Dell OptiPlex 745 reboot problem

[Tony Molloy]

Hi,

I've just installed Fedora-9 on a lab of Dell OptiPlex 745 (SFF) machines. ( 
only in 1 lab TG )

After running firstboot when I went to reboot the machines they just hang and 
I had to do a hard reboot. I thought this was a minor glitch and ignored it.

Now however when the machines boot into Fedora-9 the "reboot" and "suspend" 
buttons do not work. The windowing system just shuts down and I get a text 
prompt and the machines just hang there.

As thes are dual boot machines this will cause a lot of problems starting 
monday when the students return ;-(

Is ther some magic incantation to grub to sort this problem or any body got 
any ideas.

Thank's

Tony

[Mike McCarty]

Tony Molloy wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've just installed Fedora-9 on a lab of Dell OptiPlex 745 (SFF) machines. ( 
> only in 1 lab TG )
>
> After running firstboot when I went to reboot the machines they just hang and 
> I had to do a hard reboot. I thought this was a minor glitch and ignored it.
>
> Now however when the machines boot into Fedora-9 the "reboot" and "suspend" 
> buttons do not work. The windowing system just shuts down and I get a text 
> prompt and the machines just hang there.

Hang? That's a vague term. If you type on the keyboard, do characters
get echoed? If you have a text prompt, then can you not do a

# shutdown -r now

Or even just

# mount

get a list of mounted file systems, and umount them all, except
for /, which you'll have to

# mount -o remount,ro /

to get them all static, then hit the power button.

Even if you are dead in the water, you should still be able
to hit the power button without corrupting the alternate
OS.
> As thes are dual boot machines this will cause a lot of problems starting 
> monday when the students return ;-(

I don't understand why their being dual boot will cause a lot
of problems. You just installed FC9, so that wasn't there before,
and the problem shows up with FC9 booted. Presumably the alternate
boot is some version of Windows. Does the problem also manifest
itself when Windows (or whatever) is running?
> Is ther some magic incantation to grub to sort this problem or any body got 
> any ideas.

Ok, live and learn. The first idea is, before you make changes
to machines with an important setup, make a backup. In this case,
if you had a disc image, you could probably recover very easily.
Next time, you'll know that.

I'm still a little uncertain why you have a real problem. You
have a machine which misbehaves when FC9 is running. Is it the
fact that you can't shut down that is problematic?

Mike

[Tony Molloy]

On Friday 05 September 2008 16:05:04 Mike McCarty wrote:
> Tony Molloy wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've just installed Fedora-9 on a lab of Dell OptiPlex 745 (SFF)
> > machines. ( only in 1 lab TG )
> >
> > After running firstboot when I went to reboot the machines they just hang
> > and I had to do a hard reboot. I thought this was a minor glitch and
> > ignored it.
> >
> > Now however when the machines boot into Fedora-9 the "reboot" and
> > "suspend" buttons do not work. The windowing system just shuts down and I
> > get a text prompt and the machines just hang there.
>
> Hang? That's a vague term. If you type on the keyboard, do characters
> get echoed? If you have a text prompt, then can you not do a

Hang means exactly what it means. The machines just go dead!!! No input from 
the keyboard accepted. Only thing to do is a hard reboot.
> # shutdown -r now
> Or even just
>
> # mount
>
> get a list of mounted file systems, and umount them all, except
> for /, which you'll have to
>
> # mount -o remount,ro /
>
> to get them all static, then hit the power button.
>
> Even if you are dead in the water, you should still be able
> to hit the power button without corrupting the alternate
> OS.

THat's OK for me but I don't want hundreds of students hitting the power 
button ;-)
> > As thes are dual boot machines this will cause a lot of problems starting
> > monday when the students return ;-(
>
> I don't understand why their being dual boot will cause a lot
> of problems. You just installed FC9, so that wasn't there before,
> and the problem shows up with FC9 booted. Presumably the alternate
> boot is some version of Windows. Does the problem also manifest
> itself when Windows (or whatever) is running?

No we re-install the software every year, This is a University environment, So 
Windows was re-installed last week and then I installed Fedora-9 replacing 
Fedora-7.

Because they will regulary get rebooted. If they were linux only it wouldn't 
be a big a problem.

Tony
> > Is ther some magic incantation to grub to sort this problem or any body
> > got any ideas.
>
> Ok, live and learn. The first idea is, before you make changes
> to machines with an important setup, make a backup. In this case,
> if you had a disc image, you could probably recover very easily.
> Next time, you'll know that.
>
> I'm still a little uncertain why you have a real problem. You
> have a machine which misbehaves when FC9 is running. Is it the
> fact that you can't shut down that is problematic?
> Mike
>
> p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
> Oppose globalization and One World Governments like the UN.
> This message made from 100% recycled bits.
> You have found the bank of Larn.
> I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!

[potat0]

Please add the ' reboot=b ' entry in grub conf file.this will solve the issue.
title Fedora (2.6.25-14.fc9.i686)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686 ro root=UUID=1b593f23-8feb-4463-b8a2-7e5c76947286 rhgb quiet reboot=b 
        initrd /initrd-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686.img
Thanks,

Adnan