New Install Bootup Flakey

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-23 17:06:48

I have a new i5 machine with Intel mobo and 4G RAM. I just installed Arch and Xfce. If I cold boot the machine, sometimes it dies on bootup on something like

start_secondary
or
i386_start_kernel

If I then hard reboot, it comes up fine to command line login. I login and then Xfce launches automatically and it works fine. I installed slim but didn't yet configure the graphic login screen.

If I logout of Xfce then I see a few errors and things but I think it's just X things. When X launches it says "Could not lookup internet address for myhost. This may prevent Xfce from operating properly..." I think these are small things and I know more or less where to poke around to fix them.

I now quit X and run sudo reboot. Dies again on "start_secondary" right after "cpu_idle" So I hard reboot and it comes up fine. Now when I login Xfce doesn't launch automatically. OK that I can figure out.

But the failure to boot properly is a problem.

Any ideas what this may be and where I look to fix it?

Don't know if this helps, but here's dmesg: http://pastebin.com/VryGcNac Does say in there actually

16 Processors exceeds NR_CPUS limit of 8

Don't know what that means however.

Thank you.

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-24 19:55:54

No ideas?

Should I try to install Arch again from scratch? Perhaps I did something wrong when I installed? I haven't yet really used this machine for anything because it seems something is not quite right, so I don't mind to reinstall.

Inxsible · 2011-01-24 19:59:09

Lately Xfce has been having a bunch of problems since the new upgrade. It could be related. There are a couple of threads talking about their boot freezing every 2-3 times. Let me see if I can find those threads...

if a solution is not available then you should probably file a bug report upstream.

anonymous_user · 2011-01-25 00:48:26

Did you configure your HOSTS file? I think "myhost" is the default name.

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-25 11:16:04

I think I will reinstall (fresh partitions and everything) and perhaps try Gnome. I don't really care b/c this is a fast PC anyway. B/c just now I did

sudo reboot

and it stopped on i386_start_kernel so I did a hard reboot and it stopped on start_secondary. Hard boot again worked...

Maybe something went bad with the install.

Thank you and I will start a new thread if this issue persists.

Tomino · 2011-01-25 13:29:33

i have the same problem with booting my machine sometimes it just stop at i386_start_kernel

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-25 16:57:04

I reinstalled and didnt' get this. But I partitioned it wrong so I installed AGAIN and now it again crashes on start_secondary

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-26 16:24:35

Something interesting is that when I first reinstalled and I put in the Arch CD and rebooted, the arch installer couldn't find my hard disk. I rebooted it and it found it.

Once when I tried to run PartedMagic Live CD also I rebooted and it said "Can't find boot media. Press any key to continue." I hard rebooted and it worked.

Would seem to me this is sounds like a hardware, problem, no?

Inxsible · 2011-01-26 16:26:19

Probably. what error did you get when you rebooted the first time? After you installed, were you trying to boot into the installed version or still the Arch Live CD?

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-26 16:57:11

Same thing basically. I actually just soft rebooted now several times into my installed Arch and it worked fine. Also VectorLinux LiveCD booted up several times in a row, both hard and cold reboots. How do you like that? As soon as I try to look at it, the problem is not showing itself.

Anyhow when my installed Arch does fail, it's the same as my OP:

start_secondary
or
i386_start_kernel

I will keep playing with it I guess.

Thank you.

CaptainKirk · 2011-01-27 20:15:37

Something very bizarre just happened. I think it must be a fluke but anyway I post it. I used sshfs to transfer files to my new machine from my old one. Then I shut down the new one and then my file system became messed up on the old one. Thunar wouldn't launch and I couldn't use the File Finder of other applications. I had this before with a certain server that sshfs caused problems.

So I soft rebooted and the OLD machine died on something like

unknown boot option
i386 start kernel

That has NEVER happened in several years. I have no explanation...

Arch Linux

#1 2011-01-23 17:06:48

New Install Bootup Flakey

#2 2011-01-24 19:55:54

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#3 2011-01-24 19:59:09

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#4 2011-01-25 00:48:26

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#5 2011-01-25 11:16:04

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#6 2011-01-25 13:29:33

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#7 2011-01-25 16:57:04

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#8 2011-01-26 16:24:35

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#9 2011-01-26 16:26:19

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#10 2011-01-26 16:57:11

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

#11 2011-01-27 20:15:37

Re: New Install Bootup Flakey

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