New Installation Issues on an Asus M3N78 Pro Motherboard

[Caravaggio]

Hi everyone,

I've built a LinuxMCE box with an Asus M3N78 Pro motherboard, 2x 1TB SATA WD HDDs, and an Asus DVD+-RW drive.  Although there is an onboard NIC, I also have a PCI ethernet card installed.  Additionally, there is a PCHDTV 3000 card installed.  I'm a bit of a N00B with Linux, but this forum has helped.

A few notes on the Kubuntu 7.10 installation for this setup. 

1.  The OS only seems to install in Safe Graphics mode.  The vesa driver seems to work initially, but the nvidia driver does not.
2.  The onboard NIC and audio chip are not recognized by the kernel on the 7.10 iso.
3.  LinuxMCE installs with a few issues, but the graphics and audio DO work, you can go through the av and setup wizards, etc. 

After the standard LinuxMCE installation, I upgraded the kernel to 2.6.27 per the wiki page on upgrading the kernel.  I also updated to the latest NVIDIA driver (177.80), which allows the nvidia driver to work, the onboard NIC to be recognized (not sure it works, but it's recognized), and the onboard audio to be setup with alsaconf.

I thought things were going well, but there seem to be a few issues that I can't resolve.

1.  The internal HDDs work but they aren't recognized by LinuxMCE.  They aren't listed as devices and I can't RAID them in LinuxMCE.  They are formatted (ext3) and partioned, show up in system settings, and can be mounted manually.  I can manually add them as a device and they'll be seen by LinuxMCE.  Oddly, after I did this, the drive without the OS was detected and automatically setup by LinuxMCE.  Shouldn't both of these drives be seen automatically by LinuxMCE?  Does it matter that the LinuxMCE installation was done with both HDDs plugged into the motherboard?

2.  MythTV really doesn't like to work.  The MythBackEnd does NOT automatically load, so I need to start it from a terminal in the Desktop before the Frontend works.  I can scan cable with the PCHDTV card and create a list of channels, but there seem to be issues tuning some channels when watching live TV.  Some of that may be due to user error.  Does it matter that the card was already plugged in when I started the LinuxMCE installation?  Is there a way to force the backend to load when LinuxMCE starts up?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Caravaggio]

Dave,

"all_generic_ide" was not in the Grub menu before.  I added the line and rebooted, but it had no effect on LinuxMCE.  As before, Kubuntu sees the drives and I can mount them manually.  They just aren't autodetected by LinuxMCE.

Thanks.

[Zaerc]

LinuxMCE will not detect drives that are already mounted.  If they are partitioned and formatted they should be detected after a while.  To make a RAID device, check the web-admin and there are probably some instructions in the wiki.

Not sure about the other problems as Mythtv doesn't work for me at all, it could be collateral damage from the kernel upgrade, but I'm just guessing there.

[skatingn330]

I have the same motherboard and whenever i go to install kubuntu in safe graphics mode my monitor looses signal and stays gone for some time. I can hear the cd drive reading though. Did you use the 7.10 AMD-64 Caravaggio?

[skatingn330]

Nevermind Caravaggio, i got kubuntu 8.10 up and running on my HTPC. I will just wait for linuxmce 8.10

[Caravaggio]

Hey skatingn330,

Sorry for the late reply, not that it does you any good now, but...

I did use the 7.10 AMD 64 version of Kubuntu.  If I didn't install in safe graphics mode, the monitor lost and never regained signal.  If I did install in safe graphics mode, I believe I lost signal temporarily, but then the signal was regained.  When I installed, I was using an old CRT VGA monitor so I used the VGA port that comes with the motherboard.  I didn't use the HDMI port.

Subsequently, I have learned that the HDMI port had the same issues during installation, but that you can get the HDMI port to work as well once the OS is installed.

Between the original post and today, I reinstalled the OS and MCE.  I used a bootable 7.10 USB drive so I didn't have to boot from the cd, which saves a few minutes on the installation.  When I tried using the dvd drive to install outside of safe graphics mode, I also heard the drive running even though nothing was on the screen.

Things are working much better now and I have most things functional on the system.  I did upgrade to the latest kernel (2.6.27.something, I don't remember off the top of my head) and the latest NVIDIA driver.  I did NOT upgrade the sound drivers because the MCE drivers worked.

[nguyenst]

skatingn330,

you can try my route of install.  I have the ASUS M3N78-VM board.  I couldn't use the AMD64 install.  I had to use the i86 isntall although I have a 64 bit CPU.  If your motherboard's graphics card is not supported by the install you can use the "alternate kubuntu 7.10" install CD.

[skatingn330]

I think I'm just going to wait it out and just install mce 0810 whenever it’s finished. I got kubuntu 0810 running and I updated NVIDIA driver so the HDMI works without audio. I'm satisfied with using analog audio for now. Also the NVIDIA onboard NIC works fine. I believe I tried 0710 in safe graphics on a 19 LCD and I don’t have any CRT monitor at my house to try it with so that somewhat rules that option out for now. I just hope that the installation of mce 0810 goes smoothly since I updated the video driver, since it says it installs on a fresh install of kubuntu.

[skatingn330]

Hey Caravaggio,

I think i just let my patience get the best of me and i didnt waitout the blank screen on the 7.10 kubuntu 64bit cd setup. I got the 64bit setup cd running which is used to install kubuntu. I started the wizard and when i get to choose which harddrive to install on, neither of my drives are there. Did you run into this problem? and if so how did you install kubuntu from there. Also it doesnt detect my nvideo ethernet adapter like yours, but i have a second pci one installed which does.

[Marper]

Skatingn330

Man I had this problem as well and these guys did a good job helping with all kinds of support.  So KUDO's to them all.

Here are tthe things that worked:

1.  Set the BIOS to this board to all defaults.  I found that there was no need to change any of the SATA drive information.  Ensure that the IDE option is enabled.

2.  I did not use the on-board NIC - I like working with an add-in Card just in case.

3.  Upon install here is what I did:

     At the screen where you are presented with the option to install PRESS F6

     On the boot line do the following:

       a.  At the beginning of the line type in --  ACPI=off
       b.  At the end of the line -----  change Splash to Nosplash

press enter and let the system install.  You might see some errors and from what i was told these are normal.

4.  I used an external monitor - if you don't have one, I sugesst you use a DVI ---> VGA connector, if that is possible.  Also, I did not use the on-board Video.

I'm not one for all the tweaks and driver updates unless absolutely necessary and as I've seen more than  hundred threads indicate that in most cases video driver updates don't change much. 

I hope some of this helps move you in the direction to get this installed.  GOOD LUCK

[LustrousWS6]

Hey, all.  Sorry to resurrect such an old thread but I could use some help.  This is my first time dealing with Ubuntu and a completely blank (out of the box) hard drive.  The BIOS seems to recognize everything, currently has my WD SATA drive as primary slave or SATA 1... one of those... primary slave may be the CD-ROM drive. Anyways,  I've tried everything I can find, flashed the mobo with the most current BIOS version.  Furthest I got was to this screen and it just stops... currently using the previous poster's advise and trying to install in safe graphics mode.  Here's the screen it just hits a wall at:





Any help is much appreciated!

- Ryan

Not using the other stuff, just installing with safe graphics mode I get ACPI: Expecting a [Reference] package element, found type 0
Also, I get Apature beyond 4gigs - ignoring (comes up and off real quick just before the ACPI error, it's close to that).

[Caravaggio]

This is what I get for not checking the fora for, oh, 5 months or so....

First, per skatingn330 on Dec 23, I don't recall having a problem installing the OS to the HDD.  I had some minor problems getting additional drives recognized, but reformatting seemed to make this go away and they are detected.  Of course, now my drives have been detected about 27000 times, but they work.

Second, to LustrousWS6, I can't see the screen you're having problems with.  Can you get into the OS installation guide at all?  In the meantime, stating the obvious:  Are you using the correct 32/64 bit version?  Did the installation cd burn correctly (I ended up using a flash drive instead of a cd)?

[LustrousWS6]

This screen comes up (big slew of text, looks not quite similar, I've only seen Debian distros boot up.. this looked different.. but similar lol) after I hit Install Ubuntu WITH the changed parameters Skatingn330 suggested changing, as well as in Safe Graphics Mode.

I'm using the 64bit version - the system has a AMD 2200 Phenom Quad Core 64bit processor.

I'm hoping the disk burned correctly.  The MacBook I burned it off of checked the integrity of the disk after the ISO image burn and it checked out.  It went straight into the new computer's CD-ROM drive.  Ran a successful memory test if that means anything through the CD lol.

It could still be a bad copy I'm guessing.  I might be able to get my hands on a copy of XP, then I may not have as much problem installing Ubuntu as a second boot option.  I have no clue really, never set up a dual-boot system.  Just worked with XP and OSX.


Thanks for the response

 

[garg_art2002]

This screen comes up (big slew of text, looks not quite similar, I've only seen Debian distros boot up.. this looked different.. but similar lol) after I hit Install Ubuntu WITH the changed parameters Skatingn330 suggested changing, as well as in Safe Graphics Mode.

I'm using the 64bit version - the system has a AMD 2200 Phenom Quad Core 64bit processor.

I'm hoping the disk burned correctly.  The MacBook I burned it off of checked the integrity of the disk after the ISO image burn and it checked out.  It went straight into the new computer's CD-ROM drive.  Ran a successful memory test if that means anything through the CD lol.
 

I used i386 version and even wrote up a small wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/ASUS_M3N78_PRO