On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 12:44:48 +0200 martin f krafft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thus I am logically considering chipset and processor. I can hardly > imagine that this is a problem with AMD, but I would like to know > from you success and failure stories of AMD processors and Linux.
I have an ASus A7V333-Raid, with an XP2000+ on it. Had this system
for a year and a half. I've had a variety of hardware-related issues,
but they've mostly had to do with other hardware (e.g. a CD-RW that
decided to take a permanent holiday).
I have had (and am still having) two problems that *may* have something
to do with the VIA chipset. In both cases, I actually doubt that the
chipset is the problem. But in one case, it was targeted as a
possible scapegoat on the LKML; while in the other, I only worry about
the chipset because every other option seems equally unlikely.
The first problem is that OpenGL-intensive applications eventually
lock up the machine. No killing X, no switching virtual consoles to
another console to kill things off, etc. The only thing for it is
to hit reset. When I have the time to respond to people and investigate
in more detail, my plan was to start a thread about this asking for
advice on what to look at. It could be the Mesa libraries, it could
be the X driver for my card (Matrox G550), it could be the kernel driver
for my card, it could be the X or kernel DRI-related modules. I only
consider the chipset at all because there was a thread about similar
issues on the LKML I found, and "another VIA chipset problem?" was one
of the possibilities discussed. Right now, I'm too ignorant to know
how to figure out where the problem is occurring; and I'm reluctant
to do repeated experimentation where I'm not shutting down the disks
properly, even with journaled filesystems.
The second problem with my machine is much more serious: I can no
longer boot from HD. CD or floppy boots work OK, but not HD. When
it's time to boot from HD, the boot process hangs (don't even get any
initial messages from the bootloader) and the HD light stays on. A
bad disk, you say? My OS is on another HD from the one from which
I'd like to boot. If I boot from floppy, loading my kernel/OS from
that other disk, and then mount the suspect disk under Linux, it
works fine. Fine. Hours and hours of r/w testing. Fine, no errors,
no warning messages, no problems, nothing. So the disk isn't dead.
OK, a problem reading just the MBR sectors, you say? I've pulled the
disk and replaced it with another one, installed the bootloader into
that disk's MBR, and tried again: same thing. OK, a problem with
the portion of the BIOS code handling HD reads? My loading a bootloader
off floppy would bypass that, as well as subsequently loading Linux
off HD and accessing the problem HD (since the bootloader and Linux
do not use BIOS routines to access HDs). So maybe it's a BIOS problem.
Except it worked fine for a year; and how do you suddenly get a glitch
in your BIOS that mucks up one very narrow thing like this, but leaves
you with a BIOS that otherwise functions absolutely perfectly in every
way? I don't think this is a chipset issue; but I mention it only
because every other possibility seems implausible too.
In general, I've liked this machine a lot. I wouldn't persuade you
against AMD at all.
-c
--
Chris Metzler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(remove "snip-me." to email)
"As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I
have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear
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