Linux Mint 22.1 - change power mode before bootup

I was given a semi-broken Dell Inspiron 15 5000 (P58F). It had Windows on it but kept on crashing. I installed Mint on it after lots of failed attempts still crashed the odd time.

I noticed if I put it in “Power Saver” mode then it would never crash. So something to do with power delivery, too high boost, whatever.

Yesterday I tried to put it back to normal/unrestricted power mode and it crashed soon after and now it’s not booting into Mint at all.

So, how can I force power save mode before even booting into it?

Thanks.

scroll down to power modes section

Will powerprofilesctl work before OS booted up?

powerprofilesctl will write to the schema which means upon next boot it will apply the balanced mode.

Ok, so I can only get to GRUB menu. Where can I issue the powerprofilesctl command?

So, your laptop does not boot, it stays in the GRUB menu? You need to fix that.

Consider installing LM 21.3

I can see the Linux Mint logo but it stalls a few seconds after. I have access to Grub only. It’s just a test laptop, I don’t care much for it, just trying to skill up on debugging Linux issues rather than wiping all the time.

that means it cannot figure out the graphics card.

There is an option in the GRUB line to add nomodeset

I looked for inspiron 15 Linux Mint, I do not see issues.

Some inspiron 15 have ATI card or Nvidia or HD620

Can you give me the exact model?

I edited the boot parameters in GRUB with the following and it went straight in
acpi=force noapic nolapic

Model is P58F001

GPU is Intel UHD Graphics 620
CPU i5-8250

Since now it booted, you can edit /etc/default/grub, add those options after splash quiet, save, and sudo update-grub. Upon next boot it should work fine.

As for the original question, if there is no OS running, the only thing running is BIOS.

Ya, I might do that later. I’d like to figure out why it’s crashing on default params first. Since it was crashing on on Windows I would guess it’s a hardware issue. This laptop would not have been treated very well - was used by kids on beds with no airflow etc.

Thanks for the help so far!

you may need to upgrade BIOS version, check the DELL page.

You can run a memory test from BIOS.

Disable secure boot, disk settings AHCI not RAID

Blow some compressed air to clean up dust, make sure fan runs.

I had DELLs in the past, all worked well with LM.

Ya already had BIOS updated to latest.
Already did full Dell BIOS system diagnostics - all fine.
Already did memtest86+ many times using different ways of doing it - all fine
I’ve cleaned out the laptop already - opened it up fully.

Not sure what drive settings I have but it works perfectly in Power Save mode, indicating it’s most likely not a drive issue, but I’ll check it out anyway.

I’ve to try repaste the CPU/GPU next I guess.

I’m certain this is not a Linux on Dell issue at all, pretty sure this is a hardware issue with the abuse the laptop probably got over the past years.

I had also previously done stress --cpu 8 --timeout 86400 and stress with built in stress tester in s-tui

On “Power Saver” power mode:
All core 0.9GHz, 54 deg C, no crashing.

On “Balanced” power mode:
Boosts to around 3.1GHz for about 5s close to 95 deg C and then
All core 2.4GHz, 80 deg C, no crashing.

On “Balanced” power mode - All core 2.4GHz, 80 deg C, no crashing.
Boosts to around 3.4GHz for about 5s close to 95 deg C and then
All core 2.4GHz, 80 deg C
Eventually get “segmentation fault (core dumped)” messages.

It’s pretty odd, seems like like “Performance” mode kills it, but in a way that it kind of locks up the CPU, even for other “Live Distro” from USB.
Like I’ve even got Ventoy stalling.
Once I recover, it all works fine again.

Seems to be related to
segmentation fault (core dumped)

While doing the stress test in s-tui, if I leave power mode in “performance” and start/stop the stress test rapidly it will kill it.

That is crashed now and after reboot it’s stuck at
[ 62.5846] clk: Disabling Unused Clocks
in the boot log.

To configure AHCI on an Inspiron 15, access the BIOS/UEFI settings, locate the SATA configuration, and change it from its default (usually IDE or RAID) to AHCI. After saving the changes, your computer should boot up normally with AHCI enabled.

Your disk drive is SATA, you can benchmark it with Disks

Post inxi -F

Already set to AHCI.

Boot mode legacy

Secure boot disabled.

Either way, seems like a CPU or power/state management issue.

So I found the problem option in the BIOS, it was around the area I was thinking …

“Intel TurboBoost” disabled and the system boots right up.

If I check the logs I see this related log while booting into the OS just before it crashed while TurboBoost is enabled
[OK] Started upower.service - Daemon for power management

TurboBoost can affect the CPU or GPU but since I’ve got an iGPU (see above) it’s the same overall chip.

Problem is, now it’s only running at 1.6GHz all core (the base clock)