18.04 bricked my laptop too

[kevdolph]

hi .
I'm running a beefed-up Dell Inspiron 7559.
I was running 16.04 without issue, but realized it was passed End of Life, so I thought I'd upgrade to 18.04.

Long story short, it's a brick now.
The whole thing just hangs on boot. Can't get to a command prompt. Can't log in.

I tried the dist-upgrade, and rebooted to a black screen.
Then I re-inserted the USB and tried a side-by-side install, but got the same thing.

Now, I can't even boot from a USB without hanging (maybe my USB got corrupted?).

I suspect it is related to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M

But I'm not sure where to go from here.
I saw a thing online where I could /usr/share/X11/xorg.config.d/nvidia files, but I managed to get to a command prompt and I don't even have any nvidia files there.

Assuming I can get to the command line again what should I do?
thanks for any help.

--kevin
PS.. why does every Ubuntu upgrade involving NVidia always fail? And you have to chose between an unsupported version or a broken one? (yes there is some frustration there, but this isn't my fist circus)

[deadflowr]

I was running 16.04 without issue, but realized it was passed End of Life,
Nope
16.04 is supported for another 3 years.
You can reinstall 16.04 if you want.

[kevdolph]

Nope
16.04 is supported for another 3 years.
You can reinstall 16.04 if you want.

thanks, I actually realized that now.
I also found one of the problems. The DELL has a skylake chip which requires a nomodeset kernel parameter.
I had thought that would have been resolved by now and that I didn't need it anymore, but i guess not.
I got the thing to boot now, but am fighting with the NVIDIA drivers.

Maybe I will do as you say. That may be easier.

[oldfred]

That is a video driver issue with nVidia and its proprietary driver.

I find the internal Intel video more than adequate on my Skylake system, but I only use it one Internet & misc use, no games or 4K video.
And my Haswell Dell SFF systems works fine with TV and standard HDMI at 1080.

[kevdolph]

That is a video driver issue with nVidia and its proprietary driver.

I find the internal Intel video more than adequate on my Skylake system, but I only use it one Internet & misc use, no games or 4K video.
And my Haswell Dell SFF systems works fine with TV and standard HDMI at 1080.

yeah, I am now seeing that there is a bug.
Do you know if this is something specific to the kernel? or to Ubuntu? Can I try the new kernel under Debian, for example?

I tried the nouveau drivers and they just tank my CPU. I can do a top and see X taking 90% regularly, so it's not really usable.

[oldfred]

I believe some others have had issues.
Not sure what changes have been made.

But all systems need UEFI updates for Meltdown and Spectre CPU vulnerabilities and kernels have been updated for most of those issues already.
But that may have changed something internally.

I also have seen several versions of nomodeset, most just use nomodeset. But most of those are now older threads.
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2385770&p=13742959#post13742959 by 1fallen

EDIT: This seems to work for my card here, instead of using "nomodeset" I am using this "nogpumanager"
And I have to watch carefully any changes made to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"

nvidia-drm.modeset=1 acpi_osi=
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2329171&page=3

[kevdolph]

Thanks.
I'm mulling over what to do. I am thinking about either re-installing 16.04 or going to 17.10. I know 17.10 is EOL in July, but still, it should be ok for a while and hopefully it gives some time to resolve the issue.

Most of my files are backed up, so it's just a pain, not a crisis.
Also, I noticed that the live disk works fine, which annoys me, since .... I mean, what is the point of trying the OS with a live disk if it isn't representative? Anyway, I may see what video drivers it is using. I can't believe it's using Nouveau, since they tank my cpu, so either the live disk has a different kernel parameter or they are using different drivers.

[sudodus]

I would suggest that you re-install 16.04. Please notice that there are actually two alternatives, and one of the alternatives might be better for the hardware in your computer, so it is a good idea to try both.

- Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS with the 'original xenial' kernel series, linux 4.4, where it will stay. (I like this version.)

- Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS with the 'artful' kernel series, linux 4.13, which will probably be upgraded with a new hardware enablement stack to the 'bionic' kernel series, linux 4.15, within a few months.

See this link and links from it for more detailed tips, How to select the version and flavour of Ubuntu (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2230389&p=13540865#post13540865)

[oldfred]

Just looked at grub in the ISO, and it only has splash quiet boot parameters. So whatever is built into the system.

Some have also needed other boot parameters.
DELL Inspiron 15 7000 18.04 needed boot parameters
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2386049
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1043842/running-ubuntu-via-live-usb-error-on-dell-xps-15-9560

[kevdolph]

thanks I will take a look.
I remember having to do some serious customization on 16.04 to get it to work with the CPU, but I don't recall what I did.
So I may have to tweek it a bit.
it will probably be my July 4th project.

Meanwhile I will try a couple of the kernel parameters and see if that works.
Thanks for the link!

[kevdolph]

Short answer: I took your advice and it worked! 16.04.4

Longer answer:
I booted to a live disk for 16.04.4 and it looked terrible. I had to add the nomodeset kernel parameter, but even then, the graphics were broken and I couldn't reset from 800x600
So I rebooted to a 17.10 live disk and it looked great. I figured I would cut my losses and install 17.10. When I did, the install failed -- twice.
So I rebooted to 16.04.4 again. In spite of the bad graphics, I figured "what the heck, it's already broken" and clicked the "Install".
The install went smoothly. And when I rebooted, it rebooted cleanly without nomodeset. The graphics looked good in Noveau and without clocking my CPU like they were doing in 18.04.
I installed NVIDIA's drivers and they worked great.
So everything is good.

Thinking back, I seem to remember that when I installed 16.04 the first time, I ended up rebuilding the kernel. I probably picked up a newer kernel 4.4+ which is probably why it worked before.

Thanks for all your help!

[hrsetrdr]

But all systems need UEFI updates for Meltdown and Spectre CPU vulnerabilities and kernels have been updated for most of those issues already.
But that may have changed something internally.


Just a note to those with the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 series laptops that even-though the BIOS updates are provided as Windows executables there is a simple procedure to update the Dell BIOS in Linux and

Ubuntu Environments: https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln171755/updating-the-dell-bios-in-linux-and-ubuntu-environments?lang=en