MB problem

Luciano A. (luciano@ctrade.it)
Sat, 3 Jan 1998 20:27:10 +0100 (MET)

I'm looking for help to install linux into a PC that doesn't
want to be linuxized!
I have unsuccessfully tryed different release of linux (an old Slackware,
a new RedHat 5.0 and finally debian 1.3).
The strangest thing is that twice I could get linux installed
(once w/RedHat 4.1 and now with debian), in fact now on my 2th
hard disk I have linux fully installed but I can't use it!
When I try to run the rescue disk it sometimes halts or reset or
print out the hell on screen in a sort of exception catching, or
displays the request to choice between monochrome or colour monitor
and then locks.
Some hours ago the rescue procedure worked (although it said:
floppy0 no floppy controller found during kernel initialitation)
and so I used the item "shell" to go out to prompt and I saw
that I could list my directories in the root (/dev/hdc1) and so on.
I listed /proc that showed me all my devices (except my fdd controller).
Resetting, system has the usual troubles...

My system is a:
CPU: AMD K6-200

MainBoard: ExpertBoard 8J61 (INTEL 430VX) - AWARD BIOS
hda: QUANTUM FIREBALL 3.2Mb
hdb: CD-ROM IDE 24x
hdc: Conner 420Mb
LAN: TRUST OFFICE PCI CARD (NE2000 Compatible?)
VGA: 3d-BLASTER CREATIVE LABS
SCANNER: MUSTEG CG-8000T
BACKUP: IOMEGA tape 200

The system seems to locks during partition check, I wrote down some
message
of devices probing:
###########################################################################
....
Unknown PCI device 1013:d4 <------ my VGA (no problem I guess)
....

ide i82371 PIIX(triton) on PCI bus 0 function 57
ide 0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007
ide 1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f

hda: QUANTUM FIREBALL ST3.2A,3074MB w/81Kb Cache, LBA,CHS=782/128/63,DMA
hdb: TAE IL CDROM-7240J,ATAPI CDROM drive
hdc: Conner Peripherals 420MB - CFS 420A, 406MB w/64Kb Cache,CHS=826/16/63

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq15
floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
Started kswapsdv 1.4.2.2
FDC0 is a post-1991 82077
md driver 0.35 MAX_MD_DEV=4,MAX_REAL=8
<--------------------------------- sometimes halts or reset here
FAILED initialitation of WD-7000 scsi card!
PPA: Unable to initialize controller at 0x378, error 2
scsi: 0 hosts
scsi: detected total.

Partition check:
hda: <1> Unable to handle kernel paging request
at virtual address e9282726
Current->tss.cr3=00101000,%cr3=0010100
*pda = 00000
.....
Aiee killing interrupt handler
kfree of non-kmalloced memory
kfree of non-kmalloced memory
kfree of non-kmalloced memory
idle task may not sleep
idle task may not sleep
idle task may not sleep
idle task may not sleep
idle task may not sleep
<----------------------------------- now the system is halted

Sometimes I can see the display type choice screen then the
system reset or halts.

On desperation I opened the PC and I removed all cards and put an old
VGA 256Kb, but the problem resists. So I guess it may be a mother board
problem. I started to change BIOS setup to disable PCI controllers,
shadow configuration, and so on.... an odyssey

(I have an old 486DX4-100 that runs linux since 1996 and I updated
recently ;-(

S.O.S.

Thanks in advance for any tips....

Luciano Andrea

do I have to change the main board I bought 1 month ago?