810 kernel and nvidia combos.

[pigdog]

Hi all,

I've tried various kernel and nvidia combinations.

2.6.27-11 and nvidia-177
2.6.27-13 and nvidia-177
2.6.27-14 and nvidia-180

I don't know if I got better at it or was just lucky (finally), but the 14-kernel and 180-nvidia gave me the least amount of trouble.

I've had a few really good head scratchers.

Some I couldn't figure out so I just reloaded which fixed most problems.

Probably user error during installation.

One thing I did for the 14-kernel and 180-nvidia combo was have it all updated before installing alpha 2.7

Don't know if anyone else has seen this but during all setups/ all generics there was no audio during AVWizard.  (Core and MD's)

Once I ran AVWizard, set a volume level and restarted I had audio.

I've got more testing to do, some further setup tweaks.

I will post with hardware setups for Core/Hybrid plus both MD's.

I did see something flash by the screen on the 14-generic saying it did not support NFS.

Cheers.

[pigdog]

Hi,

I tried to do some tests with ATI video cards on my MD that is hooked to a CRT via S-video.

Unfortunately the S-video out on a X1650 AGP & 9250 PCI card did not play well with the TV.

The screen kept rolling/splitting and when trying to access BIOS setup - no colour.

I read a bunch of "how to's" using the cataylst drivers under windows to get it to work but that wasn't going to help me.

I did not download ATI drivers to the MD to see if it would work O.K. after boot up.

I figured that if I couldn't get into my BIOS settings it wasn't worth the time.

I put in a 6200 Nvidia PCI and all was happy.

Cheers.

[pigdog]

Hi,

Going thru my notes...

Something else I have experienced (multiple times) is initial login to webadmin via Konqueror.

I enter my Username/Password in lower case, select Login and get invalid username/password message.

I've had to goto the wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Reset_the_password_for_the_LinuxMCE_Admin_site and reset things.

Interestingly enough my Username is capitalized when verifying.

Just curious if any one else has seen this.

Cheers.

[pigdog]

Hi,

Another item.

The system I have hooked up to a CRT via S-Video has the following...

EP-8KDA3+ NVIDIA nForce3-250 Socket 754 with audio, SATA, 1GbE LAN
NVIDIA Boot Agent 201.0440
Nvidia 6200 PCI video card.

At this time the system has spawned twice.

Once with MAC address 00:04:61:FF:DF:FF:FF
Second with MAC address 00:04:61:FF:FF:FF:FF

There is a single on board NIC.

This is obviously related to forcedeth drivers.

Just to get this system to even PXE boot without failing has been interesting.

At the moment I'm just trying to work out a routine that provides consistent MAC assignment.

Prior to using this system Windows 2000 told me the address was FF's.

The BIOS reports the address as DF.

Sometimes it boots one way, sometimes the other. 

At one time it wouldn't boot if the AC97 audio out to the TV was connected.

Strange.

Oh well.

[ddamron]

Hi,

Another item.

The system I have hooked up to a CRT via S-Video has the following...

EP-8KDA3+ NVIDIA nForce3-250 Socket 754 with audio, SATA, 1GbE LAN
NVIDIA Boot Agent 201.0440
Nvidia 6200 PCI video card.

At this time the system has spawned twice.

Once with MAC address 00:04:61:FF:DF:FF:FF
Second with MAC address 00:04:61:FF:FF:FF:FF

There is a single on board NIC.

This is obviously related to forcedeth drivers.

Just to get this system to even PXE boot without failing has been interesting.

At the moment I'm just trying to work out a routine that provides consistent MAC assignment.

Prior to using this system Windows 2000 told me the address was FF's.

The BIOS reports the address as DF.

Sometimes it boots one way, sometimes the other. 

At one time it wouldn't boot if the AC97 audio out to the TV was connected.

Strange.

Oh well.

I've seen similar.  It seems to be related to nvidia based nics.  The solution is simple though.
Disable one of the nics in the BIOS.  That fixed it for me, on 2 systems.

BTW, you can thank Zaerc for that one, he taught me that at linuxTAG last year

Regards,

Dan

[pigdog]

Hi Dan,

There's only one problem..."There is a single on board NIC."

I'm getting 2 (two) different MAC addresses from one NIC.

There is nothing for me to disable!

Unless I install a second NIC which will not PXE boot and then I have to make a ROM-O-Matic or Grub boot.

I am hoping to come up with a work around.

I have mixed AMD64 and i386 architectures issues within my network.

However, thanks for your suggestion.  I always like to see that I've been read.

Unfortunately, I just want to use this almost perfectly good equipment without having to recycle, upgrade or buy new mobo's, cpu, memory, etc.

Unless it's a cheap Hornet or one of the newer variants that are "coming out".

I can only dream as far as the wife let's me.

Thanks again.

[ddamron]

Sounds like your onboard nic is bad..  It should only have ONE MAC address, unless you change it in linux.
I would suggest you try changing the cat5 cable, and see if that helps.  possible bad cable, if not, definately bad nic.

Those mac addresses don't look very healthy at all.. FF FF FF at the end is not good.

One other suggestion would be to check your motherboards firmware for an update.

HTH

Regards,

Dan

[pigdog]

Hi Dan,

I had already checked the cabling out.

It was a store bought Techcraft cable fifty (50) foot long / 15 m.

When it was hooked up to my 1Gig TP-Link TLSG1008D 8 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch I noticed that the led for a 10/100Mbps connection was lit.

I cut the ends off and crimped on my own RJ45 connectors at 568B standard and my 1000Mbps led lit.

I already updated the Bios ages ago to the latest.  The latest was from 05/02/2006.

Before I went to replace an old P4 1 Gig with this mobo & Sempron 2800+ I checked the system over with Win2K running at the time.

Win2K said the MAC was 00:04:61:FF:FF:FF:FF.

I never really had any trouble with this box before.

Before downloading LinuxMCE to the box I ran Fedora 10 Live CD on the box and did an lspci & other tools to record what was where and what version.

It told me the MAC was 00:04:61:FF:DF:FF:FF so I thought I had written the Win2K address down wrong.

Anyway, I have now found a routine that gets the box to consistently boot without generating a Kernel panic.

All I have to do is disconnect the audio connector from the back of the mobo to the TV.  (mobo built in AC97)

The system will boot up with the DF MAC address and when finished I plug the audio back into the PC.

Any other way and either PXE fails to boot or I get a kernel panic.

So, it works for now.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers.