[SLIGHT UPDATE] I broke my computer (sending from an old PC)

[Ar_e_en]

I'll make this as short as possible.
Computer broke. It is a Lenovo Thinkstation m83, the problem: on boot up the Lenovo screen pops up as usual, then it shuts down, reboots itself and starts working as normal. Decided to try and fix it by following some guides: checked the bios clock display - it was incorrect so I set it to be correct, boot problems persist and bios clock reads incorrect date again, try something else (like an idiot) - changed bios from UEFI to Legacy - my drive gets corrupted and I can't launch Manjaro Linux (Luckily, I have my files backed up). It probably has something to do with the CMOS battery.
So yeah, I broke my computer like a moron.
Any suggestions? 
 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Ar_e_en

[Redneckerz]

30 minutes ago, Ar_e_en said:

I'll make this as short as possible.
Computer broke. It is a Lenovo Thinkstation m83, the problem: on boot up the Lenovo screen pops up as usual, then it shuts down, reboots itself and starts working as normal. Decided to try and fix it by following some guides: checked the bios clock display - it was incorrect so I set it to be correct, boot problems persist and bios clock reads incorrect date again, try something else (like an idiot) - changed bios from UEFI to Legacy - my drive gets corrupted and I can't launch Manjaro Linux (Luckily, I have my files backed up). It probably has something to do with the CMOS battery.
So yeah, I broke my computer like a moron.
Any suggestions? 
 

• Remove the battery as it may be leaking.
• Replace the battery, might be a generic CR2032 one. 

[deus-ex]

As Redneckerz already suggested, when your computer cannot hold the correct date/time anymore, it is very likely that your CMOS battery is empty and needs replacing. You should be able to get a CR2032 pack of 5 or 10 x batteries for about $3.00 - 5.00.

 

Once you replaced the battery be sure to enter your BIOS (hold down DEL or F2 key on computer start) to verify and adjust your setup accordingly.

[Ar_e_en]

Changed the CMOS battery, the boot issue still persists. It seems that the clock is saved now (I think, It could break again for all I know).

Drive is still corrupted, but that can be changed or zeroed out.

[Murdoch]

Sounds like an issue with the board. I have seen it a few times over the years.

[Ar_e_en]

@Murdoch

Can a repair guy fix it or is it fucked?

[Murdoch]

29 minutes ago, Ar_e_en said:

@Murdoch

Can a repair guy fix it or is it fucked?

 

Its very hard to diagnose sight unseen. I would be stripping the computer down and leaving everything to discharge including the BIOS memory just to be completely sure. Be aware though that even if this does initially work the problem may recur. If it didn't work I'd then swap out as many parts as i could again just for due diligence. But I'd say your odds of a dead board rather than a single faulty replaceable part are quite high. Worth a go though so take it to a tech and get their thoughts. How old is the computer?

[Ar_e_en]

6 months. Also, I'm pretty sure that I have voided any warranty that came with the PC by installing Linux on it, in other words - I wasted money on it and I can't get any back.

[Ar_e_en]

Okay, weird update:
I sent my PC to a repair-guy and in like 30 minutes he repairs it (I guess?). He said that the boot problem stems from the fact that the boot order in the BIOS was incorrect (like it was something like: 1st line - blank; 2nd - SSD with Manjaro; 3rd and 4th - blank; 5th - DVD; etc.). Which is weird because the PC worked fine all this time and only now the boot issues happened. Luckily he said that I won't have to pay anything which was nice of him, but I also asked him to zero-out the SSD. Before I sent the PC to him - I did put the old CMOS battery back in because on further inspection - there was no leakage on it, not even on the board of the computer, I suspect that the old battery is fine. I will pick up the computer on the next day.

[deus-ex]

You lucky son of a mother. :)  Thanks for keeping us up to date.

[Ar_e_en]

4 hours ago, deus-ex said:

You lucky son of a mother. :)  Thanks for keeping us up to date.

I wouldn't count myself as lucky. 
My inner pessimist believes that I will receive the computer and it will get another boot problem in a few days or some other worse problem soon.
My inner realist believes that it will be fine at first and then in like 2-6 months the problems will come back, possibly in a worse state.
I have no inner optimist.

The thing that I get caught up on is the supposed solution for the boot problem (it was always fine with whatever boot sequence it always had since the day that I bought that thing and the boot problem only happens now? And it's fixed by rearranging the boot order?) and the thing that @Murdoch brought up about it most likely being a possible faulty board or part issue. 

[Murdoch]

That is weird that the boot sequence was set like that. Every BIOS i have ever seen over the past few years, that would be impossible to do via normal means. So something definitely glitched out and the boot code obviously doesn't cope with a blank boot list entry because it doesn't expect it to happen. You are correct that glitches of this nature often recur.

 

Did the tech look into whether there's been a BIOS update? Might also be worth investigating if other people have had this issue with this model.

 

I doubt installing linux violated the warranty. But opening it yourself may have unfortunately. 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Murdoch

[Dark Pulse]

I was reading up on this and thought it was strange you switched from UEFI to Legacy, but boot order admittedly never occurred to me.

[Murdoch]

23 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

I was reading up on this and thought it was strange you switched from UEFI to Legacy, but boot order admittedly never occurred to me.

 

Because this should be impossible. That's why it didn't occur to me either.

Every BIOS I can remember of late uses a stacked list rather than individual slots so setting a blank first entry can't happen. Lenovo might be different on further reflection. They are not big in New Zealand so relatively few pass through my shop.

[Ar_e_en]

26 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

That is weird that the boot sequence was set like that. Every BIOS i have ever seen over the past few years, that would be impossible to do via normal means. So something definitely glitched out and the boot code obviously doesn't cope with a blank boot list entry because it doesn't expect it to happen. You are correct that glitches of this nature often recur.

 

Did the tech look into whether there's been a BIOS update? Might also be worth investigating if other people have had this issue with this model.

 

I doubt installing linux violated the warranty. But opening it yourself may have unfortunately. 

I probably should have been a bit more specific (sorry about that): The boot thing wasn't really blank as in "nothing", it was more like blank as in "boot option that didn't have anything in it", something like: 1st line - Floppy disc (it doesn't have a floppy disc reader); 2nd - SSD with Manjaro; 3rd - USB drive (no USB drive was plugged in); 4th - scream 1 and 0 trough the microphone (no microphone was plugged in); 5th - DVD drive; etc. The only things with anything specifically named on the boot order were the SSD, the DVD drive and my network card. Would the boot order really be the main culprit here? If so, why did the clock stop working? Maybe I should ask the guy if I really should change the CMOS battery with a newer one. It be nice if this was really so simple and that physically there is nothing wrong with any of the parts, but again - I'm no optimist.

27 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

I was reading up on this and thought it was strange you switched from UEFI to Legacy, but boot order admittedly never occurred to me.

The UEFI to Legacy thing was probably the thing that corrupted the Manjaro install. The drive was working fine even when the boot issues occurred, it was only ruined when I switched the UEFI to Legacy, because I'm just that fucking stupid. 

[Dark Pulse]

10 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Because this should be impossible. That's why it didn't occur to me either.

Every BIOS I can remember of late uses a stacked list rather than individual slots so setting a blank first entry can't happen. Lenovo might be different on further reflection. They are not big in New Zealand so relatively few pass through my shop.

The BIOS on my new PC allows me to switch from UEFI to Other OS. It's totally not impossible.

 

8 minutes ago, Ar_e_en said:

The UEFI to Legacy thing was probably the thing that corrupted the Manjaro install. The drive was working fine even when the boot issues occurred, it was only ruined when I switched the UEFI to Legacy, because I'm just that fucking stupid. 

Yeah, don't ever do that. Basically, UEFI will expect, well, UEFI/GPT; Legacy will be looking for old MBR partitions and shit.

[Murdoch]

Not that i have had much cause to try but in my experience a boot mode switch away from what the installed OS expects won't cause corruption. It simply won't boot. But perhaps your Linux distribution isn't as robust in this regard as windows. 

 

EDIT: Removed dumb stuff cause I forgot some things.

Edited July 26, 2021 by Murdoch

[Murdoch]

2 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

The BIOS on my new PC allows me to switch from UEFI to Other OS. It's totally not impossible.

 

Of course. I was talking about the boot device order. Not that. The poster has clarified it wasn't actually blank though. 

[deus-ex]

The boot order determines, which drive/source should be tried for booting and in which order. If there is no floppy disc drive installed, it does not make sense to include it in the order list as it wastes time on every boot.

 

On each boot, the BIOS goes through the boot order list until it finds a device/source which has some bootable data (Operating system) available. If the floppy disk drive is unavailable, the boot order skips to the next entry. If the floppy disc drive is available but either holds no disc or a disc without bootable data (boot sector), it skips to the next boot order entry, perhaps with an error message.

 

If your harddrive fails to boot or is not connected to your system, the BIOS again skips to the next boot order entry, such as a USB-Drive with bootable data or a CDROM or DVD drive which can hold a bootable medium (e.g. Windows installation CD).

 

The boot order does not prevent your PC from booting, but it can take unnecessarily longer to process, so it is recommended to put the harddrive or SSD with the operating system into the first slot of the boot order list.

 

EDIT: disable => prevent

Edited July 26, 2021 by deus-ex

[Ar_e_en]

14 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

The problem still suggests a BIOS issue. Ordinarily a BIOS will try the boot sequence in order, and simply move on as each one fails to respond.  It shouldn't bomb out. With luck by setting the ssd first it may sidestep that particular problem. But yes the lack of time keeping is a concern. It would be interesting to confirm if it forgets other settings or just time. I have seen a laptop with that problem but it was like ten years old. Might be worth investigating replacing the battery. Call Lenovo to see what they say about what you or the tech can get away with without warranty violation. Don't mention linux. 

I doubt that Lenovo would help, I already opened the case to switch the CMOS battery like twice (old to new then new to old), warranty is practically dead now.  I have almost no hope for this thing. Just have to save up and buy another PC at a later date.

[Murdoch]

 

Just now, Ar_e_en said:

I doubt that Lenovo would help, I already opened the case to switch the CMOS battery like twice (old to new then new to old), warranty is practically dead now.  I have almost no hope for this thing. Just have to save up and buy another PC at a later date.

 

Yeah I forgot you said you had already changed the battery. My memory is... less than ideal and I am kind of a dumbass, but I am good at tech stuff when it's in front of me and I can see exactly what's going on.

 

But yes, avoid big brand name machines unless you are looking at a laptop because obviously you can't get a custom built laptop. Go for a tower that someone has built, using a known quality brand for the motherboard like ASUS. On the whole, they tend to be more robust systems.

[The BMFG]

damn. sucks that you broke your computer man. i hope you get a new one

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, Ar_e_en said:

Just have to save up and buy another PC at a later date.

Hah... you really are a pessimist. You haven't even got the rig back yet. There's this saying, "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, The BMFG said:

damn. sucks that you broke your computer man. i hope you get a new one

It got fixed, his PC should be fine now.

 

The real question at this point is "how the heck did the boot order get fucked with," since that's really something that shouldn't flip at random.

[Ar_e_en]

Update: they got the thing to boot, but they are still keeping the PC to try and figure out why the PC had the boot issues in the first place.

[Ar_e_en]

Slight question: in the boot order there are actually sub-categories, the SSD has two inner items: "Manjaro" and "UEFI OS". The right order should be "Manjaro" and then "UEFI OS" right?
Also, PC is still not done.

[Murdoch]

6 hours ago, Ar_e_en said:

Slight question: in the boot order there are actually sub-categories, the SSD has two inner items: "Manjaro" and "UEFI OS". The right order should be "Manjaro" and then "UEFI OS" right?
Also, PC is still not done.

 

Not familiar with linux as mentioned but pretty sure uefi is what you want. Someone with more linux experience may be able to confirm. 

[Ar_e_en]

[SLIGHT UPDATE]

There's good news and bad news!

 

Bad news - Main PC still has boot issues, looking for another PC repair guy.

 

Good news - This old PC I'm currently using isn't as bad as I thought it was, I can use GIMP and SLADE just fine with it, though the map editor in SLADE lags a lot, but I am looking into the Eureka map editor, I might be able to use that if I set it up. I can't run GZDoom, but the other source-ports work fine and I only made limit-removing/boom/MBF maps anyway, so the only sad part is that I can't play any advanced stuff... Oh well!