Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[elliott-brennan]

Thank to everyone (named and unnamed :))

I've reinspected the caps and updated the BIOS.

It generally runs well as long as I don't have any
RAM chips in other than the first slot. The GUI
can freeze if I play a flash game for 10+ minutes
(a test I was running, of course :) and sometimes
it requires a hard reboot (!) if that happens.
However the person I'm giving it to doesn't need
it to play flash games and so should be okay.

Again, thanks to everyone for their help. Much
appreciated.

Regards,

Patrick

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Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[Jeremy Visser]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 9:57 PM, elliott-brennan
 wrote:
> What the hell has this been created for?

What Glen Turner said, but it possibly also temporarily disables MBR
protection. Some older BIOSes won't let you overwrite your MBR without
setting an option, as boot sector viruses were apparently trendy in
the '90s.
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Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[Jake Anderson]

elliott-brennan wrote:

Thanks Martin.

I might swap out the RAM in the first instance - the crashes and
problems occur within minutes (second even) so It's not like I'll have to
hang around too long to find out!

:)

BTW - Nice to meet you at woollygng the other day.
  
If the other one has dodgy caps then this one probably will have too, it 
might just not be showing it as badly.
If you are able, try turning the bus speed down, on some dodgy boards I 
have seen that has "fixed" the problem (they passed memtest but failed 
under other forms of load)

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Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[elliott-brennan]

Thanks Martin.

I might swap out the RAM in the first instance - the crashes and
problems occur within minutes (second even) so It's not like I'll have to
hang around too long to find out!

:)

BTW - Nice to meet you at woollygng the other day.

On 27/03/2009, Martin Visser  wrote:
>
> Patrick,
>
> 'OS Install Mode' needs to be off to see more than 256MB. My guess is that
> you have dodgy RAM above the 256MB address space, which you are hiding with
> the 'OS Install Mode'. Try running the memtest86+ utility from the Ubuntu
> boot machine. If that shows up flawed memory, try swapping around the SIMMs
> around in different slots - sometimes you can get subtle timing issues
> depending on which one is seen first on the memory buses.
>
>
> Regards, Martin
>
> martinvisse...@gmail.com
>
>
>  On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 4:17 PM, elliott-brennan <
> m...@elliott-brennan.id.au> wrote:
>
>> Hi Glenn,
>>
>> That's the problem. It won't allow me to install without switching it on!
>>
>> :(
>>
>> The install failed frequently:
>>
>> Freezes for in excess of 30 minutes,
>>
>> Claims that it couldn't install various packages etc
>>
>> This was the case even though I tried both GUI and text installations and
>> burnt the ISO to disc three times more.
>>
>> As soon as I turned on 'OS Install Mode', it was a clean install within a
>> reasonable length of time.
>>
>> It's been suggested to me that I check out the BIOS version and consider
>> updating it if necessary. If I can bring myself to spend more time on it I
>> may just do that.
>>
>> Pity, because the machine is in excellent condition (I was given two but
>> the
>> second one has some wonky capacitors - slight bulging)
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Patrick
>>
>>
>>
>> On 27/03/2009, Glen Turner  wrote:
>> >
>> > elliott-brennan wrote:
>> >
>> >> What the hell has this been created for?
>> >>
>> >
>> > For installing Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 on machines
>> > with more the 2GB of RAM.  For Linux you can leave
>> > Dell's "OS Install Mode" off.
>> >
>> > --
>> >  Glen Turner   
>> >
>> >
>> --
>> SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
>> Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
>>
>>
>
>
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Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[Martin Visser]

Patrick,

'OS Install Mode' needs to be off to see more than 256MB. My guess is that
you have dodgy RAM above the 256MB address space, which you are hiding with
the 'OS Install Mode'. Try running the memtest86+ utility from the Ubuntu
boot machine. If that shows up flawed memory, try swapping around the SIMMs
around in different slots - sometimes you can get subtle timing issues
depending on which one is seen first on the memory buses.


Regards, Martin

martinvisse...@gmail.com


On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 4:17 PM, elliott-brennan  wrote:

> Hi Glenn,
>
> That's the problem. It won't allow me to install without switching it on!
>
> :(
>
> The install failed frequently:
>
> Freezes for in excess of 30 minutes,
>
> Claims that it couldn't install various packages etc
>
> This was the case even though I tried both GUI and text installations and
> burnt the ISO to disc three times more.
>
> As soon as I turned on 'OS Install Mode', it was a clean install within a
> reasonable length of time.
>
> It's been suggested to me that I check out the BIOS version and consider
> updating it if necessary. If I can bring myself to spend more time on it I
> may just do that.
>
> Pity, because the machine is in excellent condition (I was given two but
> the
> second one has some wonky capacitors - slight bulging)
>
> Regards,
>
> Patrick
>
>
>
> On 27/03/2009, Glen Turner  wrote:
> >
> > elliott-brennan wrote:
> >
> >> What the hell has this been created for?
> >>
> >
> > For installing Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 on machines
> > with more the 2GB of RAM.  For Linux you can leave
> > Dell's "OS Install Mode" off.
> >
> > --
> >  Glen Turner   
> >
> >
> --
> SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
> Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
>
-- 
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Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[elliott-brennan]

Hi Glenn,

That's the problem. It won't allow me to install without switching it on!

:(

The install failed frequently:

Freezes for in excess of 30 minutes,

Claims that it couldn't install various packages etc

This was the case even though I tried both GUI and text installations and
burnt the ISO to disc three times more.

As soon as I turned on 'OS Install Mode', it was a clean install within a
reasonable length of time.

It's been suggested to me that I check out the BIOS version and consider
updating it if necessary. If I can bring myself to spend more time on it I
may just do that.

Pity, because the machine is in excellent condition (I was given two but the
second one has some wonky capacitors - slight bulging)

Regards,

Patrick



On 27/03/2009, Glen Turner  wrote:
>
> elliott-brennan wrote:
>
>> What the hell has this been created for?
>>
>
> For installing Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 on machines
> with more the 2GB of RAM.  For Linux you can leave
> Dell's "OS Install Mode" off.
>
> --
>  Glen Turner   
>
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Re: [SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[Glen Turner]

elliott-brennan wrote:

What the hell has this been created for?


For installing Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 on machines
with more the 2GB of RAM.  For Linux you can leave
Dell's "OS Install Mode" off.

--
 Glen Turner   
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[SLUG] Installing 8.04 on a Dell Optiplex GX260 - woe is me

[elliott-brennan]

Hi all,

I was given a Dell Optiplex GX260. I've spent all
day buggerising around installing 8.04 on it. I
found in the BIOS an option which is called "OS
install Mode" which can be on or off.

What the hell has this been created for?

More so, when OS install mode is activated it
means you only get to use 256Mb RAM. The machine
has a P4 2.8Ghz and 1.2G RAM mind you. After
working out what the problem was and struggling
with a stalling install for hours, I find I can
only install updates with the OS install mode
activated.

Bizarre.

I know I'm ranting...I'm rather annoyed by all this.

I'm assuming others have installed on Optiplexes
before.

Is mine a common experience?

Regards,

Patrick





when I've turned it off - after struggling with an
install which took hours (

which when

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