XFX series mother board only boots Slackware.

I'm not sure what the deal is...the whole computer is new, a TigerDirect barebone package. Slackware is literally the only distribution that boots. Install cds or live cds will not. Debian stops doing anything after it says it will start the logs.

I have tried: CentOS, Gentoo, Debian Lenny&Etch, Vector, and Fedora. I'm not sure if there is an issue with a motherboard setting that Slackware simply overlooks or what. I have no idea where to look. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

phantom

Anyone have any idea what to look for that might make something not see my hard drive or not be able to start a log? Any ideas?

I had ubuntu running on the an xfx motherboard, but only after I installed a pata drive. For what ever reason, the sata drive would not be recognized properly. This did not solve the problem, but gave me an acceptable workaround.

I bought the xfx Quad core barebones system as well and HAD opensuse 11.1 working on it, I tried recently to reload it with Suse 11.1 again but it hangs during the setup. I think it had the problem mentioned with the sata drive, I thought it came with a 1tb Pata drive but no luck. I tried Ubuntu 9.0.4, live CD and Mandriva all 64 bit and have not been able to get any to load.

I wonder if my first install I turned off ACPI?

Right now I just have Vista 64 on it, I was able to load XP, vista and Windows 7 on it, but only got Suse 11.1 working on it once.

Did you see anything similar in the dmesg of all the other distro's you tried to install? I would try doing an ubuntu install from the txt alternative disk and see what the output is. I've had to do some crazy boot commands from grub to get stuff to load. Slack loads very clean and doesn't hang up like other distro's. I've got an old laptop that has some serious hardware issues and I could only get slack until I had to do some kernel options.

First thing I usually try if it's not recognizing any HDD, is go into the BIOS options and change the SATA controller to a different mode, usually I put it in AHCI mode because it tends to work best, but you can try other modes too like PATA, etc.

Originally Posted by phantom_cyph Slackware is literally the only distribution that boots. phantom

I think "bare bones" may be the issue here. Slackware does not use a lot of ram for start up( at least the packages I have used). Try removing and reseating your RAM chip boards. (a loose ram will not register in system memory and can cause this type of issue as well as video problems if your system uses shared memory) Also double check that the ram is a compatible speed for your new board. (Ram that accesses to slowly can cause all kinds of problems) I hope this is helpful to you.
Alan

So your suggesting my Windows XP, Vista, and 7 installs that I have done is too sloppy with its hardware interpretation? I would normally agree with this, but I will check those settings.

Originally Posted by bwdave So your suggesting my Windows XP, Vista, and 7 installs that I have done is too sloppy with its hardware interpretation? I would normally agree with this, but I will check those settings.

hello bwdave,

I am afraid you are mistaken here. My "diagnosis" was for phantom_cyph and I am having to assume a lot about his system. If your system can run XP or Vista then your pc problem is very unlikely to be a ram problem. In your case I would follow the advice of techead2 and check to see what dmesg has listed as this will usually show what did and did not load on your system as well as error level messages. (that is if you can open a terminal window and type dmesg in. It has to get at least that far in the boot process to be able to read the output).

In the case of phantom_cyph's pc I have assumed that this system has not had a working operating system on it before (bare bones usually means a new board with no software, no ram, (and sometimes no CPU) is included in the sale. Those items have to be purchased separately.). On a new system (or on a freshly shipped system) it is fairly common for the ram to not be fully seated or to become unseated in shipping.
I also assumed this because phantom_cyph said that live cd's would not work (which have to load to ram).

Admittedly, I do not know the architecture of the XFX board, so I could be way off on what is causing the issue, but in most cases when a problem with anything occurs, it never hurts to check the basics first.

Apparently appending "pci=nomsi" does wonders as far as getting stuff to work.

I was able to do a trial boot and install of Fedora 11, but I do not recommend using it with this motherboard as the graphics card does not work with the new nouveau nvidia driver.