onboad LAN chipset nVidia MCP51 problem, causing the PC to hang

[satimis]

Hi folk,

ASUS motherboard A8N-VM
PCI-E graphic card
Gigabyte NX66256DP2
Nvidia 6600 PCIE
s56MB DDR II /128 bit

The onboad LAN chipset of the motherboard causes PC hanging

After having tried FedorCore5 64 bit (FedoraCore5 32 bit also failed) several days without success, it came to my notice that most likely is the onboard LAN chipset causing the PC hanging.

Without setup network connection the OS can be played around, starting/closing applications. Whenever I tried setting up broadband connection the PC immediately hung even before its completion. I tested it several times.

I also ran Ubuntu 5.10 Live CD successfully on this PC. Broadband connection can be setup. How long can I browse Internet depends on luck. Finally the PC also hung.

Any advice would be appreciated. TIA

B.R.
satimis

[hard candy]

What LAN chip does it use? If it is a newer Realtek or Marvel, you may need to get a separate card. I have an Asrock with a newer Realtek LAN chip and no good drivers exist for Linux yet. Luckily, I had an older 3Com card which I use with no problems.
Although, if it is an Nvidia LAN chip, the newer Nvidia chipset drivers may work,
Nvidia drivers (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_amd64_1.0-0310.html)

[satimis]

Hi hard candy,

Tks for your advice and URL.

What LAN chip does it use? If it is a newer Realtek or Marvel, you may need to get a separate card.According to the manual of the motherbord;
LAN
Integrated 10/100 Mb MAC with Realtek ALC8201CL external PHY
Chipset
Northbridge: NVIDIA GeForce 6100 GPU
Southbridge: NVIDIA nForce 410 MCP

Storage : NVIDIA nForce 410 media and communications process (MCP) supports

I think the above nForce 410 media ....... is for LAN

B.R.
satimis

[hard candy]

"Integrated 10/100 Mb MAC with Realtek ALC8201CL external PHY" is exactly the ethernet controller I have with my motherboard, the Asrock Dual Sata. There are no decent drivers I have found yet for linux. You may want to try one of Novell's Suse beta, I think they have release candidate 2 available. From my reading up on this, the new Suse will have support for this chip.
Or see if you can get a cheapo used 3Com, etc from a computer shop, discount computer outlet, etc. Or a friend may have one lying around. Just make sure it is PCI and not ISA.

[satimis]

Hi hard candy,

Both onboard LAN and onboard sound have problem.

When booting started following warning popup;
ACPI unable to load the system Description Table.

I made following test;
On BIOS disableed both;
ACPI 20 Support
ACPI APIC Support

However the above warning still existed. Setup network to connect broadband. Internet browsing worked for sometimes until the PC hung finally.

Now I have both onboard LAN and onboard Sound card disabled. I have several NIC and sound cards on the shelves sleeping and I use one NIC on this PC. Now broadband connection setup and Internet browsing is working at least up to now.

A little pitty is A8N-VM a micro-AT motherboard with only 2 PIC slots. If using one for NIC and another for Sound Card then no more PIC slot is available for additional device, if required.

I'll try to contact ASUS technical support later to check whether a new BIOS is available. Hopefully the new BIOS can do something here.

B.R.
satimis

[hard candy]

You may want to disable the kernel's ACPI as well. "noacpi" on a line either in Grub or Lilo for that particular kernel may help.

[satimis]

Hi hard candy,

You may want to disable the kernel's ACPI as well. "noacpi" on a line either in Grub...
# cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
....
....
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.15-1.2054_FC5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img
Where shall I type "noacpi" ?

What is this device;
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

TIA

Internet browsing has been working for more than one hour !!!

B.R.
satimis

[hard candy]

Maybe after "quiet"? Not sure about that grub configuration, I would look around the Fedora Site

[cybertron]

Yeah, it would come after quiet.

[DrChuck]

Satimis,
I just built a box with the same Asus A8N-VM motherboard and an AMD64 X2 4400+, and installed FC5 x86_64 with no driver-related problems. (BTW, this is an amazing little board!) I have no extra cards installed - just using the onboard graphics, sound, and gigabit ethernet. I set up the network adapter as DHCP during the install, so I never tried the configuration tools. Just using the stock nvidia drivers. Maybe you could try configuring the network manually, by editing modprobe.conf and ifcfg-eth0?
Also, I was wondering about all those graphics cards you listed - why not start with just the onboard nvidia graphics and see if that configuration is stable?

drChuck

[satimis]

Yeah, it would come after quiet.Noted with tks.

B.R.
satimis

[satimis]

Hi DrChuck,

Tks for your advice.

why not start with just the onboard nvidia graphics and see if that configuration is stable?I did it before. No improvement found.

I just tried it again, removing the GigaByte PCI-E card and with onboard LAN and Sound enabled. Reinstalled FC5_64 wiping out the existing installation on the SATA HD. Situation remained intact, PC immediately hung on setting up broadband connection. Disabled onboard LAN and Sound and inserted a NIC. Broadband can be connected but unabled to run "yum update", totally 560Mb download. PC hung in the middle.

I ran "yum update" several times with/without the PCI-E card on and with onboard LAN and Sound disabled. Results were the same, PC hanging in the middle of download.

It is already a known issue to ASUS of the nVidia chips mentioned on the manual of the motherboard. Linux drivers for rectifying the problem are on the CD supplied. I tried installing the chip drivers and it required recompiling the kernel requesting for kernel source. I can't find kernel-source on the installing DVD. Neither I was able to download/install it with "yum" because the hanging of PC.

Please advise what is the exact name of kernel source, kernel version 2.6.15..... TIA

B.R.
satimis