Three Lenovo T420 laptops with the same "hardware" issue

8 réponses [Dernière contribution]
amenex
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/03/2015

In the past few months, dating back at least to early Winter 2020, one or another of my three Lenovo T420
laptop computers have been exhibiting freezes, peculiar S/W faults, and difficulty in opening Icedove.
In the past few days, the dot files have disappeared from "/", i.e., the System folders of _all_ my Etiona
installations on half a dozen hard drives. I cannot say whether it's happening with Etiona or Flidas
exclusively, because my Flidas installations will no longer boot up.
What I can say is that a lonely Ubuntu 20.4 installation still has some dot files in its "/" folder.

nadebula.1984
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/01/2018

Can you see them using "ls -la" command?

We strongly against using Ubuntu, even if there is something wrong with Trisquel. Even Debian is much better.

amenex
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/03/2015

nadebula.1984 Suggests trying the command:
ls -la
No dot files appear in that command's outputs in Etiona's "/" folder
[shhhh] nor in Ubuntu's where a few are plainly visible in the File Manager.

Ubuntu is indeed mostly useless, though it did run one of my nmap scripts without incident,
but took nearly twice as long as in Etiona. Fifteen years ago Debian gave me fits when
upgrades came along ... the various instructions were sharply at odds with each other. That
experience plus the expense of dealing with it drove me into the arms of Trisquel.

Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/24/2010

I would test the disk. You can install the package named "gnome-disk-utility", launch GNOME Disks, select the disk in the left-hand pane, "SMART Data & Self-Tests..." in the burger menu (the three stacked segments), click on the "Start Self-test" button and choose "Extended".

amenex
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/03/2015

Magic Banana's instructions needed additional clarification, especially for me.
Installing gnome-disk-utility brought the revelation that it's already installed.
"gnome-disks" turns out to be the "Disks" item in the Hardware section of Control Center.
OK. I'm at the graphical window listing my three, 1.0 TB HDD's in the upper left-hand corner.
"SMART Data & Self-Tests" is listed by opening the menu under what I now know to recognize
as the oft-mentioned "burger menu" (three stacked bold horizontal lines) to the right of the
red "power off" button.

amenex
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/03/2015

Sour grapes forgotten ... Are these results as dire as they read ?
The good news is that the system can be fixed while SATA hard drives are still available.
Have I actually worn out all these drives ?

Thanks for the tip on how to evaluate this part of the system.
First three screenshots are for the T420 with 8GB RAM and 1600x900 screen resolution.
Next two screenshots are for the T420 with 8GB RAM but 1366x768 screen resolution.
The last two screenshots are for the T420 with 4GB RAM and 1600x900 screen resolution.

I didn't wait for any of the tests to complete; consider these a reconnaissance.

Screenshot at 2021-07-10 10-41-08.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 10-49-19.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 10-54-21.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 11-20-26.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 11-26-56.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 11-40-57.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 11-43-39.png
Magic Banana

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

You should wait for the tests to complete. You can look at the "Overall Assessment" at the end. In the screenshots you show, only one "Assessment" is not "OK", for the attribute "end-to-end-error" for the disk in your laptop with 4 GB of RAM.

amenex
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A rejoint: 01/03/2015

Are these the "Overall Assesments"?

On the left is the test of the /dev/sdb3 - the 1.0 TB HDD;
on the right is the test of the /dev/sda3 - 500 GB HDD.

Screenshot at 2021-07-10 18-37-08.png Screenshot at 2021-07-10 20-45-48.png
Magic Banana

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I am a translator!

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A rejoint: 07/24/2010

In the first screenshot, the "Overall Assessment" is "Disk is OK, one attribute failed in the past". In the second screenshot: "Disk is OK".