On Saturday 29 December 2001 02:23, Wes Gregg wrote: | I have read several references that stated we need to only use a | (BEEFY) AMD-approved power supply. Especially with the faster/newer | AMDs and video cards as they draw lots of wattage. Also with more ram, | bigger/faster spinning drives, extra pci cards.
I've learned so much more about hardware since I started using linux! (about 6 months). Trouble is, I bought most of my current hardware when I was still using windoze. I'm not sure what the power supply is (too lazy to pull the covers off) - I just asked for a good/suitable 350W (IRC) power supply. Jeez, I thought I bought decent hardware at the time but it seems that almost my entire system is crap. mobo: Soltek SL-75KAV w KT133A Northbridge and 686B Southbridge chipset - thankfully Mandrake have provided workarounds. cpu: AMD 1GHz - known AMD probs monitor: Philips 107S - driver probs. hd: IBM Deskstar DTLA 307060 60GB - known problems (something about not lasting all that long from someone in NZLUG). hd: Quantum Bigfoot CY6480A 6.4GB - no probs cdrw: HP 9310i which supposedly die after x # of burns. graphics: nVidia geforce GTS2 Pro 64MB - driver probs for 3D accel but thats a closed source prob. sound: Creative SB Live! 5.1 - centre speaker doesn't work (not even properly in windoze!) printer: HP Deskjet 670C - printing looks pretty crappy - not crisp. floppy: old? - no probs cdrom: Matsushita - no probs modem: Swann Speed Demon 56K external serial - no probs Sounds like I'm bleating - but I'm not, I think linux is awesome. And I think Mandrake are doing a fine job! When I get another pc, I will choose the components VERY carefully but I guess its the same old story, if the manufacturers don't co-operate with open source then linux developers still do the best they can. I think they're amazing with what has been achieved so far. | I don't _seem_ to have | any ps-related problems, but I only have a cheap 16meg TNT agp card and | one pci card (cheap sound) and one isa card (my usr sportster 33.6 voice | modem since my 56k pci modem uses Conexant's HCF drivers. They say on | their website they will have Linux drivers for it by the end of the year | but <looks at calendar and shakes head>...). Yeah, I had a 56K pci Conexant modem which I yanked out and replaced with an external serial modem. Can't even give the Conexant modem away (to windoze users) as it only works on cpus => 500MHz and everyone I know have approx 200MHz cpus. | I assume you've been through the nVidia drivers with a fine-toothed | card. I also assume if it is an Abit mobo you have tried turning off | AGP to see if that takes care of it. Read a reference that some of | their older mobos wouldn't work properly with AGP - that they discovered | this while developing their own nVidia-based video cards. Apparently it | has something to do with power, as they say there are a handful of power | supplies that overcome this problem (somehow). I tried turning off AGP in bios. I tried turning video shadowing and caching on/off in bios also, to no avail. I updated the bios a few months back. | Hey. I think I read something about this situation on (possibly) | nVidia's linux forum. Could have been Mandrake User forum. It might | have something to do with that "depmod a" command, but I don't think so | (my memory is faultier than my computer's). I tried the depmod -a command and rebooting each time after installing the nvidia drivers : ( | I bought my monitor in 1994 - all I can use are the generic drivers. | Which brings to mind something I've been wondering about since my first | install at the first of the month: | | Does anyone know the difference between "Generic SVGA" and "Generic | Extended SVGA" or whatever it is in the "Generic Monitor" section? Sorry, can't help you there. I wouldn't have a clue but now you've got me curious so I'll try to find out what I can. | I hope you get it all worked out before you get tired of trying. | Another question: My box (Mandrake Linux 8.1 Powerpack) says I have | kernels 2.4.8 and 2.2.19. But when I installed (over and over) I never | saw a place for choosing kernels. It seems I have 2.4.8.26 installed | automatically? During installation the enterprise kernel was automatically installed for me (2.4.8-26mdkenterprise) - obviously because of the amount of ram. But you can download another kernel and install it alongside your current kernel (rpm -ivh kernel 2.4.x-xxmdk.i586.rpm) until you are happy that everything is OK then remove your old kernel. It really isn't difficult at all but there are a few other things to do other than just installing the new kernel. If you need more info on this just post to the list or email me directly. Actually there was a lot of discussion and very helpful information (from Tom Brinkman and others) a little while back so its in the mailing list archives as well. Thanks for your suggestions Wes. I'll check out the power supply in the next few days. And sorry for the long post everyone. skinky -- But what ... is it good for? (Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip)
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