10-19-07 06:15 AM
On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 06:15:32 +0000, Noozer wrote:
> This has NOT been a good week for me... *sigh*
>
> I've just spent the last three hours fighting with my PC, trying to do a
> Debian etch 4.0r1 install. It gets to the point of detecting hardware
> and sits there for a LONG time. If I move to terminal 4 I can see plenty
> of lost IRQ errors, abnormal status errors (i.e. abnormal status 0x7f on
> port 0xEF8F)
>
> PC Specs:
> - Asus P4C800E-Dlx mainboard (Intel 875P chipset)
> - Onboard 6 channel audio
> - Onboard Intel gig LAN
> - Onboard VIA firewire x2
> - Onboard USB 2 x8
> - Onboard ICH5 and Promise PATA and SATA ports
> - 2.6Ghz P4 Northwood CPU
> - 1gig (4x256) of DDR533 memory.
> - 60gig PATA drive on IDE1 primary
> - 120gig PATA drive on IDE2 primary
> - BenQ DVDRW on IDE2 secondary
> - 500gig SATA on ICH5 SATA1
> - 500gig SATA on ICH5 SATA2
> - 400gig SATA on Promise SATA3
> - Intel Pro 100 PCI network card
> - PCI Windmodem (Linux supported)
> - MSI TV @nywhere Master PCI TV tuner card
>
> I've gone as far as rearranged drive connections, getting downs as far
> as just the DVDRW and 60gig PATA and I see the same issues.
> Enabling/Disabling the Promise controller makes no difference. Moving
> the PCI cards around did not help. Swapped out the IDE cables.
> Downloaded and burned another i386 Net install CD (both end up with the
> correct md5 checksum).
>
> I just realized that I should stick a USB drive into the machine and
> grab a copy of the system log (dmesg log) and see just where it really
> starts to go awry. (That's for tomorrow night - I'll update here).
>
> Are these mainboads an issue for Debian? Is there anything specific I
> should be looking for here? I'm going to dig out some of my other distro
> disks and see if they have issues.
>
> ...but right now this guy is off to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
>
> ANY help is REALLY appreciated!!!
I'd suggest that you try a Linux LiveCD or DVD like Knoppix or Fedora 7
or Mepis. Linux LiveCDs tend to have greater system compatibility or,
perhaps I should say, tolerability than your typical Linux distro: If
something non-critical can't be recognized or configured, the boot
sequence will continue without it. See if the same problems persist.
My guess is that your IRQ errors are caused by too many hardware
conflicts or maybe just one piece of hardware. I had similar issues on
an old system when I installed a USB 2.0 card. It conflicted with the
ethernet card IRQ-wise. Remove either the ethernet or USB card and the
system booted fine, but with both in it would hang. I resolved the
conflict by changing the USB card to a different slot.
So, start with the simplest system -- no expansion cards; one hard drive;
one dvd drive -- just the basics. Go into BIOS and turn off all the
onboard stuff. Then see if Debian will start up. If it does, go back
and add one thing at a time until it won't. That will be the problem.
Leave that out and continue to add hardware, one piece at a time. The
boot log will be of immense help. So, record it after each trial.
Good Luck, and nighty-night.
Stef
[ Post a follow-up to this message ]
| 
