Hello there!

I have an MSI motherboard (MS-6577). It came with my new computer (an HP a705w).

Anyway, It has worked fine with Windows, but with Linux I've had nothing but trouble. I got a new GeForge4 MX 4000 and installed it, disabled onboard in BIOS and set the shared memory to 512K. When I start installing any Linux distros I get all kinds of errors... mostly

not syncing: attempted to kill init

my specs are...

80GB WD HD
512 MB DDR RAM (testing with memtest now)
Nvidia GeForce 4 MX 4000 Graphics
DVDRW drive
Generic Flopppy

At which point during your Linux install do you start getting these errors?

A friend of mine had a similar problem. I did a little research and if you start and install it with acpi off then it will work.


'linux acpi=off' seemed to work with Fedora Core, and Knoppix..well..'knoppix acpi=off' of course..for ..yea.. good luck



Sorry for late post.. later is better then never they say.

Reading ihartmacz initial post is like looking in a mirror for me!

Here are my specs: HP Pavilion a705w
MSI MS-6577 Rev 4.0 microATX (Giovani2) w/ 3 PCI 0 AGP, i845GV/ICH4,
onboard sound (Realtek AC'97 Audio),
onboard Ethernet (Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC),
onboard video (Intel 82846G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller),
Celeron 2.93 GHz, 768MB DDR PC2700,
eVGA GeForce4 4000MX 128MB PCI,
200GB WD EIDE,
TSSTcorp CDW/DVD TS-H492A,
USB 9-in-1 cardreader(Northstar Systems uses Alcor Micro chipset),
generic floppy

I can boot Knoppix 3.6 and Knoppix 3.7 with "knoppix apci=off". However I have been having massive problems with booting distros who have gone to the 2.6.x Linux kernel.

Since Knoppix 3.7 is known to work with the above and has the Linux 2.6.9 kernel accessible via "knoppix26" I thought I'd give that a go. I tried "knoppix26 acpi=off" which crashes just after the Autoconfigure whirling line gets to the end and says "Done". At this point it advances a line on the screen and moves to the middle of that line. There she just sits like a great lump, and I have to unplug it due to the on/off switch no working (noapm should take care of that maybe?)

Knoppix 3.8.2 crashes in the same way. Any ideas?

Edit: I am able to boot Knoppix 3.8.2 with the following boot parameters "knoppix acpi=off dma nohwsetup". It seems if I exclude the nohwsetup the above happens. With nohwsetup it uses /etc/modules and doesn't run /sbin/hwsetup it seems. I don't have network or sound, but I do have a mouse and xFree comes up.

MSI MS-6577 Rev 4.0 microATX (Giovani2) w/ 3 PCI 0 AGP, i845GV/ICH4,
onboard sound (Realtek AC'97 Audio),
onboard Ethernet (Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC),
onboard video (Intel 82846G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller),
Celeron 2.93 GHz, 512MB DDR PC2700,
ATi 9200 Radeon SE,
160GB WD EIDE,
TSSTcorp CDW/DVD TS-H492A,
/* Not installed */ USB 9-in-1 cardreader(Northstar Systems uses Alcor Micro chipset)
generic floppy

Thats mine now... lol

anyway, this is what I get from Fedora core 4. ACPI=OFF and NOAPIC.

http://img422.imageshack.us/img422/7508/p10100301ej.jpg

edit:// This motherbaord actually is supposed to have an AGP slot. There are aolder points where it's supposed to go.

From the Intel website concerning the i845GV chipset:

"Would a board designed for the Intel 845G Chipset also support the Intel 845GV chipset?
"The 845GV chipset uses the same footprint as the 845G chipset. Both are virtually identical, except that 845GV does not have an external AGP port.

"Boards designed for the 845G chipset can support 845GV. If the board has an AGP port, it will be unusable with the 845GV chipset."

Link: http://www.intel.com/design/support/...pset/845gv.htm

Another interesting point mentioned is the similarity or the i845GV chipset to the i815 chipset. Not sure if this helps us or not, but some distributions have special boot parameters for the i810 chipset.

I find it quite interesting I'm not allowed to post this link in the forum for this problem, but here's a version of it without the prefix:

Link: forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=944409


A gentleman was trying to install RedHat ES 4.1 onto an HP a705w. It failed even with the acpi=off parameter.

One answer mentions turning off the power management in the BIOS, but I didn't see this option available in the a705w BIOS I am using.

Another answer, from Steven E Protter, is:

"Your hardware is not Linx friendly.

FC3 has some more advanced, and possibly unstable hardware support in it. Functionally you will find FC3 is very similar to ES 4.1. If my suspicions are correct however, you may find Linux on that hardware unstable for day to day use."

With the release of Frenzy 1.0 (FreeBSD-based) LiveCD, I just couldn't resist a try. It booted in my HP Pavilion a705w mentioned above with no problems whatsoever.

I have to wonder why, as well as what are the Linux distros not doing or have moved away from.