Unable to Boot: Crash Immediately After GRUB

[Martom]

Hey all,

I recently installed Xubuntu 12.10 on an older laptop and while it mostly works fine, I've been having some boot issues.

Maybe a week or so ago, I suddenly couldn't boot into Xubuntu anymore. Immediately after the GRUB menu, it would crash and power down my laptop abruptly, as if I pulled out the power cord. I was still able to boot into Windows and into recovery mode. From recovery mode I tried fsck-ing things, which gave me an error about not being able to mount my /home partition. After some googling I came across this post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...0&postcount=21

Following these instructions, I managed to fix that issue.

The thing is, just now I tried to boot into Xubuntu and I got the same thing: immediate shutdown after GRUB. The first thing I tried, of course, was to go into my fstab again. The changes I made are still there, though, so obviously it's not the same issue. I tried fsck, but it doesn't appear to be doing anything. It tells me it finds /dev/sda6 and /dev/sda7 with some information about them, then nothing.

I don't really know how to go from here. Also, I'd like to find out why this is happening, since it wasn't a one-off glitch. I don't know what's causing these issues; everything was working just fine this morning.

Thanks.

[Martom]

In an interesting new development, Xubuntu decided to boot again. It's not crashing. However, something still seems to be off because now it has me stare at a blank screen for around ten seconds before it actually boots, which was not the case before.

Does anyone have any idea what I could do to figure out what's going on?

[Martom]

Again, Xubuntu fails to boot. Now, however, I am also unable to boot into Recovery Mode; when I try to, the laptop similarly powers down abruptly after a few dozen lines of command line output have flashed by. Windows is still booting normally.

I'm starting to suspect it's just a hardware failure. Does anyone have any insights?

[dannyboy79]

sounds like the cpu is overheating and the computer is shutting itself off to protect itself from self frying. can you run a livecd even? run memtest if you can run a live cd. try to run a livecd and get some temperatures. oh wait, you said windows still works? if that's the case them I am not sure. can you boot into an older kernel? if you can boot into windows, use the fs-driver to mount the ext3 partition so you can access the kern.log and syslog to see if there are any errors in there to point you in an error direction. if you can't even run a livecd I would go ahead and try to re-seat the cpu's heat sink fan with new thermal paste.

[Martom]

It does sound like that, but I'd be surprised to see it overheating within seconds of me pressing the power button.

Also, indeed, Windows is booting up just fine. I can mount my Linux filesystem from Windows and it looks okay, I can access files on both partitions. I also checked the CPU temperature and it's reporting 60-65 C, which is probably not ideal and the fan might need a clean, but I don't think it could be causing my issues.

[dannyboy79]

since windows works it's not a heating issue. are you sure it's powering off or is it just that the screen is going black or blank? have you noticed a new kernel was installed recently, can you boot into an older kernel? since you said you can access your partition from within windows, have you checked /var/log/syslog /var/log/kern.log files for errors?

[Martom]

I cleaned my fan just to be sure and, perhaps uncorrelatedly, Xubuntu booted up afterwards. The temperatures are a bit lower now, but I still don't think that was the problem.

I had a look in the syslog file and I find this on repeat:

Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.986989] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Microcode SW error detected. Restarting 0x82000008.
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987012] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Loaded firmware version: 15.32.2.9
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987051] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Start IWL Error Log Dump:
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987059] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Status: 0x000202E4, count: 1
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987066] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Desc       Time       asrtPC  blink2 ilink1  nmiPC   Line
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987304] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: SYSASSERT     (0x5) 0000202693 0x008B6 0x00274 0x00320 0x04EBE 116
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987304]
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22782.987341] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Error Reply type 0x00000005 cmd C_TX (0x1C) seq 0x0255 ser 0x00740000
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22783.484096] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Error sending C_RATE_SCALE: time out after 500ms.
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22783.484110] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Error setting HW rate table: FFFFFF92
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22783.488142] iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Can't stop Rx DMA.
Dec 11 22:41:01 MAR kernel: [22783.489965] ieee80211 phy0: Hardware restart was requested

The kern.log file contains the same lines. I really have no idea what this means.

[dannyboy79]

looks like a module (windows speak, a driver) is failing to work correctly. Do you have a wifi card in this computer? DO you use wifi or are you hard wired?

As an FYI, normally when you see any error, you can google the string, "iwl3945 0000:04:00.0: Microcode SW error detected. Restarting 0x82000008" and normally you'll find other users who have had the same issue and normally find a solution.

From what I am reading this problem is related to a bug in the firmware and the iwl3945 module. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=461924

this page makes it seem like you can use another module called ipw3945 for that wifi chipset. http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=127214

We could blacklist the problem module to make the error go away as it will fill up your log files IF it's repeating and may be what was causing your crashes.

[Martom]

Thanks for the input, danny. Yes, there's a wifi card; I hardly ever use a cable. I had a look and it seems most people just have problems connecting due to this issue, not a total failure. Also, I am not 100% sure these errors actually occur during boot, I only have an approximate idea of the times I had these issues.

I looked for more errors in the logs and found this:

Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.040035] EXT4-fs (sda6): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.058582] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.066180] acpi device:04: registered as cooling_device2
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.066203] ACPI: Can't attach device
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.066211] video: probe of LNXVIDEO:00 failed with error -2
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.074684] iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, in-tree:s
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.074690] iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2011 Intel Corporation
Dec 10 09:39:20 MAR kernel: [   16.126772] ACPI Warning: 0x0000000000001060-0x000000000000107f SystemIO conflicts with Region \PMIO 1 (20120320/utaddress-251)

Again, I am not sure whether these occurred during boot or not.

I just came home to find the same problems again, so I booted into Windows and had a look at the logs. Interestingly enough, there's nothing in there. I mean, nothing from just now, with the right time stamps. It seems like the logs are not even being written to before things crash.

[Martom]

I decided to just reinstall Xubuntu. I didn't have any issues for a few days, but as of just now, the problem is back. If anyone has any insight, I'd greatly appreciate it.