XO Troubleshooting PowerOn

This is the portion of the XO Troubleshooting Guide for diagnosing problems turning on an XO laptop.

Hello

For an introduction to the different boot options selectable while powering on, see the Cheat codes.

All of these tests assume that a known good source of power is available, either a charged battery or power adapter. To debug problems with the power source, and battery charging issues, see Power and Battery problems.

Is the Power LED On ?

When the power button is pressed once, the power LED doesn't turn on.

(insert photo of 'stuck' power button vs. 'unstuck' power button)

Please try Resetting the Embedded Controller.

If that doesn't work, test that the power adapter and battery used in the test are working (using another laptop). A laptop may be unable to power itself from its battery or power adapter (for a number of reasons).

If both power sources are working, then the motherboard is broken. The possible failure modes are numerous, and deserve a second troubleshooting guide.

(This section needs a step-by-step through the normal start-up sequence with branching options for each possibility. This section needs to take into account possibilities which include broken power LED, boot sound disabled in software, screen backlight broken or disconnected, possibilities of booting from a non-standard source (was an SD card accidentally left in the slot?) or secure vs. insecure startup, etc. I would also argue only diagnosis steps should appear here, with recovery steps located in a different section.)

The display doesn't activate

As the XO starts, the power LED turns on and the screen should be initialized with text or graphics displayed. The backlight for the screen may or may not be active.

Power LED on but display dosen't activate

The power LED indicates that the EC has enabled the power to the CPU. Open Firmware is next in the boot sequence. The next major visible boot step is turning on the display. The LCD display should begin to show text or graphics.

If this does not happen then the boot sequence may not be reaching Open Firmware or Open Firmware may be crashing early in the boot process. The way to tell is to look at the Microphone activity LED. The default state of the Mic LED is lit. One of the first steps OpeFirmware does is to turn off the Mic LED. If the power LED and the Microphone LED are both lit then a serious boot error has occured and the motherboard needs replacing.

If the power LED is lit and the Mic LED is not then backlight for the screen may or may not be active, the LCD may be non-functional or the RTC Problem may have occured.

Display does not initialize. Boot sound does not play

This usually indicates a broken motherboard or a Real Time Clock battery problem in conjunction with early firmware.

Display does not initialize, but the boot sound plays

If the display doesn't initialize, but the boot sound plays, see Display Problems.

Some machines in our early production runs (before Jan. 2008) both had a problem with the Real Time Clock battery holder and had a version of Open Firmware which locked up when it encountered a reset clock. The problem and its solutions are discussed elsewhere.

Machine boots normally, but no boot sound plays

If no boot sound is played, but the machine boots normally and has audio, it is likely that the user has changed the default boot volume to 0. While the boot sound is playing, a user can adjust the volume using the volume adjust keys. This modified volume setting is saved and used for future boots. Try increasing the volume right after starting the laptop a few times, and see if the boot sound returns.

If no boot sound is played, and the machine boots normally but has no audio see Audio Problems.

The display says "Connect to power to proceed"

Not quite the correct wording. Anyone remember the exact words ?

Early versions (before Q2D14) of the firmware would stop execution if a firmware update was scheduled, but two sources of power (a battery and a power adapter) aren't present ( [#5422]). If this is the problem, provide both sources of power and reboot. The laptop should proceed with a firmware update and boot normally.

The display is showing an XO icon

This means that Open Firmware has started the boot process.

XO icon with a "sad face"

This means that Open Firmware couldn't find a signed operating system on the internal flash memory. (It will also look on USB memory sticks and SD cards.)

You can get more information from Open Firmware by holding the "check" button (above the power button) after powering on. That will make Open Firmware display more detailed messages about what it is doing during the secure boot process. The messages are in English only.

Try upgrading or re-installing the software.

XO icon with a single dot below it

If laptops powers up, but stops when just displaying the XO icon in the middle, with a single dot below it, it means that something is wrong when the Linux OS starts operation. Try booting with the

( TEXT MISSING HERE! (^_^) )

One solution to try is upgrading or re-installing the software.

XO icon with a serial number and three icons below it

If the laptop powers up, but stops when displaying the XO icon in the middle of the screen, followed by a serial number (e.g. CSN74902B22) and three icons (SD disk, USB disk, Network signal strength), it is looking for its activation lease. This should eventually print "Activation lease not found" at the top of the screen and power-off soon thereafter.

The solution is to re-activate the laptop. Obtain a copy of the lease (or a new lease) from your country activation manager, place it (named "lease.sig") on the root directory of a USB key and boot the laptop. See What to do with your activation keys.