hp hdx-9120ea hangs at boot after upgrade to karmic

[Kevin Rogers]

I upgraded my HP HDX-9120EA laptop from Jaunty to Karmic a few days ago, but it will not boot without editing the grub configuration. It would boot without trouble with Jaunty and I would expect it to do so with Karmic.

Without modifying the grub configuration, the system hangs after the "Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic" option is chosen (either manually or automatically after the timeout), just after the "starting up" message is displayed on the console. It appears to read both the kernel and initrd images, but then all disk activity stops, but the CPU fan slows (the machine boots with the fan at full speed).

I can get the machine to boot the standard Karmic kernel quite happily by removing the "quiet" kernel parameter from the kernel line in the grub configuration for this menu entry. I have tried removing other kernel parameters, entries and options to no effect - it is only the "quiet" kernel parameter that seems to make a difference.

If it is of any help, the hardware specifications for the HP HDX-9120EA can be found here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01182666&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=uk&product=3562457&lang=en

[Kevin Rogers (kevin-rogers)]

This may very well be related (possibly even a duplicate) to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/410984 as I have tried booting by adding the acpi=off and the system boots with the quiet parameter. However, in my case the system fails to boot at all unless I remove the "quiet" parameter or add acpi=off.

[Kevin Rogers (kevin-rogers)]

In an effort to get my system booting, I thought I would try updating the kernel. I hunted around for a bit, then decided to check for "proposed updates" via KPackageKit, which showed linux-image-2.6.31-15-generic was available, so I installed it.

I rebooted and for a laugh tried the original linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic kernel (which to date would not boot without removing the "quiet" parameter) and the system booted! I tried switching off and linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic booted the second time - I am now quite confused...

I will try again tomorrow, when the system has been off all night, to see if that triggers the problem again...

[Kevin Rogers (kevin-rogers)]

Over the last week or so, I have seen a slight change in boot behaviour - removing the "quiet" parameter no longer makes much difference. It now seems to take 2 or 3 boots without the "quiet" parameter, with the system hanging on the first 1 or 2 attempts, then booting successfully.

I have tried version linux-image-2.6.32-020632rc8-generic but have the same problem.

I took the opportunity to note the final message I see when the system hangs, just in case they might be useful - as follows:

When trying linux-image-2.6.32-020632rc8-generic the last console message was:

[0.684322] Critical temperature reached (2211 C), shutting down

With the released version of linux-2.6.31-15-generic, the last console message is either something very similar to one of these three classes of message:

[0.797960] ACPI Error: No installed handler for fixed event [00000000] 20090521 event-306

[0.797463] ACPI Error: No handler or method for GPE[19], disabling event

[0.783792] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1 PCI INT A -> GSI 16 ....

The time in brackets varies on each boot attempt, but is always around the 0.78 mark. In the case of the first and second example message, they were repeated three times with small variations in the numbers, e.g. GPE[19], GPE[1C] and GPE[1E].

I have also had a look through my dmesg output and do not see any similar messages.

It is also worth pointing out that I have no problems with the machine once it has booted, or booting into Windows instead of Ubuntu.

[Stefan Krause (stefan-krause)]

Are you using a x86 or x86_64 system? My hp hdx 9300 system boots only on x86 without any hanging.

[Kevin Rogers (kevin-rogers)]

I am running a 64-bit system and never seen any significant problems until upgrading to 9.10.

I ran a 64-bit Gentoo installation on this machine for 18 months and except for minor issues (e.g. sound or wifi) I never had any problems(I recall trying one of the Gentoo 2.6.30 kernels, but never used it by default because my sounds stopped working). I switched to Ubuntu to make my administration life a little easier, version 9.04 (and it's default kernel) worked like a charm