Impossible installation on HP 455 G7, AMD Renoir 4500u

Encouraged by your postings I deleted the existing Manjaro partition to make a clean reinstall (leaving the running Windows). As well I didnt put the “nomodeset” as additional start parameter in the Grub setting of Architect. The result ist again that by already by booting Architect it hangs at this well known position:

Maybe by setting “nomodeset” again I could perform an installation, which mostlikely again will not work.

One idea came to my mind: Is there recently a new version of Architect out, which you may have used?

I just noticed, that you mentioned above you had problems starting the “normal” live-media.
That should not be the case, as far as i can see.
They worked without any problem here (KDE and KDE_minimal).
I installed Manjaro using architect, but by starting architect from a running live session!
So if this does not work for you, the laptop hardware is probably not the cause of it.
Maybe try another USB-stick (Thats what I guess you use) or even a different USB-port.
Or check if you correctly wrote the iso to the USB-stick.

Hi again,
yes you are right: The probs appear already starting the “normal” live-media.
That the laptop hardware is probably not the cause of it is my believe as Win10 performs wth no problems. I tried your recommendations:

  • Maybe try another USB-stick : used new one
  • different USB-port : used different one
  • correctly wrote the iso to the USB-stick : This time used Rufus(Win) instead of dd(old machines Manjaro)

Additionally I included manually the packages

  • mhwd-amdgpu
  • xf86-video-amdgpu
  • linux-firmware (at the moment: 20200901)
  • linux-latest (kernel; at the moment: 5.8.1)

As a result, after below message again (presumably after changing the graphic mode) the usual black screen and humming vent. No improvement unfortunately. :disappointed_relieved:

just came to my mind that there are maybe 2 differences:

  1. I try to use XFCE (but KDE failed earlier on as well)
  2. I’m no partitioning SWAP (no need, Flashmem doesnt like)

I dont know that makes a difference? Shouldnt, but…

have added on boot param kernel ( from grub (e) )
IOMMU=pt

have also try to get TTY ( Ctrl + Alt + F2 to F7 )

Hi @stephane, interesting ideas.
I thought IOMMU=pt helps for virtualisation? I have problems to get the system itself up.
As mentioned above its not possible to get anything, also TTY is not available.

Do you use MBR or GPT partitioning?
Maybe it is because this was my first GPT/UEFI setup, but I remember to having had considerable difficulties to set up the install media AND Bios correctly for UEFI/GPT mode.
Does it matter if the install medium is started in UEFI mode?
In case of win10 it seems to be required for an GPT/UEFI installation.

Hi @Friedrich1, its GPT/UEFI. This offers flexibility on the number of partitions. My previous system was based on a 1TB HDD and I had to shuffle with extended Partitions. GPT/UEFI is nice and really usable, much better than I expected. The Windows has no issues at all wth the machine and even Manjaro/Grub did anything right - as far as I can see. I just made a (frustrated) comment at the website of the dealer, since the 2 weeks legal return time is gone, but I really dint expect such harsh problems. In the meantime I setup already 2 different Notebooks (friends) wth Manjaro(the same version & stick), all fine and smoothly. One was a dualboot as well. Maybe something really weired with my machine as Win10 still is OK.

Hi citaron, I used GPT/UEFI as well.
At some points I had the feeling the Bios acted a bit strange, like not showing all bootmanagers that efibootmgr found, but maybe that was due to some mess I made on the way.
I don’t remember though ever having had the symptoms that you experienced during installation.
So I hope its not a problem with your particular machine.
The biggest problem I had was Win10* interfering with the linux bootloader, resulting in GRUB finding no OS or booting directly into Win10.
But that was finally, -after 2 weeks not finding a solution-, fixed with the bcdedit-hack from the dual boot tutorial.

How is the state of affairs now?

*Apart from that it works flawless.

Hi @Friedrich1, I hesitate to dare to say it’s done. I experienced too many funny things, but situation is that I spent again some hours trying to figure out some useful Grub parameters. To make the long story short: Useless. Then I started to investigate the BIOS default settings one by one (this one has lot of options/not like Acer). After changing this from “all legacy” to “all UEFI” all started to work fine. Installation and booting system repeatedly.


Frankly speakin, I never looked at this “option rom” page. All I verified beforehand was Securuty (secure boot off), Boot, Options like that…
I first hesitated to set this as fixed, maybe I shoud have waited another day for that. BUT it looks great!!!
Now the work starts to put the data back tweak the system to the scheme I’m used to, as well as I hesitate here…
It was a great motivation @Friedrich1 as w/o your statement that it shoud run, I would not spent so much effort to find out whats wrong. Thank you!
Thanks as well to @megavolt and @stephane for ideas and guidance digging the problems

Glad your persistence paid off for you in the end… :slight_smile:

Yes and it’s still up an running :grinning:

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