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Apologies for the vague title - I do not know how else to describe this problem. This is not my first time installing linux on laptops, and the error I have now is unintelligible to me. I will describe what happened in detail. Some of these things may not be relevant, but I am not well placed to judge.

  1. I bought a new laptop, an Acer Aspire V Nitro with Nvidia 950M graphics. It came with Linpus Linux, basically command line and nothing else.

  2. As I only had a Mint installation USB, but wanted Ubuntu, I boosted the laptop from the Mint USB. To do this I had to change from UEFI to Legacy boot in the BIOS. This worked successfully. Using the Mint USB, I created an Ubuntu 14.04 installation USB on a second stick.

  3. I switched booting back to UEFI in the BIOS, and installed Ubuntu 14.04. This worked successfully.

  4. On restarting the laptop, I encountered an error stating that no bootable medium had been found. I followed the instructions in the answer here - Bootable device not found after clean install of Ubuntu 14.04 UEFI - which fixed the problem.

  5. I was able to run Ubuntu 14.04 for about an hour, installing a number of things, during which time the system worked normally. When I installed the proprietary drivers for my graphics card (nvidia-prime), however, I was left with a black screen on reboot.

  6. I reinstalled Ubuntu 14.04 successfully to recover my use of the GUI. I tried installing the same drivers again this time via the command line rather than the Ubuntu "Additional drivers" screen, with the same result.

  7. Instead of reinstalling Ubuntu again, I switched to the terminal and tried this guide - https://vxlabs.com/2015/02/05/solving-the-ubuntu-14-04-nvidia-346-nvidia-prime-black-screen-issue/ - which did not help. I was not able to recover the GUI by e.g. uninstalling the nvidia-prime drivers and reinstalling nouveau via the terminal.

  8. I decided to reinstall Ubuntu again, this time 15 in case it had better compatibility with my gfx card. Here the real troubles begin. Although the installation was successful, I never managed to boot the laptop in Ubuntu 15. I was faced with a new error my HDD was now unrecognised.

  9. Choosing the HDD as the boot device anyway, Ubuntu would crash before loading, giving a string of nouveau errors. I get these same errors after installing Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint, neither of which load from local installation. I also get these errors when running the installer from the stick. I also get the same errors when trying to run linux from the stick (Ubuntu doesnt load at all, Mint loads but using the CPU to render graphics - note, the CPU itself not an onboard graphics chip.)

So at this point my laptop is effectively useless, and I do not know how to proceed as I do not understand how this error propagates even after reinstalling linux, booting from a remote installation, etc. I am left with the possibility that the laptop either has a hardware problem, or a problem with e.g. BIOS or VBIOS. If so, I do not know if I have caused this problem (how?) or if it is a laptop defect (in that case, how did Ubuntu ever run correctly?).

Absolutely any advice would be appreciated as the next step is probably to return the laptop, uncertain if they would grant me a substantial refund.

UPDATE:

It turned out to be two unrelated problems. First, nouveau.modeset=0 fixed the graphics problems, but the boot problem remained. Grub had to be selected as UEFI trusted in addition to shimx, unlike in 14.04. With these two fixes, my laptop booted normally in Ubuntu 15, and I was able to install the latest proprietary drivers with which my graphics card also works correctly.

Thanks for the help!

Community
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m_de
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  • See if this helps. Press SHIFT right as you select the HDD to boot, so that GRUB comes up. Use your arrow keys to scroll to the main Ubuntu option (the top one). Press e. Now, move the text cursor using your arrow keys so that it's located at the end of the line beginning with linux. Type nouveau.modeset=0 and then press F10 to boot. – TheWanderer Feb 26 '16 at 20:41
  • Do that after you install Ubuntu. Stay with 15.10 for this. – TheWanderer Feb 26 '16 at 20:43
  • I don't quite understand why you were trying to install the drivers in the first place , if originally screen worked fine. Try to tweak the BIOS settings (or rather, I should say UEFI because that's what seems to be on the Acer Aspire from a brief google search ). – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Feb 26 '16 at 20:52
  • Have you check to see if the hard drive is dying? Also you could try updating the BIOS/UEFI just in case it helps. – QwertyChouskie Feb 26 '16 at 21:01
  • Serg - the screen worked fine with the Intel.onboard gfx chip. The 950m wasn't being utilised. Zacharee1, user4901968 - thanks for the ideas, I will take a look tomorrow. – m_de Feb 26 '16 at 21:30

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