new motherboard & CPU ==> no ethernet or video
My old motherboard (biostar tp35d2-a7) died. I got a new intel h67 motherboard and installed an i5-2400 in it, and tried to boot off of the debian testing install that is on the hard drive, and which worked with the old hardware. (Old system had nvidia graphics.)
It doesn't entirely work with the new hardware, however. I don't have ethernet and something is wrong with video, so X doesn't start. To check hardware function and linux compatibility I booted Knoppix, and both networking and graphics are working properly. How should I go about fixing the installed OS to work with the new hardware? Do I just need to totally reinstall? Or is there some way to add drivers or reconfigure so that the existing OS will work properly? |
Boot to the debian dvd and fix or re-install the system. I know plenty of people swap this every day but you really can't trust the installer. We don't know what happened so it would be foolish to trust any repair.
I suspect that you could fix it but why not do a clean install and not worry? |
Assuming that you are still using Debian Lenny, it is just to old for your hardware. You can try to install the backports-kernel, but I think it would be better to upgrade to Squeeze anyways. Since you have no ethernet connection, I would assume that a fresh install is the easiest way.
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I'm running the current testing version, namely squeeze, with kernel version 2.6.32-5 (Debian 2.6.32-29). (I think I haven't updated my profile recently, but new releases keep coming out.) I've haven't done a clean install since I set the box up 3.5 years ago.
Jefro, what do you mean about "people who swap this every day" but you can't trust the installer? Are you saying it's better to just do a fresh install rather than trust a fix? If I do a fresh install I assume that this will that wipe out all my customizations in /etc and I'll also have to figure out what all I had installed to reinstall stuff, right? |
You can of course do a backup of your /etc-folder and restore it later.
To get all your software reinstalled you can do Code:
dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall >packages Code:
dpkg --clear-selections |
This is not Windows. A fresh install is hardly needed. Debian testing is not perfect yet and hardware is sometimes incorrectly detected (or whatever)
I assume you do have command line access? If not, do you see the GRUB screen at boot? One you are in a console, do: lspci -v and see what video adapter and ethernet adapter you have. From there, Google to see if it is supported in Squeeze, and then try to find how to install that hardware in Debian. Do NOT download source files and follow the config/build/install instructions as this will break your Debian installation. jlinkels |
The integrated graphics of the Core i5-2400 should be to new to be supported by the Testing-kernel, I think the same applies to the ethernet device of this very new chipset. Maybe you should try the liquorix-kernel. or one from the newer kernels from the experimental-repo. Of course it would help to post the output of the command given to you by jlinkels.
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I can boot into the system and get tty, just no X, and no ethernet. Otherwise everything seems to be working. (Well, actually sound looked to be broken too, but I didn't investigate that. I've had all sorts of trouble with sound even on the old setup.) When I boot off the latest Knoppix (dated 12/24) the networking and video work as well. (I admit I didn't realize quite how new the hardware was when I bought it, but I noticed the instructions with the motherboard were copyright 2011.) Below is the result of "lspci -v" run under knoppix. I checked the Knoppix kernel version and it is 2.6.36.1, so that's newer than what I have with the Debian (2.6.32-5).
TobiSGD, thanks for the tip on replicating a configuration. Code:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09) |
VGA working in Knoppix might be a perception, usually Knoppix falls back to VESA if no driver is available. But the good news is that i910 should support this card. Install it from Debian and check if it is added to xorg.conf, (xserver-xorg-video-intel), but in xorg it will be called intel
Next, if there is a network driver is should be e1000e. If another driver is loaded, blacklist it (in /etc/modules.d/blacklist.conf) and add e1000e to the drivers to be loaded in /etc/modules. You can also check the output of lsmod in both knoppix and your new system and see if you see differences regarding video and network. jlinkels |
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I checked my packages on the broken system and xserver-xorg-video-intel is already installed. Quote:
Here is the output of lsmod on the broken system: Code:
Module Size Used by Code:
Module Size Used by |
Video: your system loads i915 but it doesn't work. Please check /var/log/Xorg.0.log and see where it goes wrong.
Networking: I don't see e1000e in your lsmod. Did you lsmod after modprobe? Check /var/log/syslog and /var/log messages to see the result of you modprobe. Knoppix shows a lot less loaded modules. Everything not shown here, but still working might have been compiled into the Knoppix kernel. That is contradictionary with my feeling that particularly Knoppix should have as many drivers as modules versus compiled in, but Knoppix as been sheer magic to me anyway. jlinkels |
I recommend a new kernel, this will probably fix everything. If you can't, at least make sure to get the latest version of e1000e from intel. I remember that this driver did not work at all in older kernels, at least for me.
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TexMex: you might be right. I misread adrianmariano's post where he mentioned the kernel version. Indeed 2.6.32 is the current kernel in Testing, and even in Unstable and quite outdated. Unfortunately us Debian toddlers are used to simple apt-get installation of kernels :)
adrianmariano: that means you have to compile a kernel yourself. If you never have done so, I strongly recommend you do it the Debian way which described here: http://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_com...on_debian_etch When you do it differently, you'll end up with problems sooner or later. jlinkels |
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That is useful information. Thanks
jlinkels |
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