Hi all

This used to be my machine

Processor: Athlon II X2 250
M/B: GA-MA785GPM-UD2H from Gigabyte
RAM: 2+2 = 4 GB (DDR 2)

Now it is

Processor: Athlon II X2 250
M/B: 880GMA-E35 from MSI
RAM: 4+4 = 8 GB (DDR 3)

The Hitachi 500 GB HDD & ASUS DVD Writer are both SATA.

My default OS is OpenSUSE 11.4 (64bit) & the installation DVD can boot fine and the OS is also operating fine.

Here is the thing that got me thinking..
My Gigabyte Mother board's Award Bios had an option called....

"OnChip SATA Port4/5 Type" and you could set it to "IDE"
in that way The DVD Writer (although SATA) would be treated as a IDE device when it was connected to the last (5th) SATA port, & that's how I had it configured.

Unfortunately I did not find any such option in the MSI motherboard & and it has 6 SATA ports.

Could this be the clue to the problem???

Jadukor

I'd be inclined to think your clonezilla disk is bad somehow. Run memtest just to be sure. The opensuse disk you say is a dvd so I guess your cd part of the drive could be bad. Try to burn a dvd for clonezilla and see if it works.

Guys... I am sorry

I should have gone into more details. I was was actually in a bit of hurry when wrote my first post, sorry again.

What happens is that both PartedMagic & Clonezilla disks are detected & they show their boot menu.

But when I choose the default option (Boot form RAM), the Clonezilla screen goes blank; & the PartedMagic shows some error messages about kernel panic.

I have also tried the boot options (Fail safe/ alternate graphics server/...and so on) with no luck.

So I guess the DVD drive is OK..., still for full satisfaction I burned the pmagic-6.7.iso on rewritable DVD and booted, but the same error messages showed up.

So I was thinking that may we try to fix the PartedMagic problem first (if possible) as it at least prints some error messages.....

So guys, sorry again.. & any ideas??

Jadukor

Hi again guys

I tried some trial & error method, and here is what I got.

I had 32-bit version CDs of “openSUSE 11.4 Live CD-KDE” & “openSUSE 11.4 Live CD-Gnome”
Tried to boot them both; both showed the boot menu but failed to start-up.

I also had a “ubuntu-11.04-desktop-amd64” CD; tried to boot that & guess what, it booted & gave me the option to “Try” OR “Install Ubuntu”; although I must admit that after I selected “Try Ubuntu” it did have trouble going into graphical mode, all I got was a black screen & a pointer; but I guess that's a discussion for another time.

The point that struck me most was that the machine seemed to be OK with 64-bit OS, but is having trouble with 32-bit OS!! (as far as I can tell)

Could this be because of the 8 GB RAM??!! I am saying this cos Every time I boot my machine, during POST I see this message on the screen

DRAM Frequency For DDR3 1066 (Unganged mode, 64-bit)

I tried running the machine on just one stick (4 GB).... but still the same message!!

It seems as if the RAM itself is operating at 64-bit mode??..... if such a thing is possible (I am no expert at this, just groping in the dark try to figure a way out)

So guys... what do you think, am I missing some kind of BIOS setting or something??

Jadukor

Shouldnt be the problem, I've run linux on SB7XX and SB8XX AMD southbridges (the bit that controlls the SATA ports) with SATA DVD-RW drives, they run just fine. You dont have to kick them back into IDE mode.

BTW, IDE mode 'cripples' SATA HDDs (it disables some of the SATA features).

Could be nothing to do with 32/64bit. The 32bit distros you tried were both SUSE, its possible that ubuntu is interacting with the hardware differently.

Shouldnt be 8GB either.

"DRAM Frequency For DDR3 1066 (Unganged mode, 64-bit)" means just that...your RAM is running at 1066MHz (which is slow, most DDR3 is 1333+)

"unganged"-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-c...y_architecture

"64bit"- memory can be run in a 64bit bus on a 32bit CPU.

You arent the only one to have problems with this board and linux-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130613

BTW, does Winki 3 work?

1 members found this post helpful.

Finally the million dollar question :-P

I was waiting to see if anybody would ask that..

The fact that you did, goes to show that you really fiddled around with this hardware!! Nice post BTW, I learned few thing :-)
and unfortunately, NO, Winki 3 did work either it shows the boot menu but fail to start-up!!

Ah..Ha.. but in my first post you will see that I was also able to boot from openSUSE 11.4 64-bit DVD!!!

My heart sank totally when I read the following lines....

I spent more than $100 to buy this board yesterday, just to find out that it wont run Linux!! Could the fates have screwed me any worse?! I began to wonder...

Then, I found this 64-bit version of PartedMagic on Softpedia and guess what?? it worked like a charm!!

In fact I am writing this post from PartedMagic which I live booted using the 64-bit CD!!

So in conclusion I guess this board DOES have problem with 32-bit Linux!!
Although I really can't understand why???

Called the salesman about this issue, according to him sometimes their AMD products seems to have trouble running 32-bit OS (he meant XP), and he recommended running at least Windows7, preferably 64-bit.
But, I am having a hard time believing that... these sales guys will put up any excuse just to get off the hook!!

I guess the silver lining here is that I am not totally screwed... just have to stick to 64-bit OS, which I intend to for the foreseeable future ;-P which means I have to find a 64-bit version of Clonezilla as well....

Jadukor

I have to admit that I have nevwer even touched a 880GMA-E35. I just remembered that MSI was doing a similar thing to asus did with 'splashtop' (and I forget the name that asus used for that now)

Opps, I missed the 64-bit OpenSUSE worked bit. I really shouldnt post when Im tired.... I have no idea why you would be getting issues with 32-bit linux on that board. At least it runs 64-bit.

If I get my hands on a 880G chipset board in the near future, I'll give it a try with a few 32-bit and 64-bit linux OSes as a test.

That will be great.... & do share the results with us please.

Thanks for everything guys