[clug] Linux help needed please

[Kim Holburn]

On 2012/Oct/01, at 9:58 PM, Alastair D'Silva wrote:

>> On 09/30/2012 08:35 PM, Karen Yahoo wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> A very kind friend of mine in NZ installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop
>>> about 12mths ago when Windows died and he convinced me how
>> awesome
>>> Linux was to use. I have had no problems until just recently. The
>>> laptop keeps rebooting when I try to shut it down and the wireless,usb
>>> ports, memory card slot and cd/dvd drives have all stopped working. I
>>> have had some problems with the fan being quite noisy and the laptop
>>> running a bit warm. Could these be linked to the problems?
>> 
>> Hi Karen,
>> 
>> My initial thought is that it might be a hardware failure - something on
> the
>> motherboard may have gone bad and just lost connection with a whole
>> range of onboard parts.  Package upgrades in Linux don't normally cause
>> anything like that (not in my eight years of using it, certainly).  What
> is the
>> make and model of the computer?
>> 
>> In my experience if the laptop is overheating it can manifest in the
> entire
>> machine locking up - it no longer responds to key presses, the same image
> is
>> displayed, and the only way to un-wedge it is to hold the power button in.
>> You're not getting anything like that?
> 
> If you suspect hardware problems, there is a good chance they will show
> themselves as memory errors (or they may in fact be memory errors).
> 
> My first port of call would be to burn to a CD (or write a USB key) with
> Memtest86+:
> http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

That's not going to work if the USB and CD have stopped working.  On the other hand ubuntu usually installs a grub entry for memtest. You could choose that.  

If the memory is bad then your operating system could well be stuffed, to use a technical term.


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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