linux fails where windows works
 

Please can anybody help a desperate man?

I have an ECS K7VTA3 motherboard AMD 1.4G 256 DDR RAM. I also have an nvidia TNT 32 videocard. Linux freezes in X and command line mode after aproximately 10 minutes. Linux works perfectly for 10 minutes and then it just locks up keyboard, mouse, ... (only reset is possible)

I have red hat 7.1 and updated the nvidia drivers

Strange enough windows ME crashes only rarely (once every two weeks)

I can outrule heating, RAM problems because the system works fine in windows. I have changed the videocard to gforceII MX same results.

Please help!!

there's a bug in the AMD-AGP setup - it's not really a processor or a motherboard bug, the two just don't communicate properly - dylexic, sorta. it mainly manifests itself by corrupting paged memory with nvidia cards, and hanging inexplicably every so often.

if you use lilo or grub, then you can fix it quickly by using the

mem=nopentium

option at boot time. there should be workarounds in the next kernel release.

hey...
 

i had a very similar problem... check yur mb battery (a small lithium battery)... yud be surprised how changing this battery can fix a few things... i know that most A+ ppl will tell yu that the mb only has to do with a failed systems clock but its baloney...

check it out... this is prob whats wrong with it if yu have fully diagnosed vid card problems...

thanks for the responses, but ...
 

1
passing mem=nopentium at boot time did not solve the problem

2
If there is a problem with my battery on my mb how come that microsoft OS works fine?

Do you guys have any other ideas that might help? I would very much appreciate it, :p

lucky you, when I had windows it was all the way around, my linux rocked and windows froze still after 2 minutes if I didn't feed it with graphics intensive app (something like RTCW)

hopeless
 

I am seriously considering replacing my mainboard, I am tired of windows. Or is there still hope with this configuration?

greetings from belgistani

There are some strange bios things that could cause this..
I had a thing where linux would freeze on start up with my usb mouse and windows wouldn't..After mindless pluttering it turned out that the bios wasn't set to assign an irq for the usb port, windows didn't care but linux did. I've heard of people doing bios upgrades (not recomended) and solving strangeness..

If I was to take a guess I'd go for a problem with the nvidia driver install. Make sure you read the trouble shooting and AGP sections of the nvidia read me and download and run nv_check.sh to see if you have any conflicting openGL libs. Also do "cat/proc/nv/card0" to see what agp module you are using. The mem=nopentium option is only for kernels that have been compiled with the K7 options, a generic red hat kernel won't need this.

Wouldn't that only effect X?

Well yes....but that was what boots147 said the problem was....

As far as I could see he said it freezes in X and command line mode. Have you tried checking the log files to find out exactly what happened before the freeze. That might help you get closer to what is actually causing the problem. I don't know how much switching the video card helped on illiminating it as a video card problem since they both have similar chipsets.
I think your way out would be to diagnose each part of the os one at a time to make sure everything is working till you find the one which isn't. After finding out what is causing the problem you'd probably be a lot closer to the solution.

hi again
 

the nv_check.sh checked out ok
the cat /proc/nv/card0 resulted in
----- Driver Info -----
NVRM Version: NVIDIA NVdriver Kernel Module 1.0.2313 Tue Nov 27 12:01:24 PST 2001
Compiled with: gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)
------ Card Info ------
Model: RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro
IRQ: 11
Video BIOS: 02.05.17.03
------ AGP Info -------
AGP status: Disabled
AGP Driver:
Bridge: Generic Via
SBA: Supported [disabled]
FW: Unsupported [disabled]
Rates: 4x 2x 1x [-]
Registers: 0x1f000207:0x00000000
**************************************************
/var/log/messages I found out that the following messages was logged and 10 seconds later system froze:

kernel: usb-uhci: interrupt, status 28, frame#1739

could it be an USB problem, I do not have any usb devices by the way.

please reply again guys

.... to be continued

extra info
 

ok, I got confused I do have my printer brother hl-1230 plugged in my usb, altough I do not use it in linux (haven't got around configuring it because of the freezes)
there is also no sound because I do not have a driver for the onboard avance a97

here a grasp from /var/log/messages

sound problems
Jan 28 04:27:10 cable-myip modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-81
Jan 28 04:27:23 cable-myip modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-0
Jan 28 04:27:23 cable-myip modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-3

printer problems

Jan 28 04:27:41 cable-myip kernel: usb-uhci.c: interrupt, status 31, frame# 614

video card problems
Jan 28 04:27:08 cable-myip insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.2-2/kernel/drivers/char/agp/agpgart.o: insmod agpgart failed
Jan 28 04:27:08 cable-myip kernel: agpgart: Unsupported Via chipset (device id: 3099), you might want to try agp_try_unsupported=1.
Jan 28 04:27:08 cable-myip insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.2-2/kernel/drivers/char/agp/agpgart.o: init_module: No such device
Jan 28 04:27:08 cable-myip insmod: Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters
Jan 28 04:27:08 cable-myip insmod: /lib/modules/2.4.2-2/kernel/drivers/char/agp/agpgart.o: insmod agpgart failed
Jan 28 04:27:08 cable-myip kernel: NVRM: AGPGART: unable to retrieve symbol table
Jan 28 04:27:09 cable-myip modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-81

any ideas what to do now???

hi again
 

solving USB interrupts...
maybe I should do that bios update as suggested before....?

But I prefer not to do this unless it is absolutely necessary, :p

There are several things you can do, first your mobo has a KT266A chipset and support for that starts in kernel 2.4.9, so a kernel upgrade will help with that, also you might want to try with NVIDIA_kernel-1.0.2314 (you use it with GLX-1.0.2313). Another thing to try is changing the agp module from agpgart to nvagp, the details for that are in the AGP section of the nvidia readme.