On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 12:44:48 +0200 martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> 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 cmetzler@speakeasy.snip-me.net (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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