[NTLUG:Discuss] Re:nForce2 problems (was Promise Ultra100 TX2...)

[Greg Edwards]

Darin W. Smith wrote:
> With ext2, that *can* be *very* unpleasant.  Only my boot partition (1 
> GB -- overkill) is still ext2.  I converted all the other ext2 
> partitions into ext3 and use reiserfs for a couple other partitions.
> 
> Check your syslog for messages like:
> kernel: ldt allocation failed
> 
> or for vmalloc_32(hex address) failed
> 
> These will be symptoms of having too much RAM with the nVidia graphics 
> driver and the framebuffer.  Obviously, my guess here doesn't apply if 
> you are not using the framebuffer or do not have >512MB RAM.  Chris Cox 


> 
> As I understand it, you are using the built-in nForce graphics.  That is 
> essentially a GeForce2, but with one important difference.  I think it 
> uses a portion of your system RAM as its video RAM.  So you must make 
> sure you have the BIOS setup right, and you may need to exclude that 
> memory from Linux.  I don't know for sure, just something I read 
> somewhere at some point while looking at boards with that chipset.  I'm 
> going to hold off a while before going for an nForce2 board and stick 
> with KT400.
> 

> 
> I'd suggest going up to 2.4.21, disabling the framebuffer, and making 
> sure that you understand where its memory is coming from.  Good Luck, 
> and keep us posted.
> 

I had switched all of my systems to reiserfs and after losing 3 
different systems I went back to ext2.  Each of these had a loss of the 
superblock so that even fsck couldn't tell what FS was on the drive. 
The ext2 FS may have issues when crashed but otherwise I haven't seen 
(or heard) of a FS being lost in years.

My logs don't have any clues in them, they just stop and the reboot is 
the next entry.

This problem exists on both the nForce2 and KT400 chipsets on ASUS 
boards.  Same exact problem on A7N8X and A7V8X.  I've been all over the 
net trying to find a solution.  It seems that some people (claim to) 
have it working while others don't.  I've had the same problem using a 
GForce4 Ti4800SE and a Diamond Viper 770 video card.  With 512M and 256M 
setups the same thing.  The only common threads seem to be AGP and the 
nvidia driver.

I have one of the A7N8X boards in a server that doesn't run a graphical 
GUI and it's been up for a couple weeks without any problems.  I've also 
got a A7V8X with the Ti4800SE and it's been up for about 3 weeks but 
running nv not nvidia.

For now I'll live with the nv driver but when I get some time I want to 
get this solved.  For the short periods of time that the system was 
running with the nvidia driver and this Ti4800SE card I was very 
impressed.  The driver out shines the nv driver by a wide margin, when 
it's not locking up the box!

If you'll send me that contact I'd appreciate it, thanks.

-- 
Greg Edwards
New Age Software, Inc. - http://www.nas-inet.com
======================================================
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