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Asus A7N8X-X and Linux, getting pretty desperate...



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 9th 04, 05:41 PM
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Asus A7N8X-X and Linux, getting pretty desperate...

Hi all,

I'm getting a bit desperate about the following problem, hopefully
someone could point me into the right direction:

I'm not a computer hardware expert, but I usually am capable enough to
build my own PC with the components I prefer. Friday last week I
bought new components for my PC. My system is dual bootable
(win2000/mandrake 9.2). In my new setup linux seems to give problems
with my HDD. It freezes with partitioning/formatting. The particular
HDD gives no problems with my old PC. While starting up the computer,
I noticed my extra Promise UDMA133 controller usues the same IRQ
(IRQ11) as the USB controller *and* display controller. IMO this seems
like conflicting hardware. However, I installed win2k at another 80GB
Maxtor HDD with the very same Promise controller without any problems.
I tried to reserve IRQ11 in the BIOS, but when I do this the PC
assigns all above mentioned devices to IRQ5. I tried the Promise card
in another PCI slot without results.

As I said before, in my old PC this HDD performs well, linux installs
just fine. However, when I do this and move the HDD to my new PC, it
will boot linux eventually, but it will crash at a moment for certain.

I removed the Promise UDMA133 controller and used only the onboard
UDMA133 controller. Partitioned and formatted the linux HDD and now
linux would even install correctly, but after some time it will freeze
and ruin the user account permanently.

My old system: 230W noname PSU / Asus P2B-F (BX) / 1GHz Celeron
(Cu-mine) / 512MB PC100 / 3x Maxtor 80GB / GeForce2 / Promise UDMA133
/ onboard DMA33 / DVD-ROM / DVD-RW / FDD. DVD players at the onboard
controller, 2x win HDD at Promise IDE1, 1x linux HDD at Promise IDE2.

New system: 350W Aopen PSU / Asus A7N8X-X (nForce2) / Athlon 2500 /
512MB PC3200 / 3x Maxtor 80GB / GeForce2 / Promise UDMA133 / onboard
UDMA133 / DVD-ROM / DVD-RW / FDD.

I'm a bit lost now. I flashed the BIOS to 1007 and disabeled APIC in the BIOS,
no improvement at all. I was thinking that linux gives problems for some
reason with the nForce 2 chipset, since win2k installs and runs
without any problems. Could this be? Has anyone compareble
experiences? If so, how were these problems solved? Is it a Mandrake
specific problem? For the time being I didn't try another distro,
although both Mandrake 9.1 and 9.2 gave the same errors :-( All
feedback is highly appreciated!

Regards,
Chris


  #2  
Old February 9th 04, 08:25 PM
Kyle Brant
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

FWIW, I have Mandrake 9.2 running w/o problems on my a7n8x-dlx. 9.1
was a bit of a pain due to the lack of Nvidia drivers, but it did
load. I'm using a 40G WD HD for Linux. My system is dual boot, and
win2k boots from a Maxtor 60G HD. A freeze while partitioning and
formatting sounds bad, like a hardware failure, have you done any
tests? Temps look ok? Voltages look OK in BIOS? Have you tried to
install any other OS on the Maxtor HD with the same hardware (e.g.,
win2k)?

What specific errors are you encountering? You mention Mandrake 9.1
and 9.2 gives you errors in your post. Specificity is prized when you
are looking for help with a computer problem.
--
Best regards,
Kyle
wrote in message
...
| Hi all,
|
| I'm getting a bit desperate about the following problem, hopefully
| someone could point me into the right direction:
|
| I'm not a computer hardware expert, but I usually am capable enough
to
| build my own PC with the components I prefer. Friday last week I
| bought new components for my PC. My system is dual bootable
| (win2000/mandrake 9.2). In my new setup linux seems to give problems
| with my HDD. It freezes with partitioning/formatting. The particular
| HDD gives no problems with my old PC. While starting up the
computer,
| I noticed my extra Promise UDMA133 controller usues the same IRQ
| (IRQ11) as the USB controller *and* display controller. IMO this
seems
| like conflicting hardware. However, I installed win2k at another
80GB
| Maxtor HDD with the very same Promise controller without any
problems.
| I tried to reserve IRQ11 in the BIOS, but when I do this the PC
| assigns all above mentioned devices to IRQ5. I tried the Promise
card
| in another PCI slot without results.
|
| As I said before, in my old PC this HDD performs well, linux
installs
| just fine. However, when I do this and move the HDD to my new PC, it
| will boot linux eventually, but it will crash at a moment for
certain.
|
| I removed the Promise UDMA133 controller and used only the onboard
| UDMA133 controller. Partitioned and formatted the linux HDD and now
| linux would even install correctly, but after some time it will
freeze
| and ruin the user account permanently.
|
| My old system: 230W noname PSU / Asus P2B-F (BX) / 1GHz Celeron
| (Cu-mine) / 512MB PC100 / 3x Maxtor 80GB / GeForce2 / Promise
UDMA133
| / onboard DMA33 / DVD-ROM / DVD-RW / FDD. DVD players at the onboard
| controller, 2x win HDD at Promise IDE1, 1x linux HDD at Promise
IDE2.
|
| New system: 350W Aopen PSU / Asus A7N8X-X (nForce2) / Athlon 2500 /
| 512MB PC3200 / 3x Maxtor 80GB / GeForce2 / Promise UDMA133 / onboard
| UDMA133 / DVD-ROM / DVD-RW / FDD.
|
| I'm a bit lost now. I flashed the BIOS to 1007 and disabeled APIC in
the BIOS,
| no improvement at all. I was thinking that linux gives problems for
some
| reason with the nForce 2 chipset, since win2k installs and runs
| without any problems. Could this be? Has anyone compareble
| experiences? If so, how were these problems solved? Is it a Mandrake
| specific problem? For the time being I didn't try another distro,
| although both Mandrake 9.1 and 9.2 gave the same errors :-( All
| feedback is highly appreciated!
|
| Regards,
| Chris
|
|

  #3  
Old February 9th 04, 08:51 PM
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:25:39 -0500, "Kyle Brant" wrote:
FWIW, I have Mandrake 9.2 running w/o problems on my a7n8x-dlx. 9.1
was a bit of a pain due to the lack of Nvidia drivers, but it did
load. I'm using a 40G WD HD for Linux. My system is dual boot, and
win2k boots from a Maxtor 60G HD. A freeze while partitioning and
formatting sounds bad, like a hardware failure, have you done any
tests? Temps look ok? Voltages look OK in BIOS? Have you tried to
install any other OS on the Maxtor HD with the same hardware (e.g.,
win2k)?


It concerns a 80GB Maxtor HDD. It works perfectly fine in my old PC. There I
can use the exact similar setup, except for the mobo/mem/cpu, without any
troubles. That's why I'm thinking of linux / nForce2 being a bad combo.

What specific errors are you encountering? You mention Mandrake 9.1
and 9.2 gives you errors in your post. Specificity is prized when you
are looking for help with a computer problem.


Sorry, I thought my post was pretty extensive. Thanks for your reaction. To be
more specific, when I boot from the mandrake iso-CD, I have to decide where
to install linux. Either automatically or manually, as soon as my partitions are
checked and formatted, the system lock up and a hardware reboot is needed.
So without my old PC linux is not even getting installed.

When I remove the Promise card, stability improves, I might even be able to
install linux, but when configuring mandrake (and installing Koffice, Xine, etc.)
the system freezes and after a forced reboot of the system, the user account is
completely unuseble (X messed up).

What I don't get is that windows runs just fine. It is soleley linux related.

Regards,
Chris


  #4  
Old February 9th 04, 09:40 PM
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article ,
wrote:

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:25:39 -0500, "Kyle Brant" wrote:
FWIW, I have Mandrake 9.2 running w/o problems on my a7n8x-dlx. 9.1
was a bit of a pain due to the lack of Nvidia drivers, but it did
load. I'm using a 40G WD HD for Linux. My system is dual boot, and
win2k boots from a Maxtor 60G HD. A freeze while partitioning and
formatting sounds bad, like a hardware failure, have you done any
tests? Temps look ok? Voltages look OK in BIOS? Have you tried to
install any other OS on the Maxtor HD with the same hardware (e.g.,
win2k)?


It concerns a 80GB Maxtor HDD. It works perfectly fine in my old PC. There I
can use the exact similar setup, except for the mobo/mem/cpu, without any
troubles. That's why I'm thinking of linux / nForce2 being a bad combo.

What specific errors are you encountering? You mention Mandrake 9.1
and 9.2 gives you errors in your post. Specificity is prized when you
are looking for help with a computer problem.


Sorry, I thought my post was pretty extensive. Thanks for your reaction.

To be
more specific, when I boot from the mandrake iso-CD, I have to decide where
to install linux. Either automatically or manually, as soon as my

partitions are
checked and formatted, the system lock up and a hardware reboot is needed.
So without my old PC linux is not even getting installed.

When I remove the Promise card, stability improves, I might even be able to
install linux, but when configuring mandrake (and installing Koffice,

Xine, etc.)
the system freezes and after a forced reboot of the system, the user

account is
completely unuseble (X messed up).

What I don't get is that windows runs just fine. It is soleley linux related.

Regards,
Chris


Standard advice is to test memory with memtest86, from memtest86.com.
Sometimes an install will be damaged by the files getting corrupted, as
they move through system memory. Otherwise, the symptoms imply something
about the OS being used - if one loads and is trouble free, then the
other one must have some kind of problem with chipset or disk driver.
There are even occasional posts here, by people who have marginal
OS installer CDs - that can cause problems with the files
that get installed.

Can you run applications like Prime95 in Windows ? Or maybe try out
3DMark ? These applications are handy as non-specific test programs,
to determine if power and cooling performance are adequate. If there
is some marginal hardware on the motherboard, these applications may
expose that marginality.

For alternate OSes, sometimes there will be a web page that lists the
hardware that is supported. That is the place to look for comments
about whether support for a chipset is minimal or has been completed.

Since this is an Nforce2 motherboard, you can also try a search over
on nforcershq.com, for symptoms similar to yours.

HTH,
Paul
  #8  
Old February 10th 04, 07:51 PM
Ben Pope
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I should mention that it's generally ill-advised to modify your
configuration files unless you know what you're doing...

I suggest you add a new section with the changes, rather than modify an
existing boot section. Also, keep a backup of the filkes you modify... in
extreme cases you can boot from a "Live CD" and then put the copies back.

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...


  #9  
Old February 11th 04, 01:00 AM
no one
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:51:46 +0000, cleurs wrote:

It concerns a 80GB Maxtor HDD. It works perfectly fine in my old PC. There I
can use the exact similar setup, except for the mobo/mem/cpu, without any
troubles. That's why I'm thinking of linux / nForce2 being a bad combo.


Sorry, I thought my post was pretty extensive. Thanks for your reaction. To be
more specific, when I boot from the mandrake iso-CD, I have to decide where
to install linux. Either automatically or manually, as soon as my partitions are
checked and formatted, the system lock up and a hardware reboot is needed.
So without my old PC linux is not even getting installed.


I posted a link very recently regarding getting the ASUS A7N8X-X
motherboard working with Linux. I had the same problem of perpetual
lockups at first. I eventually got it working so there are no lockups
and it is even more stable than my last system. Getting the two to
work together seems to be problematic for many users. I think it has
something to do with the nVidia chipset and the Mandrake kernel... and
the way the chipset handles IDE - you may have noticed that lockup
often occurs during heavy disk read/writes.

Anyway, I dedicated a website to this problem he

http://piff.freshpull.com/asus_linux.html

I personally solved the problem by disabling DMA HD access - I've
had no lockups since then. This is a rather drastic measure,
though, and you might have success by following some of the other
suggestions listed on the website.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, email me at
the address provided.

Good luck.
  #10  
Old February 11th 04, 01:20 AM
cleurs
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 00:00:19 +0000, no one wrote:

I posted a link very recently regarding getting the ASUS A7N8X-X
motherboard working with Linux. I had the same problem of perpetual
lockups at first. I eventually got it working so there are no lockups
and it is even more stable than my last system. Getting the two to
work together seems to be problematic for many users. I think it has
something to do with the nVidia chipset and the Mandrake kernel... and
the way the chipset handles IDE - you may have noticed that lockup
often occurs during heavy disk read/writes.

Anyway, I dedicated a website to this problem he

http://piff.freshpull.com/asus_linux.html

I personally solved the problem by disabling DMA HD access - I've
had no lockups since then. This is a rather drastic measure,
though, and you might have success by following some of the other
suggestions listed on the website.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, email me at
the address provided.

Good luck.


Hi,

During my search on the internet I found your site already! However, to my
understanding modifying /etc/lilo.conf and turning off DMA are only options once
I've got a more or less working OS installed. My problem is that I won't get that far
with my new mobo :-( I think I'll download another distro tonight (maybe whitebox
linux) and see if that will be more successful. At this moment I *really* tried
everything most people suggested (installed 2.6 kernel at my ols system and
shifted the HDD to my new one, noapic, checked memory, flashed BIOS, etc.),
without any luck. If another distro isn't successful, I might return this mobo and get
a VIA based board instead...

Thanks all for the help.

Regards,
Chris


 




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