Hi!

I’ve already posted in the Arch Linux community on lemmy.ml but I’m also posting it here for additional visibility. I’d cross-post it but I don’t think PieFed has that option yet. Hopefully it’s okay.

Anyway, a few hours ago today, when I turned on my computer, went to the systemd-boot boot loader, chose “Arch Linux” from the list of boot entries, I was faced with a system that is stuck at boot as seen from the image I uploaded.

So far, I’ve tried disabling Overdrive by editing the kernel parameters at boot, and by booting an Arch Linux live ISO to no avail. As in, I’m stuck at the same stage of the booting process, even when using the aforementioned live ISO. Which means I can’t really boot into the system.

This happened before, like, a few months ago. I either booted with a live ISO and executed mkinitcpio -P, or just did a hard reset, as I waited for a kernel, GPU drivers or mesa update. About a month ago, it stopped happening and the system booted fine. I don’t really know what fixed it, sorry. Until today, that is.

I’m at a loss of what to do aside from either reinstalling Arch Linux or installing a different distro. I really don’t want to do that, though, as I haven’t really done any backups of my config files, and I’m generally happy with how I’ve set up my system. The fact that the live ISO didn’t work also made me think of a hardware problem, namely the GPU, which complicates things even more, as I don’t have a spare one.

Some information about my hardware:

  • GPU: Radeon RX Vega 56
  • Motherboard: ASUS Prime X470-Pro
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X

I ran # pacman -Syu last night so everything is up to date. Not sure how relevant this is but I’m using the radeon open-source drivers.

Hopefully all of this was somewhat clear and if there’s something I missed, please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Changed the GPU to a different PCIe slot and everything’s working fine so far. I’m not celebrating just yet because when this first happened a few months ago, I’d hard reset the PC and everything would work fine. But if I shut it down and let it pass like 12 hours before I’d power it on again, the problem would reappear. So I’m just basically waiting for tomorrow now.

  • giacomo@lemm.ee
    17·
    2 days ago

    if you can boot a live iso, its probably not hardware. if you can’t boot a live iso, it might be hardware.

      • BombOmOm@lemmy.worldEnglish
        211·
        2 days ago

        Since it is something with the computer itself and not the OS, some things to try:

        • Check for any motherboard status lights.
        • Reseat your RAM.
        • Run a memtest. Let it do a full pass, takes ~3 hours. If you see anything more than a single error, it’s the RAM.
        • Reset your BIOS to factory settings.
        • Update your BIOS.
        • Reset your CMOS.
        • As redxef said, unplug from the wall, hit the power button a few times to fully drain the system, then plug back in.
        • Unplug everything you possibly can. Leave just a single monitor, a single stick of RAM, the cpu, and the power cable plugged in. Literally nothing else, not even a keyboard. (You will need to keep your graphics card plugged in as the 2700x doesn’t have onboard graphics)
        • Swap to a different single stick of RAM and put it in a different slot.
        • Visually inspect for any exploded or bulging capacitors.
        • If you have gotten to here, swap in any spare parts you have from the prior list. Different graphics card, different ram stick, different monitor, different cpu or mobo if you have one.
        • Unplug/replug your internal power cables, and unplug any unnecessary internal cables (fans, rgb, etc) (Is it this? Probably not, but we are getting to the desperate part of the list.)
        • Reseat your CPU (don’t forget to clean off and re-apply thermal paste)
        • Cry a little

        The goal is to narrow down which piece of hardware is failing.