Asus A8N-SLI/Asus 6600 GT/AMD64 3000/1GB mem

No luck getting FC3 or Suse 9.2 pro loaded, getting black or garbled screens, during or just after GRUB.

Do either of these distributions fully support Nforce 4, or is it the combination of the motherboard/PCI-e that isn't been fully looked at before the hardware is on general sale, hence people spending a fortune, only to have to use a 32 bit OS because their hardware isn't supported?

I find all this extremely frustrating, does anyone know of a confirmed X86_64 distro that will work with Nforce 4/PCI-e and a 6600 gt graphics card?

I have basically the same hardware as you (A8N-SLI/6600 GT/AMD64 FX-55/2 GB). I have tried installing FC3 and Suse 9.2. No luck. Here are the issues that I aware of.

1. The video driver that comes with these distros does not support the 6600 GT.
2. I did a text install with FC3. It installed OK, but then froze on reboot in Grub. I found some references that this may be due to the SATA raid that I have installed. I am not trying to install onto the raid, but perhaps just its pressence is causing Grub to blow chunks. I haven't tried disabling it yet.

I would also be interesting in hearing from anyone who has gotten a linux distro to install in an nforce4 board with a 6600 GT video card.

I have the a8n and a 6600gt. I did the following to get x to start on FC3-x86_64:

1) Install FC3-x86_64 using text mode. type Linux text at install prompt. Upon completion of installation I pressed a key to stop grub from loading FC3 in init 5 and selected e to edit. Select line starting with kernel. Press e. at the end of the line type init 3. press enter. You will be back at screen where you selected line starting with kernel. Press b to boot.

2)Once logged in type cd /etc/X11 next type nano xorg.conf

Per the nvidia 1.0-6629 driver readme ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Li...629/README.txt :

"In the Module section, make sure you have:

Load "glx"

You should also remove the following lines:

Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"

if they exist."
My module section looks like this:

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type"
EndSection

I also changed the Device section. I set the driver to "nvidia" also added
Option "NoRenderExtension" "on"
Option "SWCursor" "on"

Without "NoRenderExtension" "on" I frozen image once x starts. without "SWCursor" "on" my cursor is messed up.
My Device section is below.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "VESA driver (generic)"
Option "NoRenderExtension" "on"
Option "SWCursor" "on"
EndSection

once the device and module sections are changed type ctrl x to save.

3) type wget http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L...-6629-pkg2.run
once this is downloaded type sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-6629-pkg2.run to install the driver.

4) type modprobe nvidia

5) type cp -a /dev/nvidia* /etc/udev/devices

6) type chown root.root /etc/udev/devices/nvidia*

7) type /sbin/init 5

This problem is caused by Corruption of PCI config BAR1 of native PCIE boards on 64-bit archs for a fix see https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2322


hope this was helpful
-dexim

dexim:

A most helpful post! My woes are over! Thanks.

- Q

Total Linux noob but been into pc's since the pc junior

tried to follow the directions but can't get into X11 can change directory to etc and if I do a dir I see X11 but if I try and change to X1 it comes up invalid. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Here is a link where someone had success installing Suse on the A8N-SLI. It's a bit cryptic for newbies like myself. Maybe someone else could post an expanded how-to here if they repeat the steps successfully.

dexim,

I tried doing what you said, but I can't install the Nvidia drivers because it complains about the kernel. Is there any way to resolve that?

Thanks,
Jimmy

I completed all the steps mentioned here (I have FC3 running on an MSI Neo4 nF4 board, a GF6600GT, Princeton Senergy LCD panel (DVI)). I can now boot properly (framebuffer works and the status messages are in graphics mode), log into X and use regular (non-3D) apps. I cannot change the resolution in which X is running, it looks to me like 640x480 or 800x600.
The MSI Neo4 has a Sound Blaster Audigy 24-bit sound processor on board which doesnt seem to be detected by FC3. Is this different from the normal SB Audigy?
I've seen some lines like this at bootup (from dmesg):
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 0 of device 0000:02:00.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 0 of device 0000:03:00.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 2 of device 0000:03:00.0
PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 3 of device 0000:05:00.0
powernow-k8: BIOS error - no PSB

lspci reports several "unknown" devices, including the SiI SATA controller, graphics card, ISA bridge etc. All the nF4 components are labelled "CK804"
The most odd thing is that for me the setup program ran in graphics mode... but the default drivers (vesa) would not recognize the 6600GT.
I also have been trying to run Red Hat's up2date to update the install, but each time it runs up to some point, finds missing files and then terminates. I'm now trying to update the missing files using "yum".
I updated the kernel using "yum" but when I try to boot that kernel, everything hangs at "Configuring Kernel Parameters" or something like that.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

OK, I found out how to get X to run at a different resolution, I changed the HorizSync and VertSync lines to

HorizSync 24.0 - 82.0
VertSync 55.0 - 77.0

These are for my Princeton Senergy714 LCD panel. I found that in Windows, it would show up as "Plug and Play Monitor", so I think that it is not reporting itself correctly when connected through the DVI port. Or perhaps the VESA driver (which FC3 had put in by default) does not allow the hsync and vsync to be probed.

Anyway, so I am now working af 1280x1024, I get ~10,000 FPS with glxgears. Strange thing happened, when running glxgears i could just barely hear a very high pitched sound coming from my box... I dunno what caused it. But wow, it's so nice to see X running at my DFP's native resolution :-)

I also got the new kernel to work, and finally upgraded all other components using yum. Of course, I remembered to re-compile the nvidia driver after booting the new kernel.

Now if only I can get sound to work...

jimgeorge

Is that using 3D?

my setup is this:
A8N-SLI + AMD64 3800 + MSI Geforce 6600 GTOC + Linksys Wireless G Pci card

I'm currently using Ubuntu http://www.ubuntulinux.org
download the hoary 5.04 version (preview as of today) i.e. hoary-preview-install-amd64.iso
it comes with the latest nvidia drivers...

at the boot prompt type "expert", this gives you the most control of the install
then, after it's finished installing, the xserver will crash and send you to the tty1 prompt...
login as root and :

#apt-get install nvidia-glx

then run:

#nvidia-glx-config

then restart the xserver:

#/etc/init.d/gdm stop

restart the server:

#gdm

and you should have gnome 2.10 running in full 3D+64 bit

if you want KDE, use synaptic and install the Kubuntu packages

some usb devices will refuse to mount b/c of some nforce4 problems but you can get around that with:

#modprobe --remove ehci_hcd

ALSA is a pain... honestly i can't remember what i did, but after much work i finally got it working...

most of my problems come from the kernel... but the final freeze of ubuntu hoary should take care
of that on April 6.

in order to get 32 bit apps working (cedega, flash player, etc...) there are 2 options...

this is the best article
i've read on both options

most help with ubuntu can be googled (of course) or found @ www.ubuntuforums.org

Thanks rdw200169.

Had a quick look at the site, and it looks very good.

I shall endeavour downloading it and give it a try.

One 500mb CD iso looks ok.

A bit smaller than other distros, but that's most probably down to extra software like games and Open Office etc . ...

I shall give it a go at the week end.

Thanks again.