Slow Boot on Acer Laptop Running Mint 22

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I’ve got an Acer Laptop from 2009 with 4 GB RAM, Celeron processor, and newly installed Crucial 500GB SSD. With the original HDD it ran Mint 19.3 and 20.3 without any issues.

After installing the SSD I installed Mint 22. The installation itself went without issue and once booted up it runs just fine with the expected significant speed increase from the SSD. The problem is slow boots under some conditions. Here’s what happens:

When the computer is booted up and I choose “Restart” from the “Quit” menu, the computer shuts down and boots normally and quickly. If I choose “Shutdown” from the “Quit” menu, the computer shuts down normally and then will start from the power button and boot normally and quickly UNLESS the computer has sat for about an hour or more after the normal shutdown. Then, if I turn the computer on with the power button I’ll see the Acer splash screen and the screen that says which F Key to use to enter the BIOS. Then the screen goes to a dark grey and the computer just sits for 3 minutes apparently doing nothing – there are no indicator lights other than on the power button and the charging cable being connected (no wifi light, no SSD indicator light). At the 3 minute mark the “LM” logo appears and the computer boots up and is ready to go in about 90 seconds (what I referred to as ‘normally and quickly’ above), and is good to go.

On the Start Up app I’ve turned the Bluetooth and Support for Nvidia Prime app off, unfortunately to no effect. I’ve considered turning off the SSH Key Agent and Xapp-sn-watcher in the start up app but I’m not yet clear on what they do, and so have yet to remove them from start up.

This is still a very functional computer but I would like to speed up the boot process. Any suggestions as to how to do this?

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Have you checked if the CMOS battery is dead? That could be a reason for it asking for BIOS access. Usually a quick change out in a old laptop providing is a coin type battery.

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DrBonzo

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I’ll check out the battery, but I think I wasn’t clear about the BIOS screen. The Acer splash screen and the screen with the BIOS access keys (the latter screen is actually a splash screen for the Insyde H2O BIOS – I think that’s the right name although it seems nonsensical to me) are exactly the same now as they were when the laptop was running Mint 19.3 and 20.3, and for that matter, when it was running Win7.

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Sounds like a hardware issue.

Check all connectors are plug in.
Reset the BIOS.

cheers, Paul

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DrBonzo

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All the connectors are tight. I’ll check out the BIOS.

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If the CMOS battery is weak/dying it’ll cause the BIOS settings to get corrupted/reset and it’ll enter full system test mode (i.e. checking cpu, memory, disks, etc.) when first powered up.

Such testing normally takes a few minutes to complete before the BIOS moves on to actually booting Windows which could be what’s happening?

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DrBonzo

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I’d rather take that Acer laptop to the nearest laptop repair shop to have the CMOS battery changed by a professional since laptop CMOS batteries in some laptops cannot easily be removed & replaced.

check out this thread from Tom’s Guide if you want to try to replace the cmos battery yourself:
https://forums.tomsguide.com/threads/acer-laptop-cmos-battery-replacement.510357/

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DrBonzo

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The battery looks like the first picture in your link, and according to the service manual is glued to the system board. I might spend 10 minutes trying to get it out but if I can’t I may just live with the slow boot. After all the computer is 15.5 years old, and I use it as a test machine for updates and trying out new versions of Mint. And so far at least, once booted the computer runs perfectly – no issues with the time and date, and none of the other symptoms that apparently often go along with a failed or failing battery.

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Check out the Linux Mint forum link below that may help.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2511994

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DrBonzo

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I concur with what has already been written here. The long delay happens while the UEFI or BIOS still has control of the computer, so the new version of Mint would not make any difference. The Mint installation only becomes relevant once the computer tries to boot, and once it does, it sounds like it is progressing normally.

It’s normal for a PC to have an unusually long boot delay one time after you make a change to the system (adding more memory, stuff like that), but after that it should not have to do that again, unless for some reason it has forgotten the change. It’s especially suspicious how it does that after an hour of sitting.

What has probably happened is that the CMOS battery (is it still called that in this day and age? It’s the only term I know) has gotten weak enough to die after an hour of sitting, but once the device is powered up and the load is removed from it, it slowly regenerates some of its voltage. In time, as the battery discharges more, that hour of time where you can turn it on and have things work normally will get shorter and disappear.

It could be that there is some capacitor storing enough of a charge to last that hour, in which case it could be that your CMOS battery is completely dead already, and you are just seeing the effect of the capacitor.

The solution, in either case, is to replace the battery, or have a shop do it if it is not something you are willing or able to tackle.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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DrBonzo

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CMOS stands for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor;  BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System.  You can take your pick of what you want to use since both require the battery to work.  I use both depending on what comes to mind.

I must also say that I think it’s awfully pitiful to glue a CMOS/BIOS battery into a computer!  Hopefully it’s not glued to the motherboard.

I hope I don’t hear about any other quirks with Linux Mint 22, since I’ll have to update to something new this coming March and I want to stay with Mint.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Mint 22.1 is in beta now and it may well be ready by March.

Also, FWIW, I’ve installed Mint 22 on two other computers in addition to the Acer laptop that’s the topic in this thread. Those other 2 are a 2009 HP Pavilion laptop, and an out-of-support 2017 macBook Air. Neither has any issues of any kind. The macBook Air just flies through everything – far faster than any version of macOS that was ever on it. The HP isn’t nearly as fast but it’s still respectable. It has no boot issues, and it’s speed seems comparable to the Acer once the Acer gets booted up. The HP – like the Acer – now has an SSD in place of the original hard drive; the SSD makes a significant difference in speed.

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jburk07, Charlie

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I’m glad to hear you’re doing okay with Mint 22.  In another post, Slowpoke has been having trouble with Firefox on Mint 22.  I’m still running LMC version 20 and it has been running flawlessly for me since I installed it.  I’ve got it tweaked to my liking and I’m really happy with its performance.

That’s the way I am – I didn’t want to go from Win 98 SE to XP, but then got to love XP after a short time.  It was the same going from Win XP to Win 7, I got to really like Win 7.  Now it’s pretty much the same with Linux Mint Cinnamon 20, I hate to have to change something that works so well for me.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DrBonzo

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Some of the issues with Linux Mint 22.x are related to using the newer 6.8 kernel which was done to support newer more recent hardware. However in some cases the newer kernel does not work well with very old hardware. But there is always the option to use Linux Mint 21.x yet, which uses the older 5.15 kernel that works well with older hardware and is still supported until April 2027.

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Charlie, DrBonzo

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That’s good news Mothy, my LMC 20 uses the 5.4 kernel and runs everything well on my 12 year old ASUS desktop computer.  I had hoped to be able to go to Mint 22 and get an extra 2 years (2029).

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Doesn’t the 5.4 kernel on Mint 20 go out of support in April 2025? That’s what my daily driver running LMC 20.3 says. It also says that the 5.15 kernel goes out of support in May 2025. But maybe that’s only when the 5.15 kernel is paired with LMC 20.x?

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That’s correct for both, as all kernel support ends about the same time as the OS (Mint 20.x support ends April 2025). Thus for Mint 21.x, the 5.15 kernel is still supported until OS support ends April 2027 (also shown in my 21.2 system Update Manager, View, Linux kernels).

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Charlie, DrBonzo

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The kernel support in Mint comes from upstream, which is to say from Ubuntu itself. They are Ubuntu kernels, not Mint kernels, so to really understand the support cycle, one needs to know what the Ubuntu devs are doing. Mint just passes them through to you, with the version that is used by default depending on what version of Ubuntu the Mint release is based upon.

When they say that a given kernel is “in support,” it means that the Ubuntu devs are continuing to issue new releases of that kernel as needed (for security and bug fixes). As long as that is the case, you can continue to use that version without it becoming a major security hole.

This is another example of the word “supported” being stretched by various software developers to mean several different things that have nothing to do with actual support. I wish they would stop doing that!

You can use any Ubuntu kernel you want with any given version of Mint (or Ubuntu,or other Ubuntu derivatives). With newer versions of Ubuntu, kernels older than the nominal one that version shipped with won’t be in the repo, but you can get them from the repos for the previous release(s) and install them from there. It’s an extra step that people who just want to use things as they are won’t usually be interested in, but it is a possibility if the given Mint version using that kernel by default is no longer being updated and you don’t want to move to a newer kernel.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Elly

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I would prefer to go with LMC version 22 to get support until 2029.  Do you think version 22 will have a problem with a 12 year old computer that meets all the system requirements for version 22 (4 gigs of RAM, Intel i3-2120, 1 TB SSD).

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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@Charlie, I’m assuming the RAM is maxed out on that device, even so, that spec should be ok for linuxmint 22 Cinnamon although MATE and XFCE may be a more frugal, less resource option better suited for the 4Gb RAM.

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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My 2 old laptops – the HP and Acer, both referred to above in my posts – both run LMC 22 just fine, the only issue being the slow boot time for the Acer. Both came with and still have the original 4GB RAM. I’ve only found a couple places that have RAM for these computers but since they run well as they are now, I’ve never pursued it; both are used as test machines and as computers of last resort. They both also have 500GB SSDs, which replaced their original 320 GB HDDs. The SSDs make a huge difference in speed.

My guess is that your (@Charlie) old Sony will be fine. You can always put a LMC 22 iso on a usb flash drive, boot up the Sony with it, and see how it runs. It will be on the slow side since it will be running off a usb drive, but you should be able to see if there are any features you use/need that don’t work. If something doesn’t work you may only need a driver and the Driver Manager can probably handle that.

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jburk07, Charlie

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Charlie wrote:

CMOS stands for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor; BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. You can take your pick of what you want to use since both require the battery to work. I use both depending on what comes to mind.

That’s what I was sort of getting at. Any PC newer than about 2011 or thereabouts doesn’t use BIOS anymore, but the term still persists. These PCs use UEFI, but if I use that term exclusively, some people may not realize we are talking about the same thing.

In those terms, CMOS never did refer to the technology of a battery. It’s a broader term that refers to the way that semiconductors are manufactured, which has nothing to do with the way “CMOS battery” is used colloquially (much in the same way that “BIOS” is used today to refer to UEFI).

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Elly

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@Charlie: IIRC you were looking for a CMOS battery a while back. Did you ever find one, and if so, where?

I’ve managed to gently pry the CMOS battery in the Acer off a board (it was glued on), but don’t want to unplug it until I find a new battery. I have found only one place that sells the battery, an outfit called Rome Tech
(rometechcases.com) but am hoping to find some other places as well.

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Charlie

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Rome Tech seems to be the primary provider for the older type CMOS batteries that come with wired leads.

Newer PC’s tend to use a coin-type battery holder soldered to the motherboard and replacement CMOS batteries (usually CR2032’s) can be bought pretty much anywhere.

They’ve been in business since 2014, are US based (Philadelphia PA), have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee + 1 Year Warranty, and an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 at TrustPilot so I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase batteries from them.

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Charlie, DrBonzo

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Microfix wrote:

@Charlie, I’m assuming the RAM is maxed out on that device

Well, I wouldn’t exactly say maxed out – see System Monitor sceenshot, and this is with Firefox up and running the AskWoody site too.

This is not my old 2007 Sony laptop (with LMC 19.1), this is my newer 2012 Asus desktop with LMC 20.  That 4 Gigs of memory handles the things that I do very well.  The old 2007 Sony VAIO plays DVD’s and videos nicely on its 15 inch screen.

As for the other slightly newer Sony laptop that needs a new BIOS battery, it’s just been sitting on a shelf in my closet.  When I get the energy and the knowledge I need to do a near total dismantle just find the BIOS battery I let you know what I find.  Other things have been taking precedent over that job, but I’m always thankful for any info. that is offered.  I first need to find what battery to look for.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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I’m putting this question in a new post to avoid any confusion.  What I’ve been wondering is how do I know if a computer will boot from a flash drive?  The newest of my computers is 12 years old and the BIOSes on this and all my older computers only seem to show the ability to boot from a DVD.

I’d like to use a bootable flash drive but don’t know if it will work.  Please excuse my ignorance about this.  Thanks.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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If you have made a bootable flash drive….
Insert it. Then boot into the BIOS and look in the “Boot” section to see if it recognizes the bootable flash drive.
I don’t know how Linux accesses the boot menu on startup, but if you can access the boot menu on startup, you can choose the USB bootable drive as the start drive.

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Charlie

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PKCano, this may or may not sound weird but ever since I installed Linux MInt Cinnamon 20 on this (at the time) new SSD, no boot screen shows on startup.  It seems that it just boots directly into Linux and the desktop comes up.  I haven’t tried pressing the Delete button that would normally get me into the BIOS.  I haven’t had a need to access the BIOS.  Here’s a screenshot taken from “Disks” that may shed some light on that.  Thanks.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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How did you install Mint on the computer? Most likely it was from a usb flash drive that had an iso Mint image on it, and if that’s the case then there seem to be only 2 possibilities: either the computer’s BIOS is already set up so that it will boot from a bootable usb flash drive when such a drive is detected, or you had to somehow make the computer boot from the flash drive. In order to do the latter you either got into the BIOS (probably by hitting one of the F keys) and changed the boot order so it would first look for a bootable flash drive (typically when a computer boots it will by default boot off the hard drive (or SSD) where the OS resides) and then boot from it, or you did something like hit one of the F keys repeatedly right after the computer was turned on until you got an option for what to boot from – this would have bypassed the getting into the BIOS.

You should read the installation guide on the linux Mint website. It addresses at least some of the questions you have.

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Charlie

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No, no usb flash drive installs so far for me.  My brother (who is better at this that me) made me “Live DVDs” that I could run the Linux from and if I liked it, I could install it from the DVD.  Installing Linux from a Bootable flash drive is new territory for me.  I’ve read the installation guide, and it sounds like a fairly simple process, but they don’t say what to do first – install the ISO or make the flash drive bootable.  Then there are references to programs like Rufus which seems like it does it all.  I’ve always thought it better to waste a DVD than a flash drive, but it seems I don’t have many choices anymore.

I’m a very cautious person, and I need to know exactly what I’m doing before I jump into anything.  One thing I do know is that I’ll eventually figure it out even if I have to bother my brother again.  Thanks again.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Go to the Mint download site and download Mint 22 Cinnamon to your computer. If you’re using a Mint computer the download will probably go to your Downloads folder in which you should see a file named linuxmint-22-cinnamon-64bit.iso. That’s the file you want to “burn” or write to a usb flash drive (assuming your brother can’t or won’t make a dvd for you), and you can do this with “USB Image Writer” which you open from the start menu in Mint. It will ask you what file you want to write to the usb (you want the .iso file mentioned above) and what usb drive you want it copied to (insert the flash drive you want the .iso on before starting the Image Writer program). When you’ve made those choices, click on “write” and it will write the .iso to the flash drive. This will take a few minutes, but when done you’ve got what you need to boot with and then install Mint. No need for Rufus; USB Image Writer is a very simple program, not much to learn, but it does the job. Once you have the bootable usb drive you just have to figure out how to boot from it, but once it does you should see an icon on your desktop that says “install Linux Mint”. Double click and follow the prompts.

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Charlie

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Thanks again DrBonzo.  So it sounds like the USB Image Writer does both things – writes the ISO to the flash drive and makes the flash drive bootable.  This is very encouraging.  Now, if the ISO works the same way as the past ISO’s on my DVDs, it’s just a matter of my computer or the BIOS (which by the way is UEFI) seeing the flash drive. Am I correct in assuming Linux Mint website ISOs are safe?

Can I assume that after I’ve backed up what I want from version 20, I can do an over writing install of 22 over the existing 20?  If so, this should be all I need to know.  The DVDs did an excellent job, but the BIOS was already setup to recognize DVDs.  I hope it works as PKCano said with the BIOS recognizing the bootable usb flash drive.

Thanks very for the help.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DrBonzo

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Yes, the flash drive after the USB Image Writer does its thing has the ISO on it and is bootable. The flash drive should work just like the DVD did.

IIRC when you click on Download on the Mint website, you go to a page that gives you a choice of servers from which to download. There are academic sites (James Madison University, University of California Berkely, Harvard, and many others) and some non academic sites as well. In my opinion the sites are safe and secure. There are other AskWoody members who don’t agree with that and will suggest that you run an SHA verification on the download. I’ve never done that and have never had any issues (I’ve installed some version of Mint on a computer about 15 to 20 times, so I’m comfortable not doing the verification).

Once you have the bootable flash drive, just stick it in a usb port with the computer Off, then turn the computer on. If the computer recognizes the usb drive you should see an indicator light flashing away, if the flash drive has such a light (many SanDisk and PNY flash drives do). If there is no indicator light you’ll still be able to tell if the computer is booting from the flash drive because it will be a lot slower and after booting you should see an icon on the desktop that says something like “Install Linux Mint”. If the computer isn’t booting from the flash drive the boot will look like it always does and you’ll see your desktop that you always see when booting from an internal drive. At that point you’ll need to make the computer boot from the flash drive, but the basic method for doing that is outlined above in one of my other posts.

Assuming the computer has booted from the flash drive and that you’ve started the installation, at some point you will be asked if you want to install 22 alongside 20.3 thereby having a dual boot computer or if you just want 22. If you choose the latter you will be warned that you will lose ALL data and files that are currently on the internal drive since the installation will reformat the drive, effectively erasing everything. So if you want only 22 make sure you have everything backed up – photos, documents, other files, and bookmarks from browsers. You may need to install some of the programs you have manually, but you will get Firefox, Libre Office, and some others installed along with 22. Make a note of which programs you have currently installed, so you can get your new Mint 22 as similar to your 20.3 as possible.

Once you get the computer to boot from the flash drive, you’ll want a good hour to get Mint installed – more or less depending on how fast your computer is. Count on another hour to get fully updated with Update Manager – there may be a hundred or so updates to be installed. There are other suggestions of things you should do on a splash screen that appears when the installation is finished and that will take some time as well. You can do everything at once if you’ve got a few hours, otherwise I’d suggest doing the installation, then coming back and doing the updates and then coming back and doing the other suggestions. Until you set up the firewall (one of the suggestions), keep your surfing to a minimum; i. e., just do the downloads and patching/updating.

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Charlie

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Thank you so very much!  I couldn’t ask for better instructions on how to do the upgrade to Linux 22 using a bootable flash drive.  I’ve got until April 2025 before losing support and having to do the update.  I’ve copied and saved all of your instructions so I’ll have them when the time comes.  My only concern now is that LMC 22 will run as well as 20 has for me.  LMC 20 has worked great and has given me very little to complain about.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DrBonzo

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Oh and also to DrBonzo and others – thank you for allowing my going off subject.  My apologies and I’ll try my best not to let it happen again.  Did you ever finally get an answer to your original “Slow Boot” question DrBonzo?

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DrBonzo

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Most people here think it’s a bad CMOS battery, although @Mothy directed me to a linux mint forum that describes a situation very much like mine. I have yet to pursue either approach. I said above that I wanted to save the computer but given that the computer is 15 year old, I may not pursue it.

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Charlie wrote:

I would prefer to go with LMC version 22 to get support until 2029.  Do you think version 22 will have a problem with a 12 year old computer that meets all the system requirements for version 22 (4 gigs of RAM, Intel i3-2120, 1 TB SSD).

 

I have a Toshiba laptop from 2009, recently upgraded from LMC 20 to LMC 22.  Then yesterday I upgraded to 22.1.  It runs flawlessly on 4GB RAM.

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jburk07, Charlie

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That’s great news.  I love the LMC 20 that I’ve been using for awhile now.  I’m really hoping they haven’t changed too many things in version 22, and if they do, it’s for the better.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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@DrBonzo – I’ve got a quick question that no one has mentioned:  does the flash drive that’s going to be used for installing the LMC 22 iso have to be formatted?  I’m assuming it doesn’t but then I see a Menu item under Accessories for a USB Stick Formatter.  I’m hoping the USB Image Writer will handle everything.  Am I correct?

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I think the USB Image Writer will format if needed. I’m hedging a bit because I’ve got 3 usb sticks with images on them but I’ve used them for a few years and don’t remember for sure if I needed to reformat them first. If the stick needs formatting I’m quite sure it will tell you and/or format it for you.

If I was doing this from scratch right now, I’d just take a stick I don’t need and use Image Writer – and I’m 95+% sure it will work. If it doesn’t work you won’t hurt anything.

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Charlie

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USB Image Writer will take care of formatting. Also another option to launch USB Image Writer is to just right click on a ISO file while in the Files application, then choose “Make bootable USB Stick”. This will pre-populate the “ISO Image” part in USB Image Writer with the name of the ISO file (image below). Then in the drop down for “USB stick” select your USB drive to be used (insert it first before starting the whole process). Then click the “Write” button and it will prompt you to enter your password and state “This will destroy all data on the USB stick. Are you sure you want to proceed”.

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Charlie, DrBonzo

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Thank you both very much.  I’ve bought a new 64 Gig USB 2 Flash drive just to use for this.  My computer only does USB 2.  The flash drive is either NTFS or FAT 32 and I’ve never had any problem with LMC recognizing any USB drive so far.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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That should work just fine. FYI, 64GB is probably far bigger than you need. You probably need only 8 or 16GB. So if you have a reliable 8 or 16 stick you can use that and use your new one for other backup purposes.

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Charlie

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I wasn’t sure how much space it would need so I went big, and 8 and 16 GB FDs are getting harder to find.  64 GB was low compared to what’s offered these days.  I have an older 4 GB FD but didn’t think it was big enough.  This is my first time doing this, next time should be a lot easier for me.

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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DrBonzo

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You’re right, 4GB is too small. I typically use 8 or 16GB. Haven’t shopped for sticks for a few years.

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Charlie

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Just one more thing, is there any particular mirror or mirrors that you would recommend?  I didn’t realize there were so many!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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In the USA I’ve used Clarkson University, James Madison University, Open Computing Facility at UC Berkely, and Purdue Linux Users Group mirrors mostly because those are names I recognize and because they all have excellent reputations and are not likely to have any compromised files. They have all worked well for me.

I doubt that the Mint creators would allow any orgnization to be a mirror if they thought the organiation was in some way suspect. So I’d be confident that they’re all good. My reasons for choosing are subjective when you get right down to it.

Somewhere I’ve read that one should pick a mirror that’s in the same country where one lives but that strikes me as pretty subjective, too.

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Charlie

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