Advice asked: linux / nForce2 problems

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 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

Chris wrote:
> 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 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?

Yes, if you have APIC enabled. Common problem with Nforce2 and Linux.
Disabling it in the BIOS should be sufficient.


-WD

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 14:39:28 GMT, Will Dormann <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:
> Chris wrote:
> > 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 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?
>
> Yes, if you have APIC enabled. Common problem with Nforce2 and Linux.
> Disabling it in the BIOS should be sufficient.
>
>
> -WD

Thanks for the quick reaction. I just did so, as well as flashing the BIOS to the newst version
(1007), unfortunately without the desired result :-(

Regards,
Chris

wish wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 14:39:28 GMT, Will Dormann <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Chris wrote:
>>
>>>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 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?
>>
>>Yes, if you have APIC enabled. Common problem with Nforce2 and Linux.
>> Disabling it in the BIOS should be sufficient.
>>
>>
>>-WD
>
>
> Thanks for the quick reaction. I just did so, as well as flashing the BIOS to the newst version
> (1007), unfortunately without the desired result :-(


Not sure. It might be that you need a kernel with the APIC feature
disabled? Now that APIC is disabled in your BIOS, does dmesg show
any reference to APIC?


-WD

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 17:01:17 GMT, Will Dormann <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:
> wish wrote:
> > On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 14:39:28 GMT, Will Dormann <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >>Chris wrote:
> >>
> >>>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 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?
> >>
> >>Yes, if you have APIC enabled. Common problem with Nforce2 and Linux.
> >> Disabling it in the BIOS should be sufficient.
> >>
> >>
> >>-WD
> >
> >
> > Thanks for the quick reaction. I just did so, as well as flashing the BIOS to the newst version
> > (1007), unfortunately without the desired result :-(
>
>
> Not sure. It might be that you need a kernel with the APIC feature
> disabled? Now that APIC is disabled in your BIOS, does dmesg show
> any reference to APIC?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It sounds logical. But to my understanding, to recompile a kernel,
one needs to have one first. That's where it already goes wrong. My linux system just froze instantly
and now I start from the beginning again: how to install linux from an iso-CD without lock-ups during
HDD partitioning :-(

Am I the only one facing these problems? Or do linux users simply ignore nForce2 mainboards?

Regards,
Chris

On a sunny day (9 Feb 2004 02:33:23 -0800) it happened cleurs@wish.net (Chris)
wrote in <89660e7c.0402090233.3ba860eb@posting.google.com>:

I'm a bit lost now. 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
Check your memory
Run a fulll memory test in BIOS if available, or some test program.

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:28:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On a sunny day (9 Feb 2004 02:33:23 -0800) it happened cleurs@wish.net (Chris)
> wrote in <89660e7c.0402090233.3ba860eb@posting.google.com>:
>
> I'm a bit lost now. 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
> Check your memory
> Run a fulll memory test in BIOS if available, or some test program.

Thanks. FWIW I thought PC3200 by Kingston would be a good choice, so that's what I bought.
Since win runs just fine, what particular memory testing software would you recommend?

Regards,
Chris

cleurs@wish.net wrote:
> Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It sounds logical. But to my understanding, to recompile a kernel,
> one needs to have one first. That's where it already goes wrong. My linux system just froze instantly
> and now I start from the beginning again: how to install linux from an iso-CD without lock-ups during
> HDD partitioning :-(

Try a different distro maybe? Or if you just want to test things
out, try Knoppix.


-WD

On a sunny day (Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:36:55 GMT) it happened cleurs@wish.net
<cleurs@wish.net> wrote in <1104_1076355415@news.demon.nl>:

>On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:28:36 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On a sunny day (9 Feb 2004 02:33:23 -0800) it happened cleurs@wish.net (Chris)
>> wrote in <89660e7c.0402090233.3ba860eb@posting.google.com>:
>>
>> I'm a bit lost now. 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
>> Check your memory
>> Run a fulll memory test in BIOS if available, or some test program.
>
>Thanks. FWIW I thought PC3200 by Kingston would be a good choice, so that's what I bought.
>Since win runs just fine, what particular memory testing software would you recommend?
>
This is the trick, I had a similar problem, the MS WINDOWS kernel runs in a different
part of memory (you may get data curruption somewhere lese then).
In my Tyan mobo in the BIOS is a 'full memory check option', dunno about your mobo.
Any make memory can have a problem, just exchange it if it fails the test.
C'T had a lot of good memory tests, on CD etc, but I dunno a website.
JP

>Regards,
>Chris
>
>
>

On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:36:55 +0000, cleurs wrote:

> Thanks. FWIW I thought PC3200 by Kingston would be a good choice, so
> that's what I bought. Since win runs just fine, what particular memory
> testing software would you recommend?

http://www.memtest86.com/

Let it run for at least 24 hours. Like others have said, just because the
memory works for Windows does not guarantee it will work for Linux as each
OS uses the memory differently (or used to, anyway).

If that works OK, use www.dejanews.com and search "comp.os.linux.hardware"
for tips on using Linux with a Nforce board.

--
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
-- Otto Von Bismarck