Asus motherboard "M3N78-EMH HDMI"

[linuxnewbie]

Hi,

Does Asus motherboard "M3N78-EMH HDMI" works with LinuxMCE?  I tried installing it and it just blank out after reading the Kernel.  I also try to install Ubuntu 8.10 amd64 and receive the error messages as following:

[  0.004000] Aperture pointing to e820 RAM. Ignoring
[  0.004000] Your BIOS doesn't leave a aperture memory hole
[  0.004000] Please enable the IOMMU option in the BIOS setup
[  0.004000] This costs you 64 MB of RAM

..then it keeps generating reading error message.

Many thanks,
Newbie

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

Does Asus motherboard "M3N78-EMH HDMI" works with LinuxMCE?  I tried installing it and it just blank out after reading the Kernel.  I also try to install Ubuntu 8.10 amd64 and receive the error messages as following:

[  0.004000] Aperture pointing to e820 RAM. Ignoring
[  0.004000] Your BIOS doesn't leave a aperture memory hole
[  0.004000] Please enable the IOMMU option in the BIOS setup
[  0.004000] This costs you 64 MB of RAM

..then it keeps generating reading error message.

Many thanks,
Newbie

Did you try the LinuxMCE-0710 DVD installer? Its unclear from your post.

You could also try download the 810 Intrepid LiveCD and see if the CD will boot as a test.

All the best

Andrew

[khonshu]

I have this board and am using it successfully as Hybrid.

Install media:
DVD install, 7.10 RC 2, amd64

Hardware:
Asus M3N78-EMH HDMI
AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor
4 GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM

I have also added:
NVidia 7200 PCIe Graphics Card
Intel 1000 PT PCI-X 1x NIC

I originally purchased this board for duty as Living Room MD.  But had the reported NIC problem.  It would initially PXE boot, but would fail with NIC problems.  I purchased the Intel card, but have been unable to cause it to PXE boot.  If anyone has any experience with Intel's Boot Agent, what's the trick to enabling PXE boot?  I can not get it to show in the BIOS as an available boot option, nor do I get the PXE message during boot.  I have tried the Intel Boot Agent software, and using the dos command with switches to enable PXE boot, to no avail.

However, I have made this board work well as Hybrid, with Intel NIC, in single NIC configuration.  I have a Linux based firewall with DHCP server disabled.  I have modified my dhcpd.conf, dhcpd.conf.tpl, and interface files to support my firewall as gateway.  With my Linux firewall handling internet routing, and my LinuxMCE box doing DHCP.  My clients route correctly to the internet, and my MD's and other workstations pull DHCP addresses and PXE boot correctly.  I do prefer this, although it's outside the recommended setup.  In my experience, LinuxMCE does a poor job on routing.  My P2P clients, and many other download clients download at significantly lower speeds than with my firewall.

My system appears stable, although it's only been up for a day.  Running UI2 + Masking.

I will post again as I work to resolve my couple issues...

1)  NIC drivers...  then I can PXE boot this box, and use it as just an MD as planned.
2)  NVidia 8200 drivers for onboard video...  from other posts, just an upgrade of the NVidia drivers should resolve this.

[seth]

My system appears stable, although it's only been up for a day.  Running UI2 + Masking.

I will post again as I work to resolve my couple issues...

1)  NIC drivers...  then I can PXE boot this box, and use it as just an MD as planned.

Here is what you need to do to get it to PXE boot. I have the Asus M3A78-EM board. Follow my steps here:
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Realtek_8168#Asus_M3A78-EM

The key is to not try to build your own driver. Asus provides this, as well I would guess as the Nvidia drivers for your graphics.

After you have completed this, you will be able to PXE boot. I use this as my Living Room MD. I have the ATI graphics in mine, but I run close to the same Nvidia7200 card you do. I have ordered a DVI to Component adapter, and I intend to get the ATI bit working as soon as it arrives, as I have use for the PCIe 7200 card elsewhere 

If you follow the howto, the part I added, you should be PXE booting in no time, and have at least that bit sorted.

Best Regards,

Seth

[NJumlin]

I've got the ASUS M3N78-EM board.. I'm unable to get it to work..

Here's the steps I did:

Downloaded DVD AMD64 rc2.
Screen connected with VGA and also DVI. I tried both.
The graphics card is integrated gefore 8300.

The screen lost video signal right after I hit "Install LinuxMCE" from the DVD.

I went to my favorite pc store and bought a new graphics card - a GeForce 9 series.
Nothing changed.. I had the same problems with the screen loosing video signal.

I downloaded DVD i386 rc2. The installation started and the screen didn't loose video signal.
However the installation couldn't find any hard drive. I doubled checked bios to see that the hard drive was connected - and it was.
I changed from SATA mode to AHCI mode and the installation was now able to find the hard drive and started to install everything to it.
After it completed formating and copying contents from DVD to hard drive the screen went blank, black background and a cursor blinking.

So I waited for about 10-15 minutes before I decided to press CTRL+ALT+DEL. Next time I would boot up the computer grub couldn't load.
I received: Error 18
Which I read about here: Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS

So I went into BIOS and disabled LBA for the DVD-ROM... because I didn't have any options anywhere to change the LBA settings for the hard drive.
Next boot did work except that the screen went black and computer hung up after (I believe) it had completed booting.
I couldn't activate caps lock, num luck or scroll lock and it didn't respond to ctrl+alt+del.
This is were I'm shouting out desperately for help.

Niklas

[khonshu]

I would strongly recommend you purchase an NVidia 7 series card, if you intend to run this as a Hybrid.  I purchased an NVidia 7300 PCIe card on Newegg for around 30$.  The 7 series cards work well, and will likely get you up and running to the point you could update the NVidia binary, and likely get the 8 series integrated card to work.  I wish you the best of luck with the 9 series card, there's been alot of reported problems with the 9 series and Linux distros in general.  I do have an 8600GT in another MD and it works flawlessly with the 7.10 included NVidia binary.  I chose the 8600 card because of success stories posted on the net, it appears the 8600 is the one 8 series chipset supported well with the 7.10 included drivers.

I've experienced many of the video display problems during install, and the post install black screen while using the onboard video card with both amd64 and i386 versions of LMCE.  But with the 7300 and the Intel NIC, the 7.10 amd64 DVD install performs predictably.  I've had this board working as a Hybrid, with the 7300 card, and an Intel Pro1000 NIC, using the 7.10 amd64 DVD install, stably for 4 days.  I plan to reconfigure my network so that this box is PXE booted as MD off my original core as intended, later this week.  And from all research and posts, it appears this board will make a better MD than Core, as it will eliminate the need to use the SATA or IDE ports.  Although I have had no problems, installing to a WD SATA 2, 500gb drive, from an IDE DVDR drive.  I hope that it perform better as an MD only though.  Currently with a Phenom Quad core chip in it, and 4 GB's of 800Mhz RAM, HD playback is subpar.  Currently my 4800+ dual core with only 2GB's of RAM performs much more admirably.

I haven't had time to again reconfigure, but will post as I reconfigure things toward the end of the week/weekend.

[NJumlin]

Thank you for your response. I'm now considering to return the graphics card that I bought. Nite_Man successfully installed LinuxMCE 0710 DVD i386 WITH the integrated geforce 8300 card by booting to rescue mode and install the latest nVidia drivers. I will see how my luck turns out for that.

[khonshu]

Alright, I've followed the instructions on Realtek 8168 drivers on the Wiki.  I've tried initially with an amd64 image, and then later changing to i386.  I've walked my way through the steps a few times.  However I still cannot successfully PXE boot.  I'm getting this error:

...
config: eth0: SIOCGIFINDEX: No such device
config: no devices to configure
init:  can't open /tmp/net-eth0.conf
[blah-blah] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

It still does not seem to initialize the network driver.  Any ideas?

[khonshu]

I have confirmed the same problems regardless of build.  Originally I was testing this under amd64 build.  But have now tried with core and MD image as i386 and using the prebuild, link provided .ko file.  To the same error result.  It runs just fine as a Hybrid, but fails to be usable strictly as an MD.

One question.  Could someone clerify this instruction please?

for S and G's ran depmod -a again

...maybe I misunderstand this command.

[garg_art2002]

Did you try the LinuxMCE-0710 DVD installer? Its unclear from your post.

You could also try download the 810 Intrepid LiveCD and see if the CD will boot as a test.

All the best

Andrew

Hi there - I noticed on the http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/ASUS_M3N78-EM it says upgrade kernel to 8.10.  Are there simple instructions on how to do that?

Thanks much.

[pflegefall]

jip ;-)
http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Upgrading_the_Kernel


I'm sucessfully running LinuxMCE 710 single sided DVD installer... on ASUS M3N78-EM

In short what you have to do: (some of this is already posted in the wiki)

Add a simple PCI NIC to the board for the installation... You will need it to get Internetconnection for downloads during installation. But after installation you can remove it, because the onboard NIC will work ;-))

1. Changing the SATA mode in the BIOS to AHCI
2. Install from DVD (I choose 32bit, because there were some problem reports of other users using 64bit)
3. After reboot select recovery mode from Grub menu
4. upgrade to actual kernel with the link posted above
(don't forget to include the Intel HDA, the PHY drivers and the Realtek Network support.
5. compile new alsa (i chose actual one) everything works fine except of the Audio over HDMI (aplay -l shows the HDMI audio device but I can't hear sound)
6. install NVIDIA drivers http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_180.29.html

After reboot and configuring the LMCE just Flip the network cards in the Webinterface and remove the additional NIC...

and now the hard data: (:-))
nvidia driver: 180.29
linux kernel: 2.6.28.7 
alsa version: 1.0.19

only problem left:
No sound via HDMI (<- but I don't need it yet)

[greenhornet]

I would like to use this board as a diskless MD.  It looks like the solutions referenced above require both an internal HDD and an OS.  How can I get the board to PXE boot from the core?  Seth's instructions reference loading drivers so I guess that needs to be done on the core and it will then be able to handle the NIC on the remote MD.  Is that correct?