Computer Problems

I have had some problems with my laptop this week, including a sudden halt. Unfortunately, the logs give no clues about the cause.

While analyzing the logs, I noticed an “error” message about invalid BIOS. I generally ignore such errors, but this time I went ahead and updated the system firmware to the latest version. Thankfully, a bootable ISO was available for doing so, as exterminating Windows was the first thing I did when I purchased the machine. The ISO would not boot from USB, so I ended up actually burning it to CD-R and booting from an optical drive. The upgrade was successful, and the logs confirm that the latest version is installed. I get the same “error,” but such errors are usually meaningless and I shall once again ignore it.

I still had i3 debugging enabled. I highly doubt that it was a cause, but I have disabled it for now.

I upgraded all of my OS packages, so I am now running a newer kernel. The computer is once again working without issue.

$ uname -srv
Linux 5.12.4-arch1-2 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat, 15 May 2021 20:58:02 +0000

Trying to track down issues this week reminded me of a strange issue that I have had with this computer not too long ago. The system boots using Grub 2 and is configured with a five second timeout (countdown). While the countdown usually worked normally, it would occasionally countdown very slowly! Comments online indicate that it is likely due to a hardware problem. Strangely, I have not had the problem recently.

My plan has been to get this computer to last until 2022 before purchasing a new one. If problems return, however, I may end up purchasing a new computer ahead of schedule.