Having trouble booting and USB Problems
 

I've been having trouble booting many Linux distros. They either crash before booting completely or boot but no USB support at all. I'll be making a list here:

The ones that worked
1-Knoppix 2013 CD - works perfectly
2-Puppy Linux 5.70 32 bit - works perfectly

Not booting or USB Problems:
1-Knoppix 2016 DVD-Boots but no usb support at all. To navigate I have to use a PS2 keyboard.

2-Zorin OS 9 - Crashes before I can get to choose live CD or install

3-OpenMandriva - I choose live CD but all I see is the task bar and the welcome menu. I can't do anything after that.

4-Fedora 20.1 64-bit Won't boot


Here are my specs:
Motherboard:Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P Rev 2.0
CPU: Phenom II X4 910e 2.6Ghz
Ram: 8GB DDR3 1300Mhz
Chipset:AMD 970, AMD K10
Video: Ati 4670 512MB
Audio: C-Media CMI8738 Audio Chip
Current installed OS: Windows Xp 64 Bit SP2 and Windows 7. Both work fine.
Note:Everything Uefi is disabled because I don't plan to use anything Microsoft after Windows 7.


Before saying it's a media problem. They were tested on my Toshiba T235D laptop and they worked. I'm a newbie at Linux so I don't know if it's a driver issue or what. I tried playing around with the USB settings in the bios with no luck. Legacy USB support, Xchi,Echi,Port 60/64 Emulation

I am not a linux expert but in my line of work, I use linux. I would say your problems are driver issues. I would check first to see if the distros that crash support your cards. Phenom II X4 910e 2.6Ghz is an AMD chip and if it uses extensions that are specialised say, then you will be having a problem with the distros. If you look at those that work, they are small generalist distros that are supposed to work anywhere and generally don't use the hardware intensively.
I know for a fact that ATI has some specialist installation procedures for some distros. I am using a debian system as my NAS and sing ATI requires that I use some specialist repo to install it.
Knoppix - perhaps you want to install automount? I am currently using automount because I had some usb issues with my Debian distro and automount and pciutils solved it. Google for automount and pciutils. I think I came across it in stack exchange. Same with Mandriva. maybe you have an issue with the ATI video card?
You have to research these cards with each distro unfortunately.
There is also the issue are you installing the right version of distro?
I did a quick check on google nad got a similar issue with yours - as I said Linux systems don't have all drivers installed from get go. You may have to either compile or if you are luck, install it afterwards. This thread has the same issue - blank Screen and as they are both Debian based systems - I will hazard a guess that your issues are drivers.
I wish I could help more but I would google extensively for each component and the distro. You will come to a solution.

What is weird is that Knopppix 2013 works perfectly but the 2016 doesn't ? Could they be getting rid of older drivers ?

The videocard is fine. I use it to play older games like Batman Arkham City. Plays fine. Actually in Knoppix 2013 even the compiz activates will all the effects which leads me to believe the video drivers were installed fine. In windows my AMD usb drivers comes in a package with the chipset. Unlike intel were USB drives are installed separately. I don't know how to activate automount. But in the 2013 version if I plug in a flash drive or anything USB it works fine. In the 2016 it doesn't.

try debian

Since Knoppix is based on Debian, I'll have the same problem won't I ?

What was the old usb device version OHCI? Could it be that was removed from other versions?

That should have nothing to do with crashes. Go to bios and set settings to failsafe or default. May have memory problems or cable issues or just won't run linux easily.

The options I have in Bios regarding usb are the following:
1-Legacy usb support: Default:Enabled
2-Xchi Hand-off: Default: Enabled
3-Echi Hand-off: Default: Disabled
4-Port 60/64 Emulation: Default: Disabled

I tried Antergos yesterday. It's based on Archlinux which is a Distro I haven't tried on this computer before. Its gives me some error messages but I don't have enough time to write them. Is there a way to pause booting ? Anyways, it says something like this. Illegal instruction. USB device unrecognized. The usb error is repeated like 4 times. Then it says Failed to boot Plymouth Service. Then it goes to the wallpaper. No windows open. No mouse pointer. I can't do anything after that.

Then this is a relatively new system. Nothing to do with OHCI.

Knoppix used to put in a statement like "waiting for usb to settle" and that may be part of the clue.

I doubt you need legacy support. Shouldn't matter either way.

What all usb devices are plugged in? Do you have a usb 3 add on card? Is there a bios update that directly states some issue with usb support? (last ditch effort is bios update as it may bork your system)

Might be an odd usb keyboard or mouse maybe power issue on it or unsupported causing issues.

When you do get a distro running you may wish to peek into the hardware it is using for clues.

The only USB devices plugged in are a wireless logitech keyboard and mouse. Both get the signal from a single USB. As for USB 3.0 the motherboard does have an integrated Via controller for 2 usb ports. I did try disabling it but it makes no difference in booting linux. I don't think it's a hardware issue because Windows XP 64 and Windows 7 both work fine. I don't have any blue screens or crashes. If it makes any difference, I bought the motherboard in 2014.

I could try running Knoppix 2013 and post the devices found here.

*Edit*
Here is the hardware report. I choose what I thought was important. If there is something else let me know.

Any way to use a ps/2 mouse and keyboard to see if similar usb controllers show up in other systems?

For what it's worth, on my "big box" I had Debian squeeze running for several months with everything usb working fine when I tried to plug a usb memory card reader with my camera's memory card in it, it failed miserably and told me I had to install "usb support" (if memory serves me right) in order to use the reader. I installed the suggested package and the memory card reader worked. I don't know about newer distributions but at that time it appeared that basic usb was built in and anything "strange" required the usb support package. I haven't a clue what would be considered "strange" or whether this is still applicable.

Grab slackware live cd http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware-live/0.9.0/ 0.9.0 ia actually current 14.2
I like knopix it is well thought out puppy is wonderful they all have wonderful itrid images that
get you started. Try the latest slackware live cd they work fine.

For the ones that do boot.

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo

Pay attention to " lm " and " pae " if they're missing you're options are limited, but not bleak. Try debian, although if you don't have pae you might need to use the linux-image-486 kernel, which should work, but far from optimal.

I wanted to update this thread by posting a link that contains info on my specific motherboard:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....2111223&page=4

Now the question is what changed in Linux that older 32-bit distro worked but newer 64-bit ones you have to enable iommu to be able to use USB 2.0

Has anyone encountered this problem before and is this the only solution ?