8.10 Installation fails on Dell Precision T7400

[mwob]

Hi all,

I'm trying to install the Intrepid Ibex 8.10 x64 version on my Dell Precision T7400. This machine already has hardy on it, and dual boots with vista.

Attempt 1: Do the upgrade in Ubuntu the normal way. This gets all the way to the end, and then reboots. When I reset my screen configuration, I get the round "busy" pointer on a black screen and nothing happens, it just hangs there.

Attempt 2: Install from the CD. I boot from the CD and choose "install ubuntu". I get as far as the new wallpaper appearing with a mouse pointer, and then it just stays there forever.... I can move the mouse pointer but there is no activity at all....

Can anyone shed some light on this? Hardy went on without issue. I also tried to reset my bios settings to factory settings, to no avail...

[Pumalite]

Did you do md5sum? Burn at 4x or less? Do not use CD-RW. Clean the lens in your burner just in case.
Post your specs.

[mwob]

I used the default options in Gnomebaker. Its a pretty new machine so I don't think there is any issue with the CD. I also forgot to mention that I tried the same thing burning a release candidate version last week, and that had the same problem.

Machine specs.

N-Series T7400- Intel Xeon E5410 (2.33GHz,1333FSB,2x6MB,Quad Core) 1,179.10 5,895.50
8GB DDR2 667 Quad Channel FBD Memory (8x1GB) 1
160GB (10,000rpm) NCQ SATA Hard Drive
Additional 160GB (10,000rpm) NCQ SATA II Hard Drive
16X DVD+/-RW
C2 SATA No RAID for 2 Hard Drive
256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro NVS 290 (ULGA8)

[Pumalite]

Try the amd64 Alternate CD

[mwob]

Ok, that doesn't work too.

I downloaded and burned the ISO image at the slowest speed. It all installed with the "Alternate Installer", rebooted at the end, and I get the same problem - I get a black screen with the "busy" wait pointer which is not animated. Nothing works.

This is really disappointing, I was expecting some good things from 8.10, but it won't even install.

[dsmithhfx]

Try the live cd. If it boots ok, try the installer that's on it.

I also had problems with the alternate installer, but got the live cd installation to work (but only after some xserver jiggery-pokery in the command line, shame shame shame...)

[mwob]

The Live CD just hangs too! Argh!

[Pumalite]

You never memtioned your memory. Or I missed it.

[mwob]

I did :)

8GB DDR2 667 Quad Channel FBD Memory (8x1GB)

[Pumalite]

Time to try some boot parameters:(use the most common first):
noapic nolapic acpi=off irqpoll pci=noacpi pnpbios=off all_generic_ide vga=0x317 vga=778 vga=779 vga=791
http://grumpymole.blogspot.com/2007/05/ubuntu-how-to-edit-grub-boot-parameters.html

[mwob]

Aha, found the problem!

It was because I had tow monitors connected up to the monitor. This was causing something to crash when X was starting up. I unplugged the second monitor and everything worked fine.

Thanks for your help anyways :)