[olug] Trying to get to the bottom of a laptop malfunction

[aric at omahax.com]

Test to see if it is hardware failure with a bootable distro.

> I am using openSuSE 11.4 64 on a laptop. Friday the pointer did not
> close windows, and when I went to the start panel the icons for
> programs lost their association and had a generic folder. When I tired
> to shut down there was no action, and there was no effective action
> through mouse clicks at all. I did a hard shut down. When it rebooted,
> it went through grub and started normally, only the keyring password
> was not requested and the network card was not initiated. After a few
> minutes of normal operation, the same freezing and lack of mouse
> clicks doing anything happened. I tried to do some things through the
> BIOS diagnostics, but these did not seem to tell me anything.
>
> I have tried to start openSuSE in failsafe mode, but it has not been
> able to start, it is running through something and lists these lines
> for the last three hours:
> /etc/initscript: line137: /sbin/mingetty: [the next part is either]
> success [or] inpuit/ouput error
> Another line that appears is:
> INIT: id "[the numbers that appears are 1through 6]" respawning too
> fast disabled for 5 minutes
>
> I suspect there is a hardware failure, but  I am not sure what it is.
> When I have tried to do a repair system from my 11.4 install disk,
> after loading up to start, I get a request to "insert disk 1in cd
> drive." As there is only one disk, i tell it okay, but it does not
> find it. When I select the other option for that, I get to the general
> installation screen, and am unable to continue with the repair or to
> attempt a reinstallation.
>
> Any ideas on what is going on and what may be failing would be
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> Tom Williamson
>
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