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Ok so, been working on this for hours now, and I haven't found anything that solves the problem yet. So, basically I have a netbook (Atom N450 processor, 1GB RAM, 10.1'' display) with windows 7 installes and decided to try Ubuntu.

The installation goes well and all, desktop looks beautiful, system runs like charm, then I have to reboot and all heads down.

GRUB loads fine, and I select Ubuntu to boot. Then nothing happens, black screen with nothing on it, Ubuntu is not loading and I have to do a hard reset to get back, but no matter how many times I try, the black screen won't change.

Except, when I plug an external monitor to it... then it loads up!!!

It's been pretty frustrating and I hope someone has some experience on this issue, Having to plug it to an external monitor every time I want to work on it is not a possibility, and so far no one seems to have the same problem. Thanks in advance!

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3 Answers 3

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Problem fixed! Here is how I figured out (kinda) what was going on: After doing everything you told me to and not having any kind of success, I decided I'd fix a "minor" problem I had, which was the GRUB being in the wrong resolution.

I followed this instructions: How do I safely change grub2 screen resolution? booting on recovery and going to root terminal (also, for some reason I had to update grub in the recovery menu, otherwise nano wouldn't save the changes).

Set the resolution of the grub to 800x600 and that's it... the system boots properly now and without any kind of hassle. Thank you very much to everyone for the help! And hope this also helps someone else =D!

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What kind of netbook it is (Acer, Asus ecc.)? There are issues with certain producers, you can try to load it whitout acpi (add acp=off noapic to grub when booting).

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    Being someone new to Ubuntu, I believe it would be wise to mention the steps on how to modify the grub
    – Dan
    Aug 15, 2012 at 10:16
  • It's a LANIX Netbook unfortunetly the manufacturer's website doesn't have the model anymore (to get the full specs [only in Mexico I might add]) Forgot to say I'm somewhat of a new user, and didn't quite understand your answer (though I really apreciate it)
    – Jerryments
    Aug 15, 2012 at 10:21
  • I added something about modifying GRUB in my answer.
    – pzkpfw
    Aug 15, 2012 at 10:21
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It sounds like the problem here is that Ubuntu is treating the external monitor as the primary one. One thing I'd like to suggest first of all is trying to find a hardware button on your netbook to switch displays. Usually there's a FN button on your bottom right that can be combined with the F1 to F12 buttons, and one of these probably has a symbol on it that means "switch display output".

If this doesn't help, my other suggestion would be to try to change Ubuntu's primary display or get Ubuntu to disable the external monitor completely.

By pressing the SHIFT key during boot, you can access the boot menu and start Ubuntu in "recovery mode", this might come in handy when you're changing system settings.

As mentioned in a separate answer here, you might want to try adding acp=off noapic to the GRUB boot line. This is usually quite simple, look out for this text in GRUB:

Press enter to boot the selected OS, 'e' to edit the commands before booting

By pressing "e", you'll get the option to add some more technical mumbo jumbo to the long line of options that are by default enabled for your boot. Adding the acp=off noapic at the end of this will do the trick.

Note that by pressing "e" and adding this, it will only apply to that specific boot. It is not a permanent change and it will not be there the next time you enter GRUB. If you want to make the change permanent, you need to edit the GRUB config files. Google is handy for this :)

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  • Slight Update, the Fn+Fx keys didn't work. The GRUB workaround only made it "blink" from dark purple to black, and stood that way. After maybe 10 minutes of waiting with the black screen on, I plugged in my external monitor and voila, desktop appears on both screens. Gonna try now the primary display workaround, but not much luck so far =(
    – Jerryments
    Aug 15, 2012 at 10:56
  • Does your problem arise when you boot Ubuntu in recovery mode?
    – pzkpfw
    Aug 15, 2012 at 10:57
  • Well, it does load up this screen ubuntu.paslah.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/… I'm gonna try to initiate failsafeX to see what happens
    – Jerryments
    Aug 15, 2012 at 11:08
  • Just tried changing primary display and disabling the external monitor. No luck whatsoever =/.
    – Jerryments
    Aug 15, 2012 at 12:37
  • You could always try filing a bug report: ubuntu.com/community/report-problem
    – pzkpfw
    Aug 15, 2012 at 15:30

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