mintbox2 doesn't reboot, and doesn't upgrade bios

[javier]

Hi,

I have 4 mintbox2 mini-pcs, out of which 1 is having a weird behavior.

That box does power down without problems, however it doesn't reboot. When rebooted, the box never goes down. After every sw is turned off, and the monitor goes blank, the box just hangs. That behavior is new (was not behaving like that before), but is not related with the OS at all (Iuse Arch linux), given when trying to upgrade the bios, and the tool tries to reboot, the same thing happens.

I thought, though I didn't have a reason to suspect the bios, that upgrading the bios might help, and so I attempted that. However when the tool finishes and attempt to reboot, the same thing happens. After everything seems to be turned off, and the reboot is about to happen, the box just hangs.

Well, guess what, apparently without a proper reboot, the bios doesn't get upgraded at all. I reviewed the bios version after powering down by hand, and checked on the bios information, and the version was still the old one (not the lates of dec-2013).

Though the box stills work, I'm afraid some hw might be wrong, perhaps the bios rom/flash itself?

Any one has experienced the same? Any way to check on what's causing the behavior? Please notice the bios setting are the ones the came with the box (I haven't changed anything).

Any help is appreciated,

--
Javier

[javier]

Notice the box on Dec-2014 got one year from bought, therefore I believe rma doesn't apply,

--
Javier

[mbirger]

Please explain once again what do you mean by "That box does power down without problems, however it doesn't reboot. When rebooted, the box never goes down."
Do you mean it never goes up after reboot occurred?

I would not exclude OS from the story. Please try to install a clear copy of Linux Mint 17, 64-bit or Windows 7 Pro, 64-bit and check the behavior again. In case it remains it might require RMA.

[javier]

If doing "shutdown -h now", or "systemctl poweroff", everything works OK, and the box finally shutdowns.

If doing "shutdown -r now", or "systemctl reboot", then the box never turns off, though it seems most of the shutdown process gets through. The box just hangs forever.

This doesn't have to do with the up to date x86-64 Arch, given I have exactly the same Arch, with same SW, running on other 3 mintbox-2 boxes, with same HW, and I have no problems with them. Also notice the box was working fine before, and I have no clue what triggered this misbehaving on only 1 of the 4 boxes.

Other than the weird reboot issue, the box seems to be working OK. Though it had the weird effect of not being able to uprade the BIOS, due to the inability to reboot, while I could update it on the other 3 boxes.

[n3mkh]

Javier, what you describe [hang on reboot, but not hanging on a full shutdown followed by a power-up] is something I have experienced for many years with most Linux distributions on every hardware platform I have used since I began using Linux in the early 1990's. I now expect a hang on reboot, so I just don't reboot, but rather just do a full power-down. This hang-on-reboot feature often occurs when doing a fresh install on a new system and one gets to the step that reboots the system from the local drive. It is a mystery!

Cheers,
Joseph

[javier]

I've seen that as well, but like 8 years back, and on i686 machines or older.

The problem is that I was not experiencing it with that mintbox2 before. And it's nohappening to other mintbox2 boxes either. Given they all have the same SW and configuration (I'm the admin for these boxes) I honestly don't see a reason for that to happen in one box and not the others. That concerns me a bit that something else might fail, given some HW problem.

The major thing is also that I can't upgrade the BIOS, given this problem. What you mentioned about this being an old problem, well, AFAIK wasn't a problem to upgrade the BIOS. Only on this mintbox2 I can't upgrade the BIOS. In all others, that can reboot, I have no problem upgrading the BIOS. That also is a bad indication.

Any ways, for that box in particular I'm just powering down, since rebooting is not working. Kind of troubles me given I can't reboot remotely, like after upgrading linux (the kernel)... But my concern is more on the HW side (if something is misbehaving), and the BIOS.

[javier]

OK, again, I can't change any value on the BIOS, since any change requires reboot.

Moreover, what's worse, I can't upgrade BIOS, left with the ME vulnerability, shich should be mitigated with a BIOS upgrade followed by an intel ME write locking, according to:

http://www.fit-pc.com/wiki/index.php/In ... ate_170523

To describe the issue better, on reboot, whether from user OS running, or from any BIOS change, the box actually turns off, and attempts to turn back on, to the point that the box turns the front LED back on, but it freezes there. No matter how long one waits, it never comes back.

This doesn't have anything to do with the user OS at all, just the box hags when turning back on, on any sort of reboot...

Not sure if there's a full BIOS write I could try, that wouldn't need reboot at all, perhaps a full power down, and manual turn on... I really need a solution for this particular mintBox2. I have other 4, which don't experience any of this...