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I recently booted knoppix 3.2 on a Dell Optiplex machine. Knoppix worked fine, but when I shut down and tried to restart I discovered that the computer was no longer working - It would not even get to the Bios setup, the screen stayed entirely blank and the diagnostic lights on the motherboard indicated it is a Bios problem. I had to get the motherboard replaced. I would STRONGLY recommend avoiding using Knoppix on a Dell Optiplex or any other Dell machines as it may affect them as well.
Thats a good one...but I dont believe a word of it.What do you think guy's?
Knoppix does no such thing. If you search the forum there are several instances of people being affected by this issue (like this one for example). There is a relatively painless fix.
Remove the power cable from your dell.
Push in the power button in the front until the power clears.
After that you should be able to get into your bios, boot Windows etc. I'm sorry that this happened to you and even more so that Dell does this, but please try searching the forums first before making an announcement like this. The blame for this falls squarely on Dell and their buggy bios and not on Knoppix
Whoa...I have never heard of anything like this...sorry Birkett :(
Still sounds like it would have been an easy fix and no real damage though.Thanks for the heads-up aay.
could be someone from m$ :twisted:
I did not know it was an issue that was already known about - I should have looked harder before posting. Shame about the motherboard that was replaced, but it was under warranty :-) and it sounds like it was Dell's fault anyway...
My apologies,
James Birkett
Never had a problem like this with my Dell Dimension 4100 PIII 866!
impossible...
First try to reset the BIOS once for yourself (Jumper on motherboard or remove battery - READ THE MANUAL BEFORE DOING SO !!!)
OK, now I have 25 Dell Optiplex GX270s (PIV 2.4Ghz, 770MB ram, 40GB hdd, etc). But these machines have some sort of intel integrated video and audio chips. I get no sound and only 640x480 res!
Help, what can I do with this. I'm booting the CD and trying all kinds of cheats to no avail!
Frustrated,
I just tested 25 Dell Optiplex GX270s booting from a class set of V3.2 CDs several times a day for a week. I had no BIOS problems except possibly one of the 25 PCs did not reboot the first day.
I'm not sure if I ever got it to boot KNOPPIX in the first place. The BIOS settings are now incorrect (ie: missing hdd when there's a 40GB hdd in there) and may never even have booted M$ WINDOZE XP in the first place. But I'm not sure about that! It may be the case that it was running XP before I booted the CD, and the CD booted OK once, but then the PC never booted correctly again (CD or no CD). I have a feeling that's what happened now that I think of it! My memory ain't what it once was....
So there may well be some BIOs sensitivity here. This is not a KNOPPIX problem, however, in my view. I would think that nothing should be able to change BIOS settings without using BIOS password and the setup screen (unless we got some sort of surge on that PC which is unlikely). So, perhaps, Dell is using some sort of low quality BIOS?
What do ya think?
Regards,
:?:
Remember IBM laptops ?
These bastards integrated encoding chip which pre-encoded their harddisks (before accessing it with any OS). Their were even models were THE BIOS was put on the Harddisk. If you had the misfortune to format your disk together with part that contained you BIOS ,you could kill your pc. Maybe dell did this too ?
Did you already try to use the Boot on LAN option to push knoppix trough the LAN on your Dell ? (for example clusterknoppix stuff)
For memory management , I can consider Dell pc's and Packard Bell pc's the worst of their kind. Mainly they use shared memory (VIDEO+SYSTEM)
Maybe this could be a source of your problems. In this case a solution could be to search for BIOS upgrades. Check out http://www.motherboards.org/
greetzz and good luck :wink:
I've been reading on the web. It seems that the onboard intel video and audio chips actually share the RAM. If the BIOS does too.... :evil:
Regards,
On a related note, please see my post here about my HP box:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=22566#22566
It's not M$ FUD this time...Quote:
Originally Posted by reecegeorge
I'll vouch for the problem. Knoppix scared the shiznit outta me when my Dimension 4550 didn't come back after shutting down my first run of Knoppix. :shock: I thought for sure it had fizzled my shizzle: powering up, the keyboard lights would come on, but the drives wouldn't spin up or anything. no video signal, no bios message, nothing. Just whirring fans.
But aay was right: unplug the power and hold down the power button, and it all comes back. I figure there must be some extra "shut your bad ass down" command in Knoppix that the Dell machines take a little _too_ literally. Dunno for sure, though. If anybody who can't reproduce the problem wants more info, or want me to try something, I'm game. Sign me up to test a fixed version as well. Knoppix is the bomb, give or take hosing my system for a few days until I got around to checking this forum. :wink:
I'm glad you found the fix. It's really easy, but only if you know about it. I disturbs me that newbies may be trying out Knoppix on their Dell's and then cursing Knoppix into oblivion when their machine won't reboot. I wish there was another way to deal with this issue as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by sancho
Me too there seem to be so many Dell's with these buggy BIOS's that a warning should be somewhere in the startup screen.Quote:
Originally Posted by aay
Is there any way I can shut Knoppix down with some set of options or flags or something, so that it runs the shutdown commands one at a time?
Presumably the last one I see is the one that kills the machine, right?
Or maybe I could comment out blocks of shutdown commands, shutting down, fixing my shiznit, booting up and shutting down again until I can figure out which command is doing it...
Any tips from Knoppix gurus? I'm gonna go "man shutdown" now (damn.. that sounds kinky, somehow) and see what I can figure out, but additional thought or advice are both greatly appreciated.
Go into their BIOS and into the "Integrated Peripherals" section and change the silly "1 MB" default to "8 MB" and you will no longer have problems getting more than 640x480 using their onboard video chips.Quote:
Originally Posted by A. Jorge Garcia