Install bricked my Compaq

[lykwydchykyn]

At any rate, I'm ok (and a little embarrased for not checking first) with accepting that the machine won't handle a full-on version of Ubuntu. What should I use instead?

Thanks,

SteveJ

Actually it's not near as bad as I thought. Ubuntu would be slow on there but it should at least boot and launch a login window.

And there's no need to reinstall at if you're going to stick with an Ubuntu derivative; just install a different desktop environment.

Though, come to think of it, it might be useful to see if you can get something like the crunchbang liveCD to boot. Then you'd at least know if it was just a lack-of-resources issue or if X is not working with your video card.

[WASHAD]

I'm downloading CrunchBang limited edition now. I'll report back.

SteveJ

[WASHAD]

Though, come to think of it, it might be useful to see if you can get something like the crunchbang liveCD to boot. Then you'd at least know if it was just a lack-of-resources issue or if X is not working with your video card.

CrunchBank seems to have the same problem from the live CD. It runs for a while then freezes.

SteveJ

[lykwydchykyn]

CrunchBank seems to have the same problem from the live CD. It runs for a while then freezes.

SteveJ

Does it actually get to the desktop though?

If the liveCD is freezing, that typically means one of three things:
- Bad RAM. Run memtest (from the liveCD boot menu) on it for an hour or so and see if any errors are detected.
- Bad CD or CD drive. Run "dmesg" from the liveCD command line and see if you see any ATA related errors.
- Heat issue. Boot to the BIOS (aka CMOS) setup and let it sit for a while. If it has temperature readings, all the better. If not, see if it locks up sitting in the BIOS config. If it does, you have a heat issue.

[WASHAD]

Does it actually get to the desktop though?

No, it stops before that.

- Bad RAM. Run memtest (from the liveCD boot menu) on it for an hour or so and see if any errors are detected.

Ran the test, all passed.

- Bad CD or CD drive. Run "dmesg" from the liveCD command line and see if you see any ATA related errors.

Not sure where to run this from; at any rate, CD drive handled entire install of Ubuntu Alternate edition.

- Heat issue. Boot to the BIOS (aka CMOS) setup and let it sit for a while. If it has temperature readings, all the better. If not, see if it locks up sitting in the BIOS config. If it does, you have a heat issue.

It made it through the hour long memory test.