[conspire] new laptop Fedora 13 with NVIDIA graphics card - yum update - now only blank screen

[Darlene Wallach]

Rick,

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Darlene Wallach (freepalestin at dslextreme.com):
>
>> LC2210SN
>
> No.  Not what we need, at all.
>
> My point perhaps was unclear.  The above says only 'Linux Certified model
> 2210SN' which tells you almost nothing worth knowing.  Which was my
> point.

JHT0X

>
> As I was saying, LinuxCertified, Inc. (which is basically Chander Kent)
> OEMs standard prebuilt units from one of the commodity East Asian
> manufacturers.  If LinuxCertified, Inc.  had told you which OEM make and
> model this is, you would probably be able to look up things like how its
> keyboard controls work, including the external video / internal video
> toggle control.
>
>> Nothing when I plugged the VGA from the monitor to my desktop into my
>> new laptop.
>
> Well, that makes it unlikely that you merely accidentally toggled the
> unit to display external video only.
>
>> I see some blinking lights like the hard drive is being accessed. I
>> hear no sounds - go beeps nothing.
>
> This would have meaning if you were able to compare against the way the
> machine behaves normally.  E.g., does the machine normally beep at a
> certain point during startup?  Does the machine no longer boot at that
> point during startup?

It is a new machine - I have a chance to get used to how it behaves.

I also realized after I start it up - I can hear a sound when I hit
"enter" like when you you type and get sound effect for a mistake.

>
> Again, these are things you are uniquely in a position to notice, being
> familiar with the machine's normal operation, but people trying to
> assist you from a mailing list cannot.
>
> (If I, or you, were able to look up a technically detailed manual for
> this unit, we might be able to see documentation about what the machine
> is supposed to do during startup, but, again, knowing only useless
> rebranding data like 'LC2210SN' prevents this standard method of
> inquiry.)
>
>
>> I see three blue leds - power, battery, hard drive(?). The hard
>> drive(?) blinks then goes out.
>>
>> I hear the fan.
>>
>> I hear no beeps, no sounds, a totally black blank screen.
>
> Well, I'm _guessing_ from what you're now saying that you're -not-
> familiar with the sequence of what normally happens when everything is
> OK, because I would normally at this point expect to hear from the owner
> a good bit more detail about what normally occurs, and what is or is not
> occurring now.

Like I said - this is a brand new laptop. I have not had time to get
acquainted with it. I had not turned it off and started it up many
times. I was trying to get the updates done so I could add the repo
lists to yum.repos.d and get the other packages installed.

>
> I might suggest, when you have everything sorted out, spending a bit of
> time getting to know what your machine looks and sounds like during
> normal startup, e.g., get to know the sound of the hard drive spinning
> up and the later sound of it running in normal operation, get to know
> the sound of HD access, get to know what the LED activity looks like
> during HD access.

That makes a *lot* of sense - thank you.

>
> You will then be much better equipped to deal with possible hardware
> problems, after that.
>
>> I hoping I can get some help from Linux Certified!
>
> You said it's a new machine; that certainly implies that this is a
> legitimate warranty issue.
>
>

I'm hoping it is a stupid user error and not a problem with the
laptop. Though I'm definitely having second thoughts about buying
another computer from Linux Certified.

Linux Certified is local and close by - which makes them convenient.

Thank you for your input.

Darlene Wallach
-- 
equal justice under law