Chris_Sol_Gully
May 21st, 2015, 07:34 PM
SOLVED!
Update: Thanks to all who helped me out with this. The machine is running great now, stable and crash free for several days now. Below are steps that helped fix this, but main issue was related to NVIDIA drivers.
1) The main fix--> NVIDIA adapter updated and new/correct drivers installed. From terminal, enter: "sudo apt-get install nvidia-current"
Again, thanks to SeijiSensei for that. OnCe updated and rebooted, seems to function like it's supposed to. Runs great!
2) Noticed that the little rubber spacers on bottom rear of this old laptop were missing and there was insufficient air space which was causing overheating and intermittent crashes. This HP tends to run hot and has crappy fan and venting to begin with... so this was pushing it over the edge. Temporarily have propped it up but plan to fabricate some new larger spacers and epoxy them where these little spacer feet should be. Will also clean fan and possibly dremel/cut some new larger openings so fan can breath better. Will also use laptop cooling stand when using its at home on desk.
3) Have updated various other software just to make sure everything is up to date. For now sticking with Ubuntu 14.10 since seems to run fine now, will consider switching to 14.04LTS in future.
So this crappy old laptop seems to have a new lease on life as a useful machine. Next steps are buy new battery, install Wine and see if can run SketchUp.
Note: Posts edited to remove embedded images per oldfred's request to speed up viewing. Images now attached. Thanks again.
Chris
Original post:
Hello, new to forum. Used the search and viewed FAQ's but didn't see same scenario I'm dealing with so figured I'd post and ask for advice...
I'm an architect (building not software) with average computer skills. I've been wanting to switch to Linux (would have to run Wine for most of my arch related software) and figured my first project would be to convert an old laptop to run Ubuntu. This is a 10 year old throw-away HP Pavilion DV9500 laptop my wife had that ran Windows 32 bit Vista, horrible OS. The machine was barely functioning and super slow. However, the screen and speakers are relatively nice and it has a Turion 64 x2 1900MHz & upgraded to ~3.6MB RAM, which according to what I've read should be plenty to run Ubuntu 64 bit. (Was this my first mistake, installing Ubuntu 64 bit instead of 32?). I created a boot-from-USB and proceeded to install Ubuntu 14.10 and wiped out Vista completely since it's an older laptop w/ ~ 114 GiB harddrive (mostly free now) and wanted to maximize efficiency.
From the little bit of functioning Ubuntu experience that I have gotten so far, I can see why people fall in love with Linux/Ubuntu etc and won't go back to Windows. It seems really sweet and the laptop runs way faster than it ever did when it's working. But... It won't work for very long and starts bogging down and freezing up and then crashes. So I really haven't been able to play with it or learn much so far. But at this point I'd like to move this forward and troubleshoot it, and either junk the laptop and get something that works, or preferably fix this laptop to have as an extra toy. I don't want to convert my other main work laptop to dual-boot Linux until I have a better handle on things and gain some more confidence in Linux.
The install seemed to go well enough, but booted inconsistently and crashed off and on. Seemed to get a bit more consistent and work better after booting several times, including in safe-mode, but I really didn't change any configurations (although it did automatically update) and started running a bit smoother. But it's still not a functional laptop. It freezes up and crashes consistently. Using the 'search' button really agitates it and usually crashes shortly thereafter, while displaying odd pixalated screen graphics in variety of colors. Not sure if this is a processor issue, a graphics card issue, driver issues (I still can't quite understand how drivers work in Linux vs Windows). But there seems to be some sort of fundamental incompatibility in this application. Would it be better to run Mint, Manjaro or some other alternate version?
It won't always boot correctly from GRUB but when I then restart it, it usually will. Not sure why inconsistent. When it does start Ubuntu, it gives me several error messages, first during boot and then once running Ubuntu from the desktop. I ran some basic memory tests at boot and it passes them all so doesn't seem to be corrupt hard disk. Deciphering these errors is beyond my current skill set so would love some advice on how to go about fixing this. Here are some images that may help show what the issues are:
Anyways, thanks for reading along and I would be super appreciative of any help/advice in getting this sorted out. Hopefully will be off and running with Linux Ubuntu in near future.
Thank you!
Gully
Update: Thanks to all who helped me out with this. The machine is running great now, stable and crash free for several days now. Below are steps that helped fix this, but main issue was related to NVIDIA drivers.
1) The main fix--> NVIDIA adapter updated and new/correct drivers installed. From terminal, enter: "sudo apt-get install nvidia-current"
Again, thanks to SeijiSensei for that. OnCe updated and rebooted, seems to function like it's supposed to. Runs great!
2) Noticed that the little rubber spacers on bottom rear of this old laptop were missing and there was insufficient air space which was causing overheating and intermittent crashes. This HP tends to run hot and has crappy fan and venting to begin with... so this was pushing it over the edge. Temporarily have propped it up but plan to fabricate some new larger spacers and epoxy them where these little spacer feet should be. Will also clean fan and possibly dremel/cut some new larger openings so fan can breath better. Will also use laptop cooling stand when using its at home on desk.
3) Have updated various other software just to make sure everything is up to date. For now sticking with Ubuntu 14.10 since seems to run fine now, will consider switching to 14.04LTS in future.
So this crappy old laptop seems to have a new lease on life as a useful machine. Next steps are buy new battery, install Wine and see if can run SketchUp.
Note: Posts edited to remove embedded images per oldfred's request to speed up viewing. Images now attached. Thanks again.
Chris
Original post:
Hello, new to forum. Used the search and viewed FAQ's but didn't see same scenario I'm dealing with so figured I'd post and ask for advice...
I'm an architect (building not software) with average computer skills. I've been wanting to switch to Linux (would have to run Wine for most of my arch related software) and figured my first project would be to convert an old laptop to run Ubuntu. This is a 10 year old throw-away HP Pavilion DV9500 laptop my wife had that ran Windows 32 bit Vista, horrible OS. The machine was barely functioning and super slow. However, the screen and speakers are relatively nice and it has a Turion 64 x2 1900MHz & upgraded to ~3.6MB RAM, which according to what I've read should be plenty to run Ubuntu 64 bit. (Was this my first mistake, installing Ubuntu 64 bit instead of 32?). I created a boot-from-USB and proceeded to install Ubuntu 14.10 and wiped out Vista completely since it's an older laptop w/ ~ 114 GiB harddrive (mostly free now) and wanted to maximize efficiency.
From the little bit of functioning Ubuntu experience that I have gotten so far, I can see why people fall in love with Linux/Ubuntu etc and won't go back to Windows. It seems really sweet and the laptop runs way faster than it ever did when it's working. But... It won't work for very long and starts bogging down and freezing up and then crashes. So I really haven't been able to play with it or learn much so far. But at this point I'd like to move this forward and troubleshoot it, and either junk the laptop and get something that works, or preferably fix this laptop to have as an extra toy. I don't want to convert my other main work laptop to dual-boot Linux until I have a better handle on things and gain some more confidence in Linux.
The install seemed to go well enough, but booted inconsistently and crashed off and on. Seemed to get a bit more consistent and work better after booting several times, including in safe-mode, but I really didn't change any configurations (although it did automatically update) and started running a bit smoother. But it's still not a functional laptop. It freezes up and crashes consistently. Using the 'search' button really agitates it and usually crashes shortly thereafter, while displaying odd pixalated screen graphics in variety of colors. Not sure if this is a processor issue, a graphics card issue, driver issues (I still can't quite understand how drivers work in Linux vs Windows). But there seems to be some sort of fundamental incompatibility in this application. Would it be better to run Mint, Manjaro or some other alternate version?
It won't always boot correctly from GRUB but when I then restart it, it usually will. Not sure why inconsistent. When it does start Ubuntu, it gives me several error messages, first during boot and then once running Ubuntu from the desktop. I ran some basic memory tests at boot and it passes them all so doesn't seem to be corrupt hard disk. Deciphering these errors is beyond my current skill set so would love some advice on how to go about fixing this. Here are some images that may help show what the issues are:
Anyways, thanks for reading along and I would be super appreciative of any help/advice in getting this sorted out. Hopefully will be off and running with Linux Ubuntu in near future.
Thank you!
Gully