16.04 problems - install, inactive/suspend, hard disk

[rikona]

Hello Liam,

Tuesday, September 13, 2016, 4:20:20 PM, Liam wrote:

> On 13 September 2016 at 22:48, rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:

>> It is - I installed the latest AMD BIOS on the MB.

> OK, good.

>> All the H/W is new, so I don't really have a "known good" anything
>> yet. :-) The PSU is a 750w high current gamer PSU - should be OK for
>> this. I have a zero noise video card, no fan, and definitely a low end
>> card. I'm not a gamer.

> It should be OK, but it's a possibility.

Agreed... my 5 volt line reads about 4.8v though. Not sure what level
might cause problems. I guess I'd be happier of it read 5 v. :-)

>>> Which kind of firmware does your motherboard have?
>>
>> AMD 970 chipset.

> Er, no. Firmware means the software in the on-motherboard Flash
> memory. What kind means BIOS, UEFI or what-have-you.

Not sure how to tell. I do have multiple boot options for the same
device - UEFI, USB, and [nothing, or a couple of letters, or sataX].
For example, I can boot with UEFI CD/DVD or USB CD/DVD, or just plain
CD/DVD. The UEFI CD/DVD boot does not work well - it will not make it
through the install without crashing even with a small disk. The plain
CD/DVD boot works just fine with a small disk, but not with a large
one, which may be some other non-DVD problem.

>>> I don't know what you did but that is not right. If you pick
>>> "something else" you can put whatever you want wherever you want.
>>
>> See my earlier email to Ralf for what happened.

> It did not really explain it, AFAICS.

The short explanation is the "something else" option crashes when
trying to format a 3Tb disk. Works fine with 1.5 TB.

>> Good to know... The setup is / and swap on the SSD, and /home on the
>> HD.

> No no no. Do not swap to Flash memory. It will wear it out. Swap
> should be on the HD, not the SSD. With lots of RAM you'll never
> really need it anyway so there should be no appreciable slowdown.

Yes yes yes - I know. :-) That's what I want to do. But when I was
*finally* able to put / on the SSD and /home on the 3TB disk after
***FOUR*** "something else" option crashes, I just said to finish
install rather than risk another crash by doing another operation. The
install put /swap on the SSD, I guess since it was /.

>> The original 3Tb disk was replaced with a new 3Tb disk, which FINALLY
>> made it through the "other" option, on the FIFTH try, and installed
>> [but with some problems].

> What problems?

Crashes at various points, often when sitting idle for 20 min-24 hrs,
but sometimes in the middle of doing something.

>> It seems that a GUID disk is causing a
>> number of issues on this box. The 1.5Tb disk reinstall worked
>> flawlessly - 2 big disks were definitely not flawless.

> 1.5TB is under the cutoff and could use MBR partitioning.

How can I tell what kind of partitioning is being done on the two
disks?

>> Could it be that GUID or UEFI is causing the issues?

> It is possible.

>> Also, if I format a small disk with this box, will it end up as a
>> GUID and perhaps not be readable on an older comp?

> No. You can if you choose but you don't need to.

> GUID disks are readable on any machine with a GUID-aware OS, 32-bit
> or 64-bit. The main issue is that you can't boot off them on a
> machine with a BIOS rather than EUFI.

Is BIOS/UEFI a choice? If I have those UEFI boot options on my BIOS
screen, does that mean I have UEFI and not BIOS? I'm assuming a UEFI
must have GUID and can also see the older disks too.

Thanks for the info...

-- 

 rikona