RAM is made to run at a certain voltage. You might have to look up your sticks on Google to see what that voltage should be. It actually could give you a slight (and I do mean slight) performance boost to set your voltage instead of leaving it on "auto."

Well, I just pulled the DVD drive, and the IDE hard drive from my MAC, and none of the linux disto's make any more progress with a different DVD drive, and an IDE hard drive. I guess I better give, this system just can't run linux.

I can't get a distro to install either. I suspect my problem is with ATI Radeon xpress 200 series. I see by googling my vga it has some issues. I did though google yours also and I don't see that it has a problem. It isn't listed in the HCL (top of the page). I didn't see anyone complaining about it on google. I checked it just because it was ATI and so is mine.

The mobo is in the HCL
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...t=3569&cat=all
see the note about bios
so there are at least 2 boards working with linux
(including the buntu one)

and mandriva 2007 works on it
http://forum.club.mandriva.com/viewt...c7dc566775a5b8

HW problem?

I updated yesterday to the latest BIOS I can find. Still no luck with it.

As far as being a HW problem, I agree. But what other then the motherboard can it be? RAM memtests fine, CPU stress tests fine, I tried another HDD, and an optical drive. It must be the motherboard, but there is nothing wrong with it as Windows (any version) run great on it.

Someone may have got Linux to run on this board, but I can't. I don't see what else it could be at this stage.

One last thought before I give up completely. What are the odds that it is my ATI Radeon x850xt-pe?

Should I throw in an cheap nVidia PCI card, install Linux, then go back to the ATI card as see if it will run?

Is it possible that you are using RAID that Linux doesn't like?

I would pull One Sata off to try it again or two Sata off to load a distro on the IDE disk you got.

If a Linux has a difficulty in locating a home for itself then the installer can pack in and the error message may not necessary reflect the true cause. May be a lot of users assume an installer is also perfect but it can have bugs and many of them are full of them in my experience.

curleyg

If a Linux has a problem with a certain video card then it is a lot easier to resolve by altering the driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Most of the times the system does not hang but merely could not communicate. In such a case pressing ctrl+alt+backspace could drop you into the terminal mode. If that is the case the Linux has been installed but no GUI possible. You can then proceed to amend the /etc/X11/xorg.conf to try various drivers as many distros allow you to run "xorgconfig" or its equivalent in terminal mode without editing the file yourself. Once the xorg.config has been saved you can try to activate the desktop by the command "startx". If that doesn't work respeat the process all over again. Linux has good generic video drivers and I got by with about 5 PCs (all with different video cards) this way without to source a video driver outside the distros. Sometime driver "ati" may work if "radeon" doesn't or the other way round. Similarly for "nv" and "nvidia". It is common for a Linux installer to mis-match the video driver. It happens all the time in my experience.

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If a Linux installer has an issue with the video it could at certain point have the communication break down as the video signal is no longer communicating with the user. A good installer like the one in Suse or Ubuntu should have built up suffcieint system to permit the distro to run in terminal mode. Better ones can be re-configured by the user with the correct choice of video data as I suggested above.

Remember when a Linux fail to communicate after an installation, due to a loss or no screen, it is still accessible in most cases. It is also very common that the installer can communicate happily with the user in graphic mode, an evidence of the installer able to use the graphic card, to finish the installation or the first part and suddenly fails to communicate on a re-boot.

The video issues you are describing (as I read it anyway) apply to a complete installation, then lose of GUI on the reboot. That is not the issue here, I can't install at all.

I did try just the IDE drive with SATA and RAID turned off in the BIOS, no luck.

I understand Linux lags behind in using the new technology as hard ware vendors don't provide support as they do with MS Windows. I have not owned a dual core CPU and couldn't tell how Linux reacts with it.

It is well established that Linux can only work in dual core machines with SMP-enable kernels. I wonder if you have selected the correct kernel for the installation.

I am just surprised by the installation problem as I have 2 version of Ubuntu, 2 Suse (9.1 & 10.1) and 4 Fedora (Fc2 to FC5) in the box (among many others) using AMD x64 CPU.

I didn't ever get far enough through any installation to choose a kernel. Unless it is done when I download the .iso, but in all three cases I took the only 64bit choice for each distro.

I may have to give up on this. I don't see anything working with this system.

Running out of ideas as well
Try with only 1 Gb memory, try mandriva 2007 (you already tried so many distro you can try one more) and do the install while pressing <alt><ctrl><f2 or f3> to get txt mode messages

I had once terrible problems HW like, it was just the video card slightly out of its socket, but if zinblows works...

I have had similar issues with a pc of mine a while back. The issue that I had was the linux would not install because of my video card (nvidia). I had an nforce motherboard (with on-board video) and was using a GeforceFX card (like I said, a while back). I was able to install linux with the card out of the system, install the the nvidia drivers, shutdown and then put in my video card. To this day, the only way around it is to use text based installers. Maybe you have a similar problem with your graphics card? How are your optical drives setup? If you have 2 of them on 1 cable, could be that one of them is bad or the cable itself could be bad.

Ok, so currently have FC6 up and running. Despite memtesting fine, the RAM is the issue, with one stick it installs and runs fine, on the IDE drive with SATA turned off. I have since put the other stick back in (even though it is the problem with the install) and it seems to running ok.

I have two questions,

1) should I stick with FC6, or try to install Ubuntu with only one stick of RAM and hope it works.

2) I have Windows running on my 2x100gb SATA RAID 0. Can I just turn RAID support back on in the BIOS and have a dual boot with Linux on the IDE drive? Or is it even possible without starting all over.

If one Linux works in the PC I expect the others will do too.

I would probably put the two memory modules in to see if FC6 runs. If it does then I will leave them permanently and install other distros.

On the two Sata I will try to make sure FC6 run satisfactorily first. When I switch on the Sata the first thing I would do is to check the FC6 first. From my experience as long as Linux is not on RAID you should have no problem with Windows there but I am not sure if Linux boot loader would handle it. MInd you some distros can cope with the Sata RAID but it is not universal, that is all.

Your previous problem could be RAID-related and ity could just an issue with the Installer that can't cope with it. Once installed, say with Sata RAID temporarily removed, the Linux may be fine as long as you don't ask it to search files in the Sata RAID.

If your Linux doesn't like your Sata RAID you may have a long term problem on booting them. Temporarily you can instruct the Bios to boot Sata first for Windows or boot IDE disk for Linux.

The problem is not RAID related, it is the RAM. Linux won't install with both sticks in the system. It will only install with one of the two stick in the system, the other one by itself crashes just the same as it does with both in the system. So only one of the two stick work 100%

It seems to be working if I put the second stick in the system after Linux is installed, it just won't install with it there in pair, or by itself.