Given these laptops are complex pieces of machinery, there are of course issues, from time to time, with the device not working as it should.
A complete updated list of the most common trouble shooting questions can be found below.
Please check here before contacting us, as we will likely simply direct you to the specific question and pre-answered solution found below!
“Failed to Update”
For some of the Ghost Laptops that have shipped during 2023 and 2024, upon starting their laptop, some customers may see a pop-up that says “Failed to Update…”.
What and Why?
We have found that this particular error is due to the system attempting to update a file that no longer exists on the device.
Although the device will continue to work/run just fine despite this, there is a quick fix to prevent this notification from routinely showing up every time you boot your laptop.
Note that the script below may NOT fix your particular issue, as there may be another yet unknown reason for this happening that we simply have not come across yet.
The Fix
Once the device has started, open the Terminal application.
Once the black screen with a command prompt is visible, type the following and then press enter:
sudo rm /var/lib/fwupd/pending.db
You will be asked to enter your password, so type this in next and press enter.
This script removes the location of the file that is no longer present and will prevent the system from attempting to update it accordingly.
Upon completion, reboot the laptop. You should no longer have the “Failure to Update” pop-up when you do.
Screen Freeze
For some of the Ghost Laptops that have shipped during 2023 and 2024, upon starting their laptop, some customers may be troubled by their system chronically freezing, preventing them from clicking on anything or even moving the cursor at all. In some cases, the device may even shut down and reboot itself or simply power off.
The cause for this could be a variety of things, but 2 of the most common reasons are as follows:
What and Why?
Reason #1: RAM is overwhelmed
When there are too many applications and processes running at the same time the laptop will become overwhelmed, causing the screen to freeze or, more often than not, the system to simply call it quits and shut down entirely unexpectedly.
Reason #2: Intel Processor, Fan and Screen firmware settings
There is a known compatibility issue with Linux running on some HP, Dell and Lenovo laptops that have an Intel processor. This particular issue is tied to the processor, fan and screen speaking to the Linux based OS running on the device. This issue causes the screen to freeze making the device either completely frozen and unusable or the cursor to remain active but unable to do anything when items are clicked.
Thankfully, there are solutions to all 3 of the above issues… however, they are not guaranteed to resolve the specific issue that may be plaguing your device.
The Fixes
Reason #1: RAM Issue
To determine if you are having a RAM issue on the device, you can find out relatively quickly by opening the “System Monitor” app on your device and looking at the data stream within the “Resources” tab on the top which shows you what the utilization levels are for your CPU, Memory and Network on the device.
You should be looking at something like the below:
It is best to open this app after you start your laptop and ensure it is not attached to any external monitors, yet.
Once opened, gradually open your browser (which is an extremely resource intensive application) and then other applications such as a document or spreadsheet.
If you use an external monitor, attach the external monitor at this time, if the device hasn’t crashed already.
If you see that your RAM utilization jumps toward 100% and remains begged near there, this tells you that you are likely running into an issue whereby the computer is demanding and needing more resources to operate than your device has available to give it, and thus, shuts down or freezes.
The easy fixes to this are to:
- Do fewer things on your device at any given time.
- Tweak the settings of your browser so that only the tab you have open and viewable is demanding resources.
- Tweak the power settings so that the Power Mode is set to “Performance”. (see image below)
The more complicated way to fix this is to add more RAM to your device (if this is even possible, given the make/model of your laptop). This being said, for 99.5% of users, a device with 32 GB of RAM should NOT have this issue. Even 16 GB of RAM should be enough even for most power users… which is why we’ve set 16 GB as the minimum spec on all our Ghost Laptops.
If you need to add more RAM though, most laptops can be opened and more RAM can be added without too much trouble. Although this takes time, patience and some “know how” related to what specific type of RAM will be compatible and ideal for the specific device you’re using, it is entirely do-able.
If you’d like support related to this, feel free to reach out to support@mark37.com and we can determine if this is something you can do on your own, something we can coach you through with some paid live support, something you are better served by sending the device for us to do the work for you, or something that unfortunately may not be possible based on the device you’re working with.
Reason 2: Screen Issue
Once the device has started, open the Terminal application.
Once the black screen with a command prompt is visible, type the following and then press enter:
sudo -i echo “options i915 enable_psr=0 enable_dc=0” > /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf && update-initramfs -u -k all && reboot
You will be asked to enter your password, so type this in next and then press enter.
The system will reboot and, God willing, the gremlin that was causing this specific issue will hopefully be resolved.
Tax / Bookkeeping Software for Linux?
If you have been using the local desktop version of Quickbooks, Quicken or TurboTax and wondering what you should do now that you have a Linux laptop that none of these applications support, you’ve got a few options:
Option #1) Quarantine the software
If the software is owned, keep it on the current device it is on, or run it on a separate device w/ Windows or MacOS and simply use the device for this specific purpose and nothing else.
In addition, if you can keep the laptop disconnected from the internet, or only connect the device for specific purposes, you’ll be able to limit what information Microsoft, Apple and/or the software can pull from you and feed to their respective mother ships.
Option 2) Use the SaaS version
Use the Software as a Service (SaaS) version of the software. This simply means using the online version of the software that you access via your web browser, regardless of the operating system running your device.
Nearly all, if not all, of the tax companies now offer an online version of their software.
They prefer you use this in fact as they can thus justify charging a monthly or annual subscription fee.
The odds that the software company will be attempting to sell your data within their online platform, however, are high and as such, this option is not ideal.
Option 3) Find a Linux based alternative
https://linuxlinks.com/best-free-open-source-software-finance/