Hi all,
I’m having a issue with my Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2, which I have set up with a dual-boot configuration running Qubes OS and OpenBSD. Everything was working great until I tried to create a qube for Ollama using the Gaming HVM Community Guide.
I made a change to my /etc/default/grub file by adding rd.qubes.hide_pci=00:01.0 and then regenerated grub. However, since I’m dual-booting, I needed to copy the generated files to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/ because OpenBSD has already installed an .efi file in the Surface UEFI.
The problem started immediately after I copied the file to /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/. My laptop crashed and hasn’t been able to boot since then. It’s stuck on the Microsoft logo and won’t start, not even in UEFI interface. The laptop also overheats (fans don’t spin) and shuts down. This behaviour occurs on both battery and AC power, even after charging the battery from 0%.
The only thing I can do is force shutdown. Given that my laptop is still under warranty, I don’t want to open the device to access the SSD and delete the file from the boot partition. What do you think the problem is and what’s the fix?
Like I said, I can’t boot into UEFI interface or USB drive, no matter how hard I try. Just as I ran the cp command, the system crashed. What could be the reason behind this?
I tried booting Windows Installation, Gentoo Linux, OpenBSD. I also tried getting video output on an external display. I could not get past the Microsoft Logo. (The keyboard backlight key works for some reason.)
Unless you have illegal or extraordinarily confidential files on the hard drive, it would make sense to return it.
Are you able to check the warranty to see if installing a different OS breaks the warranty?
Could you call them using a burner # without giving your serial # and ask them also if installing another OS breaks the warranty?
If it doesn’t, could you ask them about opening up the system without it violating the warranty?
I would be worried that telling them Qubes was installed would give them some reason to say somehow the warranty is broken.
Do you have backups?
Also, to hard reset a Surface 2, press and hold the Volume Up button and the Power button simultaneously for about 15 seconds until the screen turns off, then release both buttons. Wait a few seconds, then press the Power button again to turn your device back on. Did you try that?
Actually, now I am returning it. “It was bought and tagged in the US, so it must be serviced in the US”, said the MS support agent. It will take weeks to do so. Fortunately, I have some time with warranty, to experiment.
Installing a different operating system does not void the warranty, but opening the laptop will. But you don’t have to worry about warranty.
I have backups of all my important files, it’s just not having my main laptop makes my life quite inconvenient.
I’ve tried every start-up combination (even those which didn’t exist), but none of them worked.