I am trying to use an older Gigabyte motherboard with a AMD 690V chipset to run Linux with VirtualBox. It had been running XP x64 fine. When I tried Ubuntu 12.04 x64 it would just hang. I had to boot with ACPI=off to get the live to run. Both desktop and server did this. Using an older 10.04.2 x64 did work OK, but Mint 13,Fedora 17 and some SUSE did not. XP and FREEBSD 8.2 install OK.
I would rather not put ACPI=off as a perminant boot option. Nor to I want to go back to some Windows version.
Why the ACPI problem on the newer versions of Linux? And is it all newer distos?
I could go back to Ubuntu 10.04.2 or even an 8.x release. But I am concerned about VirtualBox issues.
If a new Linux release is impossable, the I will try FREEBSD 9

hi

altho you have narrowed it down to a boot code for power management, I feel, without having your hardware it is more likely to be video card issues with either the driver or with plymouth....which is the kernel splash program ubuntu* family tend to use.

2) so even tho you may have....can you retry but use the 'safe graphics' option that normally is available on good distros

3) if I am right or even if I am wrong....can you post your specs such as for command

I am interested in your video card specs.

4) Also I assume you know that bios has settings for power management that need to be enabled?

5) on any distro that works can and not works can you compare this command and post the results pls

cat /proc/interrups

I post my output so you see what I am looking at

6) on my host which is debian....a number of distros refuse to boot in vbox without using safe graphics....but that relates to
again....the bios setup in vbox and its allegedly video card it reports to the distro booting up

here is the data requested.
Also there is little in the BIOS for APCI


From an install of 12.04 x64 booted with apci=off and nomodeset

-------------------- lspci -v ----------------------------------

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690 Host Bridge
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5000
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 99
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=68
I/O behind bridge: 0000e000-0000efff
Memory behind bridge: fde00000-fdffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d8000000-00000000dfffffff
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel modules: shpchp

00:12.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device b002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 22
I/O ports at ff00 [size=8]
I/O ports at fe00 [size=4]
I/O ports at fd00 [size=8]
I/O ports at fc00 [size=4]
I/O ports at fb00 [size=16]
Memory at fe02f000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ahci

00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 USB (OHCI0) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
Memory at fe02e000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 USB (OHCI1) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
Memory at fe02d000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 USB (OHCI2) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at fe02c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.3 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 USB (OHCI3) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
Memory at fe02b000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.4 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 USB (OHCI4) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at fe02a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 19
Memory at fe029000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd

00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 13)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology GA-MA770-DS3rev2.0 Motherboard
Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel
I/O ports at 0b00 [size=16]
Memory at fed00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
Kernel modules: sp5100_tco, i2c-piix4

00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 IDE (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H Motherboard
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
I/O ports at 01f0 [size=8]
I/O ports at 03f4 [size=1]
I/O ports at 0170 [size=8]
I/O ports at 0374 [size=1]
I/O ports at f900 [size=16]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: pata_atiixp
Kernel modules: pata_atiixp

00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device a002
Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 40
Memory at fe024000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5001
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0

00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
Flags: bus master, VGA palette snoop, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=64
I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: fdd00000-fddfffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: fdc00000-fdcfffff

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
Flags: fast devsel

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
Flags: fast devsel
Kernel modules: amd64_edac_mod

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: k8temp
Kernel modules: k8temp

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS690 [Radeon X1200 Series] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device d000
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at d8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Memory at fdff0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
I/O ports at ee00 [size=256]
Memory at fde00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel modules: radeon

02:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology GA-MA69G-S3H Motherboard
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 23
I/O ports at de00 [size=256]
Memory at fddff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at fdc00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169


--------------------- /proc/interrupts ------------------

CPU0 CPU1
0: 70 0 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 2 254 IO-APIC-edge i8042
2: 0 0 XT-PIC-XT-PIC cascade
7: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge
8: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc0
12: 3248 127 IO-APIC-edge i8042
14: 39 1315 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp
15: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp
16: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb2
17: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci_hcd:usb5
18: 0 303 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb4, ohci_hcd:usb6, radeon@pci:0000:01:05.0
19: 2375 555 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1
22: 13460 2360 IO-APIC-fasteoi ahci
23: 4081 85 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth0
40: 1980 760 PCI-MSI-edge snd_hda_intel
NMI: 23 21 Non-maskable interrupts
LOC: 327925 327856 Local timer interrupts
SPU: 0 0 Spurious interrupts
PMI: 23 21 Performance monitoring interrupts
IWI: 0 0 IRQ work interrupts
RES: 17092 22114 Rescheduling interrupts
CAL: 243 193 Function call interrupts
TLB: 867 1387 TLB shootdowns
TRM: 0 0 Thermal event interrupts
THR: 0 0 Threshold APIC interrupts
MCE: 0 0 Machine check exceptions
MCP: 5 5 Machine check polls
ERR: 1
MIS: 0


--------------------- from an install of 10.4.2 -------------

lspci - v

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5000
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32

00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx)
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 99
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=68
I/O behind bridge: 0000e000-0000efff
Memory behind bridge: fde00000-fdffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d8000000-00000000dfffffff
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel modules: shpchp

00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA (prog-if 01)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device b002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 22
I/O ports at ff00 [size=8]
I/O ports at fe00 [size=4]
I/O ports at fd00 [size=8]
I/O ports at fc00 [size=4]
I/O ports at fb00 [size=16]
Memory at fe02f000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ahci
Kernel modules: ahci

00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0) (prog-if 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
Memory at fe02e000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1) (prog-if 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
Memory at fe02d000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2) (prog-if 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at fe02c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3) (prog-if 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 17
Memory at fe02b000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4) (prog-if 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at fe02a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI) (prog-if 20)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5004
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 19
Memory at fe029000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd

00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 13)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 4385
Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel
I/O ports at 0b00 [size=16]
Memory at fed00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
Kernel modules: i2c-piix4

00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5002
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
I/O ports at 01f0 [size=8]
I/O ports at 03f4 [size=1]
I/O ports at 0170 [size=8]
I/O ports at 0374 [size=1]
I/O ports at f900 [size=16]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: pata_atiixp
Kernel modules: pata_atiixp

00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device a002
Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
Memory at fe024000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 5001
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0

00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (prog-if 01)
Flags: bus master, VGA palette snoop, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=64
I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: fdd00000-fddfffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: fdc00000-fdcfffff

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: <access denied>

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
Flags: fast devsel

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
Flags: fast devsel
Kernel modules: amd64_edac_mod

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
Flags: fast devsel
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: k8temp
Kernel modules: k8temp

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 [Radeon X1200 Series]
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device d000
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
Memory at d8000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Memory at fdff0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
I/O ports at ee00 [size=256]
Memory at fde00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: radeon
Kernel modules: radeon

02:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device e000
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 23
I/O ports at de00 [size=256]
Memory at fddff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at fdc00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169

---------------------------- /proc/interrupts ---------------------------

CPU0 CPU1
0: 27 4 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 172 25 IO-APIC-edge i8042
3: 0 4 IO-APIC-edge
4: 0 4 IO-APIC-edge
7: 1 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0
8: 0 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc0
9: 0 2 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi
12: 1 3829 IO-APIC-edge i8042
14: 7 18117 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp
15: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp
16: 432 703 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb2, HDA Intel
17: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci_hcd:usb5
18: 858 605 IO-APIC-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb4, ohci_hcd:usb6, radeon
19: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1
22: 4 9067 IO-APIC-fasteoi ahci
23: 923 51 IO-APIC-fasteoi eth0
NMI: 0 0 Non-maskable interrupts
LOC: 20106 31988 Local timer interrupts
SPU: 0 0 Spurious interrupts
PMI: 0 0 Performance monitoring interrupts
PND: 0 0 Performance pending work
RES: 22480 17541 Rescheduling interrupts
CAL: 35 75 Function call interrupts
TLB: 489 373 TLB shootdowns
TRM: 0 0 Thermal event interrupts
THR: 0 0 Threshold APIC interrupts
MCE: 0 0 Machine check exceptions
MCP: 4 4 Machine check polls
ERR: 1
MIS: 0

ok you appear to have an error in interrupts but we can see that power management is possible as you last output shows ...9: 0 2 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi

lets review your bios/hardware

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_690_chipset_series

bits that interest me are...
does this look like your model?

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=2500#ov

if so read page 39 (optional download the lot)
http://download.gigabyte.asia/FileLi...a69vm-s2_e.pdf

you have a power management bios setup

2) there appears in my wiki link to be issues with sata drives....do you have such a beast?

3) there appears in my wiki link to be issues with msi

so reboot and try bootcode msi=off

good luck

Yes that is my Gigabyte motherboard!

I just tried to boot the 12.04 install with msi=off and it aborted right away - dispaying trace data (?)

to be sure I am doing this correct:
- shift key at boot
- "e" to edit the boot Linux line
- at the end of the line that has ... splash $vt_handoff
- I add msi=off
- so line now ends with ...splash $vt_handoff msi=off
- ctl-x to boot

I tried it a few times with no luck.. then I tried it with after $vt_handoff the apci=off and nomodeset - which worked ok

hmm can you post your full boot loader menu....ubuntu should be grub2

but not sure why they have added $vt_handoff

a virtual terminal setting which I am not aware of....hmm it looks like ubuntu use it for its kernel splash

2) do you have plymouth or any kernel splash program running?

3) you never replied to my safe graphics question....now more important eh?

so can you pls

I give up!
But by safe graphics mode ...if that ment to boot "recovery mode" then yes I tried that this morning. It displayed a screen full of info then just hung!
And by now I have pretty much soured on Ubuntu. It has become more complex then it needs to be. And I have used Linux distros on and off since Rel .99 from SLS!
So instead of VBox on a Ubuntu host I tried Citrix XenServer 6 and to my surprise it loaded clean.

I thank you for all your effort helping me.
I still run Mint 9 on two laptops and love Linux, just not Ubuntu at this time.

no recovery mode is quite the term I would use....but when it booted I should have asked for you to check what module for vga loaded,
meaning not radeon but vesa

don't shoot the messenger but in future you may like to reconsider buying laptops with amd cards.

the closed source drivers are allegedly crap and open source may not be getting any better.

vesa of course, will be 2d effect

2) if on booting up you see a splash hiding the kernel messages, that is likely to be plymouth and it can cause problems with video cards.
I don't run it.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ubuntu-827422/

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/37

I notice the last comment is from amd user