LiveCD troubles on Asus A8N-VM CSM (nVidia nForce 430)

cato` · Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 11:32 am Post subject:

I think the 2005.1-r1 expiremental amd64 iso is just the 2005.1-r1 with a graphical installer.
You want to use this one: http://gentoo.osuosl.org/experimental/amd64/livecd/install-amd64-universal-2005-12-11.iso
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SilentK · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Oct 2005 Posts: 80

Ah ok I'll give that a try later today. Gotta buy some more blank cd's.

SilentK · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Oct 2005 Posts: 80

Hmmm the expiremental cd worked for me and it boots fine with no extra arguments or anything (including sata_nv) however I have not been able to boot into the environment I created. I am including sata_nv in my kernel and shortly after it loads that it gets a bad rip value and results in a kernal panic because the Interupt handler can't sync or something along those lines.

Is this an issue relating to acpi? I have bios version 3.1 for the msi board. Well I'll continue to tinker with my kernel hopefully something eventually works.

Becoming tempted to try a genkernel.

SilentK · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Oct 2005 Posts: 80

Hmmmm when I use the genkernel it freezes when it attempts to load sata_nv. Cant control alt delete to reboot or anything.

This strikes me as odd because the livecd loads it no problem but for some reason it appears the version of sata_nv that's in the kernel isn't the same as the one the livecd uses.

Any ideas on what might be going on here?

cato` · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:19 pm Post subject:

What kernel version are you trying?

Personaly the only 2.6.15 version working for me is 2.6.15-gentoo.

My config:
http://shadar.mine.nu/~hcm/2.6.15config_asus-csm
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Don't mess with the Penguin.

SilentK · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 02 Oct 2005 Posts: 80

Yeah I just noticed that the expiremental livecd detected the onboard nic and got the latest kernel I believe it's 2.6.15-r5. I install gentoo and gnome.

I got the video card working and nic working but haven't got the sound working yet. I was under the impression the compiling the kernel with alsa support would do the trick but perhaps that was for the asus board only.

I believe the asus and msi boards have a different audio card/chipset. Hmmm.

bus.dch · n00b Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 57

I was ready to get forcedeth 0.48 working on my Asus A8N-VM/CSM, so I downloaded the 2006.0 x86 LiveCD. But it didn't behave any differently than forcedeth 0.35. :-(

I read on the nvnews forum that cold-booting the machine from Win XP would fix it. Still didn't work. forcedeth recognizes the device fine but ifconfig always reports 0 TX bytes. No data ever goes out the interface. dhcpcd doesn't work. Manually ifconfiging and pinging my router doesn't work. What has everyone else done as far as forcedeth 0.48?

bus.dch · n00b Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 57

I did some more thinking about it, and then I found how to fix and recreate the problem.

Let me define a cold boot versus a full power off. A cold boot would be shutting the system down into "power off" mode, but the 5V power on the motherboard is still there. Pulling the plug from the wall is a full power off.

So... from a full power off, the LiveCD boots fine and forcedeth 0.48 works great. :-)

Then, I can reboot and load Win XP. But when I reboot from Win XP, forcedeth will not transmit any data. Reading on the kernel mailing list, it sounds like I should recompile the forcedeth driver with debugging enabled to see what's going on.

Once Win XP has hosed the network chip, even powering down and a cold boot isn't enough to get forcedeth to work. However, loading nvnet (the nVidia nforce module) will fix the problem. The only other way to fix the problem is to unplug the power supply or switch it off at the power supply. Really OFF.

I don't know what the Win driver is doing, but I don't like it.