I have some stability problems with my Mandrake10 distro. I have heard of others having problems with the stability of Mandrake10 and I want to see if I can find a common thread that may create the problem.

Please do include
Desktop environment
Type of distro... Downloaded, purchased from store. etc.
Hardware

Please do include
Attitudes... previous threads about this problem have gotten ugly. I want to solve this problem not argue.

Thanks

I am using
KDE desktop
P4 Mainboard
3.2 Pentium Processor
Offical version

I'm not sure what else to include I more is needed I will post again. I suspect KDE is the problem but I don't know for sure.

MDK 10 with KDE
P III 700 on soys mb
nvidia GF4MX440
PCI soundblaster (older one - 64 I think)

Biggest problems seems to have been with the kde sound system, esp after loading cedega and crossover. with artsd off it's stable... I run 3 mdk 10's on various hardware and all are okay with artsd off.

Tho there does seem to be an issue with lockups when using USB thumb drive on this box. I've had this with previous mdk distros, including 9.2, so I suspect its partly a hardware issue.

Hi,

I'm glad I found this forum because I've been having troubles with it also and the other threads I have found on other forums do seem rather argumentative.

Reading on the internet has lead me to believe that my issues have something to do with my ASUS A7N8X mainboard and it's nForce2 chipset. I am aware that Mandrake 10 runs well on other boards with nForce2 chipsets but I have yet to hear of anybody who has got it running on an A7N8X yet without the same kind of stability issues that I am experiencing. (random and complete lockups with no warning)

Here are links to some of the articles I have read.

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...11.3/0936.html

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...11.1/0594.html

The second article includes a solution but I have been unable to implement it yet (due to a lack of knowledge on my part I am assuming) although I have tried. The solution seems to be using LILO (the bootloader) to pass arguments to the kernel to tell it to turn of APIC and ACPI - not totally sure what these are. I've included some arguments in the appropriate file but am unsure if I have done it correctly.

Yes, so in all this ramble I guess my questions are:

A) Are you guys who are having the lockup issues (not the sound ones) using A7N8X type motherboards also?

B) Does the solution on the link provided work for you?

C) If it does work for you can you step me through how to do it?

D) If you're feeling particularly altruistic can you possibly help me step through it anyway?

Cheers,

John

Ah yes, Madrake 10.0 Official is the distribution I am trying to install - from cd image files that I downloaded and burnt to cd myself. Any other questions just ask.

johndeverall
LinuxQuestions is the best forum I have found and the moderators are nice to deal with.
I don't think our problems are related however it is early in the tread. We will see if anyone else matches your specific problem.
I am beginning to think this is a hardware problem. I am a MandrakeClub memeber and I am also looking for answers through them.

Asus A7N8X-X
XP2500+
Radeon 9600XT
512mb RAM

I had royal pain in the ass installing any distro. I traced it back to incorrect BIOS settings. Once I changed my hard drive detection to LBA I had reformat the entire drive and delete all partitions. I also upgraded my BIOS.

My problem also could have been dodgy burns. After re-downloading, checking md5 sums and burnt at the slowest speed with Alcohol it installed all ok.

I did have a few freezes at the end of the installation and during the initial configuration. It took about 3 attempts to run ok.

Haven't had much time to monitor for anything else. I'm not running SATA.

Hardware:
P4 1.6Ghz
Gigabyte GA-8GE667 Pro mobo
Nvidia GeForce 3 200Ti
Audigy
Desktop: KDE
Version: Official - bought.
Extra info: Dual boot with WinXp. Nvidia drivers installed. Printer drivers installed. Updated all security and normal updates via software manager.

Main MDK install was a breeze. No mysterious lock ups or crashes so far.
Hope this helps.

Hardware:
Dual P3 Tulations on Tyan 2507T
1.5GB ram
36Gig Cheetha on Adaptec 39160
SoundBlaster live
Leadtek 5600 w/256MB
DVD/cdrw combo drive
Desktop KDE
Version 10.0 download


Been running since it was released Did a fresh install and have had no issues. I run the Nvidia drivers and use Transgaming for playing games(when I have time) machine is stable and very Fast. Installed the same as my how to on www.linuxloader.com

The few glitches I had, like lockups with USB flash drives, appear to have gone now on my P3 +soyo now that I am running a generic 2.6.7 kernel... I had troubles due to the fact I have to have nvidia plus win4lin which always seems to be a pain and the netraverse kernel wasn't great. Now with the home patched kernel all is better.... Tho the config took a while to get right. I use win4lin, cedega, crossover, nvidia, etc...

It wasn't that bad before, but it wasn't 'perfect' either.

Well since I started this tread I haven't crashed once. I don't think it was in my head. Thanks to all those who have replied. However if anyone else has a problem I am still interested.

Custom Built Computer

160g Seagate Baracuda HD
512 ram pc3200 ddr/sdr
AthlonXP2000+ 1.8ghz CPU
GeForceti4600 vid (nvidia drivers installed)
Soyo Dragon mobo (black edition)
VIA kt400 vt8235 chip set
SB Live sound
Creative 52x cd player
Memorex 52x24x52 CDRW
Linksys NC100 10/100 etho
Mandrake 9.2/kernel 2.4.22-35
Mandrake10.0/kernel 2.6.3-15
Lilo/KDE

running MDK10.0 & 9.2 flawlessly. no install issues, no issues period.

otis

Thank you for the links! Finally I sorted out the problems on my setup

If [edit] you have an A7N8X and [/edit] your system runs (in some bad way), look in the menu "system/configuration/configure your computer/boot loader" and modify the parameters for the entry "linux (/boot/vmlinuz)", adding "noapic nolapic acpi=off noacpi=off". In the original configuration I found "acpi=ht" and I guess that this was the problem.

Note: in the BIOS, the APIC feature is enabled, together with the best performance options, because I need them for the Windows partitions.

If you can't complete the linux setup, you could try pressing F1 at the beginning, and call "start linux noapic nolapic acpi=off noacpi=off", but I didn't tested this one.

I don't see performance problems, maybe because in my machine there are few devices, and so the APIC is just a plus.

Mandrake10.0 Official, KDE3.2
Asus A7N8X-X
AMD XP2400+
Asus Radeon 9200SE
512mb RAM
HD Maxtor 120GB UltraATA133, 8MB cache
SB Audigy
Pinnacle PCTV Rave

Be careful for what you blame on the distro when the problem could be caused by some of the applications you are running that arent exactly ready.

I am running Mandrake 10 Official on a Dell Latitude D600 laptop, 1.4 Ghz processor, 512 megs ram, ATI Mobile video, Intel sound, 3com nic, I think.

After the initial install everything ran great, and once I had it set up and looking the way I liked it I started downloading the apps I wanted to run on it. Mandrake 10 was running great, so I setup Shorewall, installed another application to watch syslog for hack attempts, and it continued to run fine. After a few weeks of running 24 hours straight on the laptop, Yahoo changed their protocol and I had to get the new version of Gaim. The machine continued to run fine for about 3 days, then I would come home to it being locked up, with the fan in the laptop running full blast like it had been compiling a program all day. The only way to reset it was to unplug the laptop then remove the battery. I wrote it off as a "fluke" until the third time it happened. I went backwards through my mind to try to think of changes I had made recently, and the last one I came up with was the new version of Gaim (0.8 I think). I stopped running Gaim and tried the Gyach Enhanced Yahoo client and ever since Mandrake 10 on my laptop has not locked up.

Now I am not saying that there isnt some type of problem with the ASUS Motherboard or other hardware because there seems to be a lot of threads to the contrary. What I am saying is not to automatically jump to that conclusion.

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, my thread was strictly related to a brend new system, out from the official CDs, installed on a machine with an A7N8X... After 3 days of attempts, this is my solution (post)