Dapper corrupts Dell laptop BIOS!

[Sylvain Girard]

Euhm, I think Tod was pretty serious and was just trying to think along...

On 8/29/06, Francisco Borges <f.borges at rug.nl> wrote:
>
> » On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 03:35AM -0700, Tod Merley wrote:
>
> > Hi Francisco Borges!
>
> Hi Tod Merley!
>
> > First of all, my regrets at the loss of your time and efforts.
> >
> > If it were me, I would switch distro or OS immediately.  You do not
> > have time for this.  The PhD is more important, simply!  Linux is
> > "volunteer" software without any promise.
>
> Will you, *please*, spare me from comments of how to run my life?
>
> Will you, *please*, stop with the provocative personal attacks and focus
> on the bug?
>
> It makes me a bit confuse, you see. So far, it's not very clear if your
> point is to help solving a problem, or attacking me (like a fanboy) for
> making critics to the distribution.
>
> > Still, if you want to pursue this I would:
> >
> > [...]
>
> As far as I can tell, you have not spend any of your time giving any
> serious thought about this bug, nor trying to help to track down the
> bug. I have this impression, since you are so focused on suggesting a
> battery failure, I think that you would not be saying this, if you had
> read the bug report.
>
> Let me explain some things:
>
> 1. The hangs are all cause at the moment that the computer checks the
>    BIOS for consistency; which by default is only done after editing the
>    BIOS itself.
>
> 2. that explains why the problem is hard to diagnose. the damage may
>    have been caused months ago, but it will only stop your computer once
>    you edit the BIOS. (*probably* resetting everything to default values
>    and reediting the whole BIOS could be a way to avoid locking the
>    machine).
>
> 3. The BIOS are all corrupted the same way, giving the same error
>    message. AFAIK it would be hard to have this if it was just a poor
>    battery (or not?).
>
> > 0. Change out the CMOS battery.  They do go flaky.  Also check the
> > connections to the battery!!!
> >
> > 0.a Update your flash BIOS!  This may have been fixed by this time or
> > a mistake corrected (an unlikely crash of mistakes now corrected).
> >
> > 1. Go to www.dell.com - obtain the service manual for my machine -
> > read the critical pages on the CMOS battery - replace the battery.
> >
> > 2. Google the bug (looks like you have) and specifically your machine
> > (with particularly HW - they have options) and try to get a handle on
> > what in the world tromps on CMOS in what settings (shadow - no?!?).
> > This is a strange bug!  And apparently hard to verify.  We all would
> > like to know what causes it.
>
> I guess, that if you had read my emails carefully, you would have
> noticed that I had either done or considered all of this
> already. Anyway, thank you for the suggestions.
>
> > 3. Consider what you need Linux for.  If business simply try FC5.  If
> > you need a Debian flavor but have not the time to deal with Debian
> > consider Knoppix.  There are a lot of other options out there.
>
> What? Ubuntu is now for fan-boys only?
>
> > May the thesis go well!
>
> Thank you.
>
> Have a nice day, Tod.
> --
> Francisco
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>



-- 
Best regards,
Sylvain Girard

Consultant
Valoris NV
girard.sylvain at gmail.com
www.valoris.com
+32486282435
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