Linux-Hardware Digest #349, Volume #12 Sat, 26 Feb 00 15:13:07 EST
Contents:
Tyan 1854S motherboard..is it good (Chetan Ahuja)
Re: USB modem... ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Adding New Larger Hard Drive To Old Machine ("Karel Venken")
Re: New computer (Dances With Crows)
Re: 2.2.x SMP and DK440LX issues (Dmitri A. Sergatskov)
SB16 and Esound (esd) Problems ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: 2.2.x SMP and DK440LX issues (Rob Komar)
Re: WinTV tuner tuning problems.... (Lauren M Thoreson)
RE: TNT2 Clock Utility - Detonator 3.76 ("Pollytron")
Re: 3-button serial mouse (DJC)
FritzCard USB (root)
Re: Burned system!? (ajam)
Re: Burned system!? (ajam)
Re: Burned system!? (Anton Deguet)
Re: Burned system!? (Anton Deguet)
DTK (Jim Taylor)
Re: USB on VIA MVP4 (Compaq Presario) (Rod Smith)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chetan Ahuja <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Tyan 1854S motherboard..is it good
Date: 26 Feb 2000 16:52:07 GMT
I posted this a few weeks ago.. Just got a one response which
was not specifically about this board. So here it is again...
Hi,
I'm building a new system for a friend and I need some serious
recommendations about the motherboard. The main criteria are:
1) Not too expensive ( about US $100)
2) Conducive to a decent processor upgrade in a year or so.
3) Would like to avoid built on video,sound etc. etc.
and of course it should play nice with linux....
About a few months ago I thought I had a fairly good
grasp on the hardware market. That's no longer true at least as
far as mainboards go. There are so many new models all touting great
features etc. After some reading on websites, newsgroups
etc., the Tyan S1854 seems to be a goog bet. Apart from some reports of
not combining well with the voodoo cards ( which is not a problem
since it's not going to be a graphics intensive system ) it seems OK. It
can support 133 MHz fron side bus and should be upgradable to pIII
600 or so in a years time ( when the prices of PIII's should be
reasonable... right now building with a Celeron 400).
I would welcome any suggestions/advice etc on this topic. Is the
Tyan board OK. If not.. why. Any personal experiences. Any other
recommended boards satisfying the above criteria...
Thanks a lot
Chetan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: USB modem...
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 11:59:35 -0500
In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on 02/26/00
at 11:59 AM, Marvin Pierce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>At present, Linux does not support USB.
Reportedly, SuSE 6.3 (2.2.13) does.
--
===========================================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===========================================================
------------------------------
From: "Karel Venken" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Adding New Larger Hard Drive To Old Machine
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 18:07:55 +0100
I had the same question but I took the chance and bought a 18 GB disk. As
expected, my BIOS (DOS/WINDOWS95) only sees 8.4 GB, but I am able to use all
of it with Linux (Suse 6.2). As indicated, your Lilo must be below 1024
cylinders which is in my case 8.4 GB. However, I do not use Lilo but loadlin
from within the config.sys. I am not sure if you then still have a
problem...
mike wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>Hi,
> I have a five year old Pentium 166 box and have a 6.2 GB
>hard drive. I want to replace it with a larger one.
>I have heard that computers, especially older ones have
>limits on how large a hard drive can be recognized.
> How can I tell how large a hard drive my system can
>accept? (IDE Type)
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Mike
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dances With Crows)
Subject: Re: New computer
Date: 26 Feb 2000 12:42:55 EST
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 26 Feb 2000 16:51:19 GMT, Stephen Tawn
<<8990a7$2vqe$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> shouted forth into the ether:
>I am about to buy a new computer will the following spec work with linux?
> AMD K7 ATHLON 600MHZ SLOT A
> EPOX Slot A ATX VIA APOLLO 3DIMM 1AGP 5PCI 1ISA
Certain Athlon motherboards have had problems, both in Linux and WinXX.
What's the exact make+model of that mobo?
> Novatech 50x Max IDE CDROM Drive
Yech. CD-ROM speeds over 24x are marketing hype, those "50x" drives make
a hell of a lot of noise and spin down far too quickly, and their constant
spinning-up+spinning down actually makes them *slower* than a lower-speed
rated drive for many normal user applications. Not only that, but certain
"50x" drives don't work under Linux unless you have the latest kernel. Get
something slower; you might even save money...
Everything else should work fine, just get a recent distro that will
recognize that Voodoo3 card. You may need to pass the "mem=128M"
option to the kernel at boot time to get all that memory recognized. HTH,
--
Matt G / Dances With Crows \ In the MS-DOStrix,
There is no Darkness in Eternity \----\ there is no fork().
But only Light too dim for us to see \
===== Usenet: ceci n'est pas une guerre des flammes =====
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dmitri A. Sergatskov)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: 2.2.x SMP and DK440LX issues
Date: 26 Feb 2000 17:57:15 GMT
On Sat, 26 Feb 2000 00:42:23 -0800, Robert Redelmeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Dmitri A. Sergatskov wrote:
>> > the LX is. Is there some `wbinvd` being issued at SMP task-switch?
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> I do not know.
>
>`wbinvd` is a frightening (priviliged) instruction that causes the
>long-suffering CPU to stop, and write out _all_ modified data cache
>lines, and invalidate them. Takes forever to execute. IIRC, this
>is a terrible SMP hack that has been replaced by MESI cache
>architecture.
>
>Your BIOS/LX might be inserting this somehow, or Linux might if
>it doesn't recognize MESI capabilities in the LX.
>
Thanks for info. I still do not know if 'wbinvd' is being issued.
>> Alan Cox thinks that I have a problem with scheduling and the task get
>> (excessively) bounced between two CPUs. So, I guess, the system time
>> does come from scheduler.
>
>Why? IIRC, CPU task migration is inhibited by a fairly heavy penalty
>in the scheduler. If you run two copies of the task, do you still
>see the same system overhead?
>
Yes. I do not see much difference if I run 2 tests at the same time.
I will try to re-compile kernel with increased penalty and see if it
changes anything.
Another option as I mentioned before is to install 2.0.36 kernel -
this computer used to be fine with RH5.2.
Unfortunately, this computer is also an NFS server, so its downtime
is quite expensive which limits experimentation time...
>-- Robert
Sincerely,
Dmitri.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: SB16 and Esound (esd) Problems
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 17:42:40 GMT
Hello,
I am having trouble with my sb16 and "esound" under Mandrake 7 (2.2.14).
First off, the sb16 seems to be configured properly at x220,i5,d1&d5.
Sox and KDE's audio server work fine (and sound great).
However, I need to be able to play several sound files at the same
time (or at least queue them). So I looked at the "esdplay" command
which spawns the local esd daemon. It works, but sounds terrible (it
sounds scratchy / static). BUT, it does allow multiple sounds to play!
The reason I need this functionality, is that I have many system events
that generate a sound. Some of these events can occur at nearly the
same time and the Sox/play command will drop one of the sounds due to
/dev/dsp being busy.
I have tried several esound releases and compiling the sources.
Does anyone have any ideas? Should I be looking at the ALSA drivers?
BTW: My hardware is:
Soyo BX Board / Celeron 366
Sound Blaster 16 non-plug&play
Thanks...
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Rob Komar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 2.2.x SMP and DK440LX issues
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 00:07:04 -0800
In comp.os.linux.development.system Dmitri A. Sergatskov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Hello,
> I updated multiple dual-CPU computers to RedHat 6.1 and recently
> noticed that the computer built around Intel DK440LX (2X 333 MHz P-II)
> motherboard has some "problem" in SMP mode. All benchmarks I tried
> (MATLAB bench() or custom compiled Fortran code) are running
> significantly (almost twice, but varies) slower in SMP mode than in UP
> mode. In UP mode the numbers are the same as with similar system built
> on 440BX motherboard (also 2X333Mhz) and the same as they used to be
> with RedHat 5.2 (and earlier) and 2.0.x kernels.
> The simplest "benchmark" I tried is the following trivial loop:
> double precision x,y,z,sum
> integer i,j,k
> sum = 0.0d0
> do i = 1, 1000
> do j = 1, 1000
> do k = 1, 100
> sum = sum + real(i)*real(j)/real(k)
> end do
> end do
> end do
> write (6,*) sum
> end
> On LX machine 'time -v' gives: 11.5 sec. user, 5.5 sec. system (18 elapsed)
> and approx 100 page faults (in case it matters), on BX the same binary
> would result in: 11.5 sec. user, 0.1 sec system (11.5 elapsed)and also
> 100 page faults.
> The difference is even worse for memory intensive code.
Hi,
I have the same motherboard running dual 233 MHz CPUs, and here's what I get for
the above program:
15.650u 0.010s 0:15.65 100.0% 0+0k 0+0io 110pf+0w
The user time scales approximately with clock speed (maybe a little better
in my case), yet the system time is negligible for me. Here's my cpuinfo
(for one processor; the other's the same):
robpc1>cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 3
model name : Pentium II (Klamath)
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 233.140099
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
sep_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov mmx
bogomips : 232.65
I'm running a pretty well stock Slackware 7 system with a 2.2.14 kernel in SMP mode
(with no RedHat kernel patches).
Apart from your having more flags, the only other difference is that you're using
Deschutes processors and I'm using Klamath (what the board was originally designed
for). Could using a Deschutes processor be the source of the problem? RedHat
Kernel patches?
Cheers,
Rob Komar
------------------------------
From: Lauren M Thoreson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: WinTV tuner tuning problems....
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 18:27:01 +0000
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I've just bought a WinTV tuner, and have gotten xawtv to work with the
> composite input. However, since I wanted to be able to handle audio and
> tuning broadcasts, I tried hooking up the RF-in from a VCR. Now I'm not
> able to see anything but snow. I select channel 3 using xawtv, then set
> the VCR to channel 3, and make sure it's in the "VCR" mode. I even tried
> every permutatin of VCR/TV and input select. The tunner simply can't see
> the VCR signal.
>
> Could this be a probelm with the bttv drivers manipulating the card's
> tuner or am I running into some other problem?
>
> This is all on a PCI-based WinTV 404.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Make sure you have the i2c.o, bttv.o and tuner.o drivers loaded. I have a
WinTV Go card working fine with xawtv. (Couldn't resist the price) When I
recompiled my kernel with the bttv.o and i2c.o drivers selected I didn't
know there was a tuner.o driver. Apparently it is automatically created
with the bttv driver. So I had the same problem until I noticed that there
was a tuner.o driver. I loaded the tuner.o driver and everything started
working. I'm currently using Kernel 2.2.15pre10 and Debian 2.2. Good luck
Mike Thoreson
------------------------------
From: "Pollytron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.comp.hardware.overclocking,alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video
Subject: RE: TNT2 Clock Utility - Detonator 3.76
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 19:31:47 +0100
I dont remember but i will send you via email if you give me it, ok?
1,2 Mb zipped
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (DJC)
Crossposted-To: uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: 3-button serial mouse
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 17:34:34 GMT
On 25 Feb 2000 19:29:50 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Colin) wrote:
>A certain UK seat of learning (which shall remain nameless) once
>had the bright idea of glueing the pads to the tables to stop them
>being misplaced. Made them no end of friends among the left-handed
Why not name them, Westminster did that when I was there c1995, lets
here some other names.
--
Replies to the address above may be presumed spam.
Any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, worth
my attention should be capable of finding me at:
warwick ac uk / staff / David.J.Clark
------------------------------
From: root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: FritzCard USB
Date: 26 Feb 2000 18:43:54 GMT
Hello out there...
I have a fritzCard USB at my Main computer and want to put this to my
linux Machine. Is this AVW FritzCard USB supported with the newest kernel and such ?
------------------------------
From: ajam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Burned system!?
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 14:12:12 -0500
Thanks again for the reply. Like I said before, I'm certain it is either the BIOS
or the board, since I disconnected all peripherals + microprocessor from board and
I still did not get any beeping sound from the BIOS. It is my understanding that
the BIOS does not need the microprocessor to boot. Although the BIOS that I have
is Award, which supposedly has the least amount of beeping sound configurations
available, I believe that something should have happened at this point. Thus, I'm
on my way of getting a new board today. At least for me it is really sad to loose
a motherboard like this, but c'est la vie!
Cheers, ajam
Robert Redelmeier wrote:
> ajam wrote:
>
> > thanks for taking the time and responding to my question. I actually did all
> > that. The video board and everything else does not get recognized; the
> > speaker is not beeping; and after the power goes on, it won't off using the
> > switch. At this point, I'm pretty certain that the problem is the BIOS chip,
> > but will certainly prefer to hear other people's view on this matter. Blowing
> > a board or BIOS chip is not so uncommon. Thus, I wonder if anyone has run
> > into this problem before.
>
> I've had bad BIOS. But fortunately it has a protected boot-block and will
> boot from floppy (no PCI video, only ISA if I plug in an old VGA card).
> This is enough to reflash it.
>
> If your BIOS is bad and doesn't have the boot-block, then you are out
> of luck. You can try testing/reflashing your BIOS if you have an
> EEPROM programmer like ctFlash. Check the CPU and memory out on another
> board. But it's getting difficult to diagnose. AFAIK, a POST card
> will not help if the BIOS or CPU is bad. Shorted (PCI/DRAM/ISA) pins
> will also cause total "fail-to-start".
>
> -- Robert
------------------------------
From: ajam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Burned system!?
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 14:27:30 -0500
Thanks for your response.
I know. I've run into that many times, but this is a little bit different. I
know, even though I haven't open it, that the power supply of the previous case had
a short-circuit of some kind, because of sound and smell. No question about it.
The motherboard is an ATX type, therefore it literally manages the power switch
actions internally. (That is why, it does not want to turn off). I have everything
disconnected. At one point, I even took the microprocessor out to see if the BIOS
would do something, as in beeping. I inspected the microprocessor, and it does
not look cracked and there are no tiny burn marks anywhere. I also took the
motherboard out of the case, inspected it, and everything also looks okay. Thus, I
believe at this point that it should be the BIOS.
Cheers, ajam
John Hong wrote:
> ajam ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> : thanks for taking the time and responding to my question. I actually did all
> : that. The video board and everything else does not get recognized; the
> : speaker is not beeping; and after the power goes on, it won't off using the
> : switch. At this point, I'm pretty certain that the problem is the BIOS chip,
> : but will certainly prefer to hear other people's view on this matter. Blowing
> : a board or BIOS chip is not so uncommon. Thus, I wonder if anyone has run
> : into this problem before.
>
> You haven't by any chance got the IDE cable going into your HD on
> the wrong way have you? I've done that a few times myself, simply mistake.
------------------------------
From: Anton Deguet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Burned system!?
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 19:44:18 GMT
ajam wrote:
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> I know. I've run into that many times, but this is a little bit different. I
> know, even though I haven't open it, that the power supply of the previous case had
> a short-circuit of some kind, because of sound and smell. No question about it.
> The motherboard is an ATX type, therefore it literally manages the power switch
> actions internally. (That is why, it does not want to turn off).
I guess you already know that if you press the on/off button for about
10 seconds, it will pass the software "shutdown" to really shutdown ?
Anton
------------------------------
From: Anton Deguet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Burned system!?
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 19:46:43 GMT
ajam wrote:
>
> Thanks again for the reply. Like I said before, I'm certain it is either the BIOS
> or the board, since I disconnected all peripherals + microprocessor from board and
> I still did not get any beeping sound from the BIOS. It is my understanding that
> the BIOS does not need the microprocessor to boot. Although the BIOS that I have
> is Award, which supposedly has the least amount of beeping sound configurations
> available, I believe that something should have happened at this point. Thus, I'm
> on my way of getting a new board today. At least for me it is really sad to loose
> a motherboard like this, but c'est la vie!
>
> Cheers, ajam
>
> Robert Redelmeier wrote:
>
> > ajam wrote:
> >
> > > thanks for taking the time and responding to my question. I actually did all
> > > that. The video board and everything else does not get recognized; the
> > > speaker is not beeping; and after the power goes on, it won't off using the
> > > switch. At this point, I'm pretty certain that the problem is the BIOS chip,
> > > but will certainly prefer to hear other people's view on this matter. Blowing
> > > a board or BIOS chip is not so uncommon. Thus, I wonder if anyone has run
> > > into this problem before.
I had once a memory failure which totally blocked the motherboard, not
even a simple beep. I would bet that you also tried without memory.
Anton
------------------------------
From: Jim Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: DTK
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 13:45:51 -0600
Are there any known issues with DTK brand computers running Linux?
Thanks,
Jim
------------------------------
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rod Smith)
Subject: Re: USB on VIA MVP4 (Compaq Presario)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.portable
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 19:51:26 GMT
[Posted and mailed]
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
mpierce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Rod Smith wrote:
>>
>> I recently acquired a Compaq Presario 1200-XL106 notebook computer. This
>> machine uses a VIA MVP4 chipset. I've been trying to get USB working on
>> this machine using the 2.3.4x kernel series, with no luck. Whenever I try
>> loading the uhci.o or usb-uhci.o module, the system hangs.
...
>> I have no problems with any of this on
>> a desktop computer that uses a VIA MVP3 chipset.
>
> It is my understanding that Linux does not yet support the USB.
Your understanding is incomplete. As can be inferred from my post, there
is USB support in the 2.3.x kernel series. It's not exactly mature, but it
does exist, and I use it on a desktop computer (actually on two, one being
an iMac that relies upon USB support for keyboard and mouse).
--
Rod Smith, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux networking & WordPerfect for Linux
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Hardware Digest
******************************
