Im a newbie and after tryin and loosing with fedora (does not recog my WLAN and Radeon) I downloaded the latest SUSE 9.1 personal 86 iso and tried to install it on my Presario 2100 laptop but for some reason my entire laptop shuts off after a few minutes .. i tried many times but it just shuts off at various stages of installation and it never gets past 5 minutes.... is there anything i am doing wrong or is linux just not for me..... Please suggest.

try the -noacpi boot option

By the way ...sounds dumb but I downloaded the Suse 9.1 personal x86 iso...is it the one for a 32 bit processor...mine is 32 bit and if this is the wrong one..where can i find one....for a 32 bit.

You have the right one--or so it sounds like.

just to make sure.. i downloaded it again and tried to re-install it and guess what...the same thing...after a few minutes by the time i get to the format mode...it goes off and suprisingly it happened on mandrake too....there must be sumthin im doin all wrong.....I am trying to install Suse on the part of the HD that already has fedora 3..so you guys thnk that is the reason? but doesnt the install set up format the hd before installing its distro? my mind is in a mess cuz i just cant seem to get it....

by the way not that it is relavant im using a tool called deepburner to burn my isos and it worked smoothly on fedora.

Please help me guys.. hate too be in the dark for so long

I would try this next if you haven't already.. Can you also list your complete specs and the make/model of your PC?

i already did but no good..... and since it did not work for mandrake too do you think it is the iso burning software that i am using.... (it did work on Fedora)

anwyays...here are my specs...
Compaq presario 2100 with amd 2600+, ati 320m U1 graphics and WLAN 54g wireless card..
dual boot XP and FC3(on which im tryin to install suse)

thanks for your time guys... i really app it.

Take a look here and see if that helps. Note where the author writes "Legacy USB support must be disabled in the BIOS otherwise the system will freeze when booting." There are more examples here.

Jspire..thnk you for all your help..i tried it too but it doesnt seem to work... but i did find those lins important as to how i can tweak fedora into recognizin my wlan and graphics card...since suse doesnt look like it is for me...i might as well give fed3 a try....by the way...as you can see im a complete newbie and am looking for a distro that is easy to install and use...any sugg?

thank you for all the help.

Hmm, I ran 9.1 on a previous Presario model (slower, but comparable hardware) and I had some USB related lockups and a very unstable system. 9.0 ran much smoother and 9.2 is the best so far.

The lock-up could be cause by buggy acpi (as suggested before, try to boot with acpi=off or pci=noacpi). But it could also be an overheating of the CPU (5min is rather fast, I recognized this after 2 h in 9.0). The solution could be to use another powermanagment. The default in 9.1 is powersaved, which may be replaced by acpid, cpufreq and cpudynd (don't use powersaved in combination with these). You can install (and deinstall) them with Yast -> Install and Remove Software.

EDIT: maybe you should try to do that from command line. If it is a hot CPU, then this may give you more time

i did try it with acpi off but no good....is there another work arnd..i know its def not over heating as my pc takes atleast 3 hrs to get there...how do i change the power options during installation..im sure it has to do with it as i just shuts off without any warning...thank you.

Sorry, I didn't read your first post properly, I assumed it happens at a later stage. If acpi=off did not work, it may be some hardware that is interfering. Do you use USB devices? It is worth a try to unplug them during installation. You could also try the paramters APIC or NOAPIC. Did you try 'Failsafe Installation'?

Did it all and tried it all ..the safe mode...the apic off....unplugged usbs ..et all... it just doesnt seem to work..i have FC3 now and the only prob i have is that it does not detect my radeon card and Wlan card.. i might as well work on it as it seems more achievable...but thanx anyways guys...yu were helpful.
thank you

You might try 9.2 instead of 9.1. My dell didn't like 9.1 at all but since I moved to 9.2 it works perfectly.

I haven't a clue what the problem might be. It sounds as though you have moved on, but in case others are having install trouble with SuSE, do be aware that logs are routed to the tty's during install. This may be an avenue of research that might not occur to every one researching an install problem. Just a thought.