If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
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
|
|||
|
|||
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
|
|||
|
|||
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
|
|||
|
|||
|
#6
|
|||
|
|||
On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 08:29:36 -0000, "Ben Pope" wrote:
wrote: Hi all, 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. 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. Try Kernel 2.6 and/or using: Sorry for the ignorence, I'm not a very experienced Linux user. If I understand correctly, you advice me to get iso's which contain kernel 2.6 (like mandrake 10 beta. Any others?). acpi=off noapic when booting the kernel. Is disabling this function in the BIOS sufficient? If not, how exactly do I boot the kernel using "acpi=off noapic"? I had hard disk corruption issues with my nForce until I did that, now it's perfect. Thanks for the feedback Ben. Regards, Chris |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 08:29:36 -0000, "Ben Pope" wrote: Try Kernel 2.6 and/or using: Sorry for the ignorence, I'm not a very experienced Linux user. If I understand correctly, you advice me to get iso's which contain kernel 2.6 (like mandrake 10 beta. Any others?). No, actually I was suggesting you download and compile your own kernel. But if you are not happy with compiling and installing kernels, then maybe not... :-) acpi=off noapic when booting the kernel. Is disabling this function in the BIOS sufficient? Possibly but I wouldn't recommend it. I've found that that would be roughly equivalent to noacpi, with acpi=off you do get some useful functionality from it. If not, how exactly do I boot the kernel using "acpi=off noapic"? Depends if you're using LILO or GRUB or some other bootloader. With LILO you'll need to do something like: append="noapic acpi=off" in the correct section of /etc/lilo.conf, then run lilo (just type lilo at the command prompt) With grub it'll look more like: kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.whatever root=/dev/hda6 noapic acpi=off in /boot/grub/grub.conf 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... |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
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
|
|||
|
|||
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
|
|||
|
|||
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 |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
A7N8X Deluxe LAN Problems with Linux | Shane Berringer | Asus Motherboards | 4 | January 18th 04 07:49 PM |
asus a7n8x and redhat 9 with a SATA drive, extremely slow | Brian | Asus Motherboards | 1 | January 1st 04 08:31 AM |
Asus P4P800-VM and Linux | Janus Sandsgaard | Asus Motherboards | 2 | December 9th 03 09:02 PM |
Asus & nvidia drivers under Linux | Gregory Toomey | Asus Motherboards | 2 | November 15th 03 10:56 PM |
Qs about motherboard/components for homebuild AMD system | Milt Epstein | Homebuilt PC's | 18 | September 27th 03 05:10 PM |