Motherboard adventures

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 9:27 pm

You'll find this amusing if you build PCs...

I'm replacing Rogue's computer with my pre-October box. The old one is an overclocked Celeron in the half-gig range, and the replacement is a XP1800. Somewhere along the way, I decide that since what she uses the box for isn't dependent on Windows, I'm going to put Linux on it. There's more to that story, but on with this one.

I'm configuring the silly thing in Linux, and try as I might I can't get the sound working. Finally I boot it into WinXP to see if everything's kosher there, and sure enough, it's not. A little research leads me to believe I need to flash the BIOS with an upgrade. Ok, so I make the boot disk and run the program. It flashes. Then, it says "Verifying" for about a millisecond, and the system reboots. Not only does it reboot, but the two CD roms, the HD activity light, and the floppy all start going bonkers at once.

"Crap!" sez I. "I screwed up the flash!"

The mobo is a K7S5A, and I happen to have another almost identical. So I get the brilliant idea of swapping the BIOS chips. So, after much dust, several loose screws, and a scraped knuckle, the system is ready to boot with the new BIOS. Turn it on, and what do I get?

Blinky blinky again.

"Hmm..." I wonder. "Did I get the chips mixed up during the swap and put the bad one back in?" So I swap the chips again.

Blinky blinky.

TANJ! Now what do I do? Thinking that perhaps the "good" BIOS was somewhat incompatible with the "bad" BIOS' board, I remove the mobo entirely, put the CPU and unflashed BIOS in the spare board, and hook up just enough stuff to boot - vid card, RAM, single HD cable, keyboard & monitor. It's sitting, nekkid, on top of the case. Turn it on, and it boots.

Wonderful!

Stick it back in the case, hook it all back up, power on.

Blinky blinky.

Beat head on wall. Serves as inpiration, I guess. Aha! Something else is the culprit! What did I change between previous boot and now? *mental rummaging* Unplug the speakers. It boots!

At this point I come to the conclusion that something about the speakers is causing unpleasant electrical side-effects in the on-board audio circuitry. So I disable the onboard audio, stick in a SBLive, and everything's fine.

Except, of course, the wasted evening. But at least I got this cool story to tell, right?

BTW, I didn't replace the mobo in the first place because I thought the spare had a defective HD controller. At this point, I still don't know the status of my new spare - it's in a box on the shelf.

MegaDeath70 · Post by **MegaDeath70** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 2:02 am

Gotta love it when its something so dumb that it takes all your evening and tests your patience. I wonder how many times you said, "No, it cant be that".

Spinning Hat · Post by **Spinning Hat** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:56 pm

I don't know that I would have thought of the speakers as the culprit. What version of Linux are you using Gambit?

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 3:18 am

If you think it's a grounding problem with that card, get a ohmmeter out and check for a short between any of the three outputs on the speaker jack. There should be no shorts between any of the three.

The other things are whether the card was seated properly, had any loose components (sometimes happens when the soldered connections get old), and whether you had the speaker wire pushed all the way into the jack on the sound card. I'm assuming you did all three of those, but just stating the probable hardware issues.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:56 am

The bad one was onboard, not a card. I've not tested with the ohmmeter. Not too worried about it as there's nothing I can do if there's a problem. Checked that it was fully plugged in several times, though.

The thing I thought was really weird was that it was just fine (though non-working) until I flashed the BIOS.

Spinning Hat · Post by **Spinning Hat** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 10:06 pm

That IS weird... so back to my original question - what version of Linux Gambit?

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 12:30 am

I thought Gambit was a Debian guy?

Spinning Hat · Post by **Spinning Hat** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 12:40 am

No, Gambit is Human. Although, he may prefer Debian over other distros, that's why I ask. I may be getting an older HP desktop from a friend with a bad HDD, and was considering loading Linux on it, and giving it to the boy.

P3 650, 96Mb RAM, Onboard everything all wrapped in a shitty minitower... Good enough for the kids, and their learning software.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 2:42 pm

I do indeed like Debian, but I and others will agree that it's not for everyone. I wouldn't hand it to a linux newbie, for instance, though it's better than many other distros in that regard. Yes, I'm putting it on my wife's machine, but that's because I'm there to support it.

There is a Debian derivative that is specifically designed for kids; it's got a bunch of edutainment titles and some games, I think. I'll look around a little and see if I can find it. SuSE is pretty easy from what I've seen and the package installer (YaST) is almost as good as Debian's. Mandrake is supposed to be easy, but I never got it working right. Definitely not slackware or gentoo for the kidlings.

And let's not forget Ubuntu. That one's growth in popularity is amazing. It's based on Debian, too.

It might work out quite well for you.

XMEN Ashaman DTM · Post by **XMEN Ashaman DTM** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 2:33 am

Debian's got some very nice apps for helping you out. I have always had good luck with Mandrake, so when I go to install on a new platform, that's my first choice.

If you're into compiling your own binaries, go for gentoo. :p

I'd also recommend several beers, a punching bag, and some ice, if you do the gentoo route.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've ALWAYS had bad luck with redhat. (I own some redhat stock too. :/ )

I have never gotten it working on any of the machines I've built. As for Mandrake, the only problems I've encountered were network related issues with my switch at my old place, and figuring out how to get some clustering software to run.