Laptop Reboots when trying to start LiveCD or Install

[TorstenSchlabach]

I have a new Samsung R560 Aura laptop. It works fine with any 32 Bit Ubuntu Live CD (both 8.04 as well as 8.10), but it does not work with any 64 Bit LiveCD. I tried 8.04 as well as 8.10 Alpha 4. I also checked the forums for suggestions on similar behavious, but all in vain until know.

The phenomenon is this:

The LiveCD boots. I can choose the language and any other settings. But as soon as I choose either "Try Ubuntu" or also "Install", it loads the kernel. After that, the screen is going dark and the laptop reboots.

Again, this behaviour is specific to the 64 Bit version, while there is no problem with the 32 Bit ones of the same releases.

[Ian Weisser (ian-weisser)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't start working on it yet, because your description didn't include enough information.

Please include the information requested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingUbiquity/AttachingLogs as separate attachments by visiting your bug's web page. Thanks in advance.

[TorstenSchlabach (tschlabach)]

I understand your need for any tangible log files, but my problem is: How can I provide them? As you can see in my problem description, it starts booting and crashes some seconds after that, and the laptop reboots again. The Wiki page says "These can be found in the Live CD file system just after the crash happened.". But I cannot access this because of the reboot. I even doubt that the Live CD file system will exist at all at the time of the crash.

Any idea how I could provide some useful information other than taking a camera and making a photo or even video of my screen?

[TorstenSchlabach (tschlabach)]

Some update:

I have been experimenting with the break options, see: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions#Initrd%20break%20points

I can get up to break=modules successfully, but trying break=premount makes the laptop reboot again.

That suggests that the loading of some module causes the reboot, doesn't it?

How can I find out which module this might be? How can I disable individual modules?

Regards,
Torsten

[TorstenSchlabach (tschlabach)]

Some more update:

I was using the following boot options:

noquiet nosplash acpi=off

After that, I was able to read the messages, probably because acpi=off prevents the reboot.

It stopped at

io scheduler cfq (registered)

I have disabled legagy USB support in the BIOS of the latop, after that, I got beyond this point.

I played a bit with various options and it looks like at least

nosplash and
acpi=off

are required in order to boot.

I have also seen a strange message:

sda<4>:Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use buy_type methods

together with some I/O errors on sr1.

Not sure what that means.

Interesting enough, neither just acpi=off nor nosplash does not do the trick.

I should add that since reporting the bug, I have switched to the nightly build of the LiveCD from Oct 9th, 2008.

Of course it would be nice to

a) fix ACPI
b) fix the "io scheduler cfq (registered)" hang

But I have no idea how one might debug ACPI related problems, because as soon as the problem is there, the laptop will reboot and you cannot access it anymore.

[TorstenSchlabach (tschlabach)]

This seems to be a duplicate of Bug #272530. I cannot find an option here to properly mark it as such.