Strange issue with soft-bricked tablet - eviltoast

Sorry if this is a yapathon, this is a detailed issue, and I will put an AI summary in the comments

I have already made a post about that but that was outdated and I learned some new information. If anyone thinks it’s cluttering their feeds, I will delete the post, just ask.

I have been absolutely stumped by this issue that I’m facing, even as a 5-year Linux user. I have just got my hands on a Getac F110-G2 tablet. It came with Windows 10 pre-installed, and everything functioned perfectly fine. Of course, I don’t like Windows and I shortly went to installing Debian, and got a GNOME live image straight from their website. I downloaded, flashed to a USB drive, and installed. The installer booted and functioned perfectly fine, with the only weird thing being a random signoff which didn’t seem to break anything. One thing to note is that I installed and started gpsd, but that shouldn’t mean anything because that was a live image. I clicked reboot, and the tablet seemed to reboot normally, until the boot process started.

When nothing happened but a black screen for a minute, I rebooted my tablet, but that didn’t do anything either. Than, I rebooted to the installation media to try another install. It was black too. This caused me to try re-flashing the USB drive with the same Debian, but no luck. I tried to disable TPM which I know can cause some issues, and still no luck. I also switched between UEFI and Legacy boot modes, and observed that the installed version of debian had only installed on legacy. I contacted Getac support because no secure boot toggle was in the BIOS, and they directed me to it. I disabled secure boot and still no luck. I’ve tried again a few times, and that’s where I’m at. Also note that I’ve tried with my TV as a display and that didn’t work either, so it’s definitely not a display issue. I tried a different USB stick with no luck, and it seems like my tablet is just soft-bricked from now on.

So where to now?

  • I’ve thought about installing the SSD to my PC’s motherboard, wiping it clean, and then re-installing to try and boot.
  • e0qdk@reddthat.com
    2·
    3 months ago

    the tablet supports pxe boot. Do you think I could get mileage off of that if I set up a server on my other laptop and connected them via ethernet?

    Maybe. If it’s not too much trouble to set up and you can’t get the USB to work again, might as well try it before throwing in the towel.

    I’m rather confused by the fact that the USB drive worked for you before but doesn’t any more and yet seems to be OK on other systems. Is there anything like “fast boot” enabled in the BIOS maybe? (Try turning that off if so.)

    Also, when you’re trying to boot from the SSD, can you get anything out of GRUB by tapping shift or escape (or maybe other keys) while it’s trying to boot?