Re: nothing works on ASUS M2R32-MVP

Sorry I just dont have time to become an honorary member of the kernel
team and solve linux's hardware problems.. ok that comment was a little
jerky, but true :) I dont have time. Im getting a new board.

Most of the problems are related to the SB600 south bridge sata. Latest
kernels supposedly fix some of the problems. Search for that and M2R32
and you should find some reports. As you stated earlier I think alot of
it might be BIOS. I am running AMD 64 X2 4200, ATI X1600, 1GB RAM,
generic DVDR, a SATA 3.0Gbps 250GB HD. Thats about it. Yeah I tried
openSUSE 10.2, & 10.3.

I think its a good chipset. Hopefully a future BIOS will straighten this
board out.

[color=blue]
>
> You mentioned in a previous post that you have run across other
> reports of Linux failing this particular board. Can you tell
> me where to look for these comments? If I have time I will
> drop in and see if I can suggest anything.
>
> Also, I have not seen much in your messages about your total
> configuration. What have you got attached to the board and
> where? What CPU?
>
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On Thu, 03 May 2007 18:25:14 -0700, notname <no@no.no> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Sorry I just dont have time to become an honorary member of the kernel
>team and solve linux's hardware problems.. ok that comment was a little
>jerky, but true :) I dont have time.[/color]

Neither do I. I am busy taking care of people. But it seems to
me that you have probably put enough time jumping around from one
installation to another, that maybe you would have been better off
trying to work with one of the teams and they might have been able
to get it running. But that is hindsight. . . .
[color=blue]
> Im getting a new board.[/color]

Best of luck with that approach.
[color=blue]
>Most of the problems are related to the SB600 south bridge sata. Latest
>kernels supposedly fix some of the problems. Search for that and M2R32
>and you should find some reports.[/color]

That was why I asked. I tried "a search" and did not find anything
about this problem. Where are you looking? (Digresssion: Sometimes
I find the Internet is not anywhere near as useful as . . . .)
[color=blue]
>As you stated earlier I think alot of
>it might be BIOS. I am running AMD 64 X2 4200,[/color]

I am running single core
[color=blue]
>ATI X1600[/color]

That is what I am running now, but on my first load I ran
an old ATi Rage 128 PCI card. That might have helped me.
[color=blue]
>1GB RAM,[/color]

My first boot installation was a single 512MB, which I
upgraded to 2 x 512MB for theoretical extra speed, but
it should not make any difference.
[color=blue]
>generic DVDR[/color]

I do not expect the DVD to make a difference.
[color=blue]
>a SATA 3.0Gbps 250GB HD.[/color]

My first drive was a Maxtor 80 GB SATA. Now, I also run
other drives on the PATA line.

Thats about it. Yeah I tried
[color=blue]
>openSUSE 10.2, & 10.3.[/color]
[color=blue]
>I think its a good chipset. Hopefully a future BIOS will straighten this
>board out. . . .[/color]

Well, we'll see. The chipset was a very good buy. I
found that the MSI BIOS has the ability to double the original
PCIe speed. At first I did not know why they would do such
a thing. Then it turns out that PCIe was upgraded to double
the speed. So in effect, MSI's BIOS gives me the upgraded
PCIe support without any more changes. I would guess that
they might update it again later to make it change speed
automatically, but it is nice to know I did not get caught
with an obsolete board before I even got it running.

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On Thu, 03 May 2007 18:25:14 -0700, notname <no@no.no> wrote:
[color=blue]
>Sorry I just dont have time to become an honorary member of the kernel
>team and solve linux's hardware problems.. ok that comment was a little
>jerky, but true :) I dont have time. Im getting a new board.[/color]

.. . .

Ok, so this reply is probably already too late, but I did try the
Internet search again yesterday and this is what I found *this time*:

1. There are almost (note the ALMOST) no other discussions about
your board having problems with Linux in the first couple of pages
of searches. There are just a bunch of sites where they have stored
THIS discussion.

2. Looking back over this discussion, you have a couple of guys
who chimed in "I'm having [or have seen] problems just like yours
-- sort of." Looking closer at those messages, NONE of them confirm
a problem with your board. In fact, the other boards mentioned were
nVidia chipset boards. So much for the other guys who have posted
that nVidia based boards are wonderful and trouble free. They aren't.

3. A lot of problems seem to be ASUS. Yes, enough that I would
say that this where the problem seems to be coming from, and I
think that BIOS changes by ASUS might fix a number of installation
issues we have seen in Linux. Actually, I *am* surprised by this.

4. The only thing I found that would confirm your problem is
a report about Ubuntu, and that guy DID get his board running,
though not to his satisfaction:

a. [Go search for "M2R32-MVP" and "Ubuntu" or "Linux"]
Apparently, this guy found that he could load his Ubuntu
if he had "ACPI OFF". If I understood the discussion, he
later found that he could turn "ON" ACPI iff he changed a
specific interrupt trap.

Now, this is certainly nowhere near "obvious" and there are
probably few people in the normal world who would have figured
this out. I highly doubt that I could have figured it out.
So there is nothing to make light of in this situation.
However, it does go back to my previous comment about working
with the development teams.

5. About ACPI: If I can run with ACPI I will always
choose to do so. But really, if you are just running a
fairly simple system, it should not make all that much
difference. So I do not know if I rank this a major or
minor problem.

6. About "new" motherboards. One thing not mentioned in
this discussion, but important if you are going to buy yet
another "new" motherboard. You should NOT buy the latest
greatest motherboard if you want an easy time getting Linux
up and running. This has been said many times before.
Also, forget about "nVidia is wonderful". If you check
back in any given year there are always complaints about
"nVidia" chipsets, going back to the 3 series in particular.

Assuming you do want to buy a current production motherboard
and you want to buy nVidia, well, I would guess that the
"4" series products are probably stable. I think there
are a couple worthwhile products still being made. But
the same goes for slightly older Via and SiS and yes, ATi
motherboards.

But the truth is, if you want a *really* safe Linux system
they you probably want a motherboard that came out, say
2 - 3 years ago, and was a fairly good selling motherboard
back then. The Linux packagers have had a good amount of
time to fix all the problems.

So if you are going to buy another motherboard, and you
go out and buy yet another latest-greatest type product,
well, good luck.

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