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Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 9:51 am
by nine0
Hello, I was trying to download Ubuntu on my Thinkpad T510 on a bootable flash drive. But everytime I would get to the start menu on Ubuntu on grub and click try and install it shows me a flashing cursor and it would not boot up Ubuntu. How do I troubleshoot this issue?
Re: Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 11:34 am
by axur-delmeria
How long did you wait? I have an external SSD with Debian installed. Last month I used it to boot on a Samsung laptop of the same vintage as the T510 (first-generation Core i series) and noticed that it took quite a while to boot, and only displayed a blinking cursor for well over a minute.
Re: Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 1:59 pm
by nine0
axur-delmeria wrote: ↑Fri Mar 14, 2025 11:34 am
How long did you wait? I have an external SSD with Debian installed. Last month I used it to boot on a Samsung laptop of the same vintage as the T510 (first-generation Core i series) and noticed that it took quite a while to boot, and only displayed a blinking cursor for well over a minute.
I waited a few hours but it did not load up. So I let is sit overnight thinking that it needed time to boot up but that did not work too.
Re: Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 10:45 pm
by axur-delmeria
It could be anything at this point, given the age of the T510 (~15 years).
* issues relating to the boot media-- corrupt ISO image, bootable USB disk creation errors (had problems with Debian ISOs and Rufus, must be set to "dd mode" in order to work),
* bad RAM (have encountered boot issues due to bad RAM
* CPU issue (silicon degradation? due to age)
* something else entirely
Re: Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 11:25 pm
by Saucey
Is there options to choose when booting?
Its been long since I installed ubuntu, but some boot menus will need the alternate graphics option (Vesa or whatever), otherwise it won't boot.
What did you use to for the USB boot disk?
I used to use Unetbootin, but Rufus seems to be more reliable.
There's always another distro to use, XFCE is my go when I try a different distro and it just doesn't work out of the box.
Re: Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2025 5:37 pm
by nine0
Update: I changed the RAM from 16 gigs back to 4 gigs and tried loading Ubuntu and it worked! I guess that the T510 ThinkPad does not accept more than 8 gigs of RAM.
Re: Ubuntu not working on my T510 thinkpad
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2025 5:39 pm
by nine0
axur-delmeria wrote: ↑Fri Mar 14, 2025 10:45 pm
It could be anything at this point, given the age of the T510 (~15 years).
* issues relating to the boot media-- corrupt ISO image, bootable USB disk creation errors (had problems with Debian ISOs and Rufus, must be set to "dd mode" in order to work),
* bad RAM (have encountered boot issues due to bad RAM
* CPU issue (silicon degradation? due to age)
* something else entirely
Thank you for providing suggestions!