Ok I been fighting with a maching setting up linux for a while now....

at the very begining I cound not install any linux distribution or boot up with a live version I would always get a IRQ error saying that no one cared.

then I found out that it was related with the PATA and SATA configuration on the BIOS. It seems that linux has issues with some boards managing IDE Drives and that option, if not well set confuses the kernel and can not operate.

now I have tried every possible setup config on the bios (when it comes to the PATA AND SATA option ) and now I can install the operating sistem and all but it freezes always loading the operating system or seconds after it loaded completely

have installed now Madriva 2006, Suse 10, Fedora C4 u name it ! they all have the same problem some of them dont even get to finish the installation

I dont know what to do anymore.

Gotta mention that I have changed the hard drive, DVD drive hehehe and same thing... and I have no problems at all installing Windows on that machine.

any1 has come across this?

any comment would be appreciated. thx !!

Try booting the kernel with the "irqpoll" and "noacpi" arguments

how do I do that? right now I have mandriva 2006 installed thx

Well, if mandriva uses grub, (from memory)

Reboot and when you have the little menu pop up press "e"
go to the line that refers to the kernel and press "e" again
now go to the end of the line and type "irqpoll" "noacpi" (without the "");
then press enter
then press b

This will not save the changes permanently but will let you do it as a one off to see if they help.

Regards
-Rob