfortunately. I still can't install an OS.

The testing I have been doing, and the results, are:

Trying to install the following operating systems from USB sticks:

Ubuntu 11.04 - Freezes at start with just a blank screen.

Ubuntu 10.10 - Gets part way through the installation, then freezes at a point
where it is "installing software" with 5% on the progress bar and below it the
text "please wait...". It always freezes at this point.

Linux Mint 11 - Freezes at start after displaying a single line "Syslinux
3.06..." at the top of the screen.

Linux Mint 10 - Freezes at start after displaying a single line "Syslinux
3.06..." at the top of the screen. This is the same as for Linux Mint 11.

I have also tried:

- Using three different USB sticks, rotating through the above distributions.
There was no change. All failed.

- Using the two front USB ports and one of the rear USB port (the top one. I
had a keyboard plugged into the bottom one). No change in behaviour
regardless of which port I used. It always froze in the same way.

- I ran a memory test from one of the Ubuntu distribution install USB sticks and it passed without any errors.

- I then tried installing Windows XP using a USB drive prepared with the "WinToFlash"
utility. Selecting a GUI install led to nothing but a bkank screen, although
the disk activity LED was flashing continually. In hindsight I may have just picked the wrong menu option.

- I then tried the text based Windows XP install. I also set up a single large
partition and formatteded it using NTFS (slow format, not a quick format) to check the hard drive (which is a 200 GB drive that I used to use in my laptop PC).
This install seemed to progress further, but after the initial install and a
reboot, the GUI part of the install froze when it got to the Regional Setup window.

I rebooted, restarted the XP install, got to about the same screen, then it froze again.

- I rebooted and changed the OS in the BIOS from Other to Win XP and tried to
complete the Windows XP install again (I presumably should have changed this
before starting the Windows install attempts, but I didn't know about the
setting because I didn't check the BIOS before).

Once again I got into the Regional settings screen, only to have the system freeze.

- I then tried another Linux install using Unetbootin instead of the Universal
USB Installer application to prepare the USB stick. However this failed because it thought that the
"CD ROM" was incorrect, so the install would not proceed (presumably I
didn't set up something correctly when using Unetbootin to set up the
USB stick).

So, I am out of ideas. What else can be tried? I assume that it is possible
to install an OS onto the Fit PC from USB, so how can it be made to work?

Or does the system need to be returned for repair?

Andrew

irads

Re: Help needed

Post by irads »

I was going to suggest running memtest when I saw you already did.
I cannot think of probable hardware issue with the unit, and installation is a too complicated matter for us to support effectively.

If you are interested, you may return the unit for a refund. Then (again, if interested) you may order a pre-installed unit.

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