[ale] Defective MoBo?

[Ron Frazier]

Scott,

Hopefully your luck will change.  I still think your motherboard may be
working, based on what you've said.  It could be a Linux driver problem,
or maybe an interrupt conflict when you plug in an external graphics
card.  I would definitely consider flashing the BIOS to the latest level
if you keep the board.  Also, boot a Linux live CD of your favorite
distro and see what happens.

Since you asked, I'll share a bit more about my MB.  I don't consider
myself a MB expert.  I listen to a podcast with experts on it though,
This Week in Computer Hardware ( http://www.twit.tv/twich ).  Frankly, a
couple of years ago, I had been wanting to build a computer for a long
time, and finally got my hands on some discretionary money.  I first
bought a Gigabyte MB from Fry's, not really knowing much about the
choices.  I returned it because I couldn't get the alternate boot
sequence from CD to work.  One advantage of buying from someone such as
Fry's is that you can return the product within 15 days without having
to ship it.  You can also extend the warranty for 3 years for a not too
unreasonable cost.

The MSI board I bought was one of several they had on display.  It turns
out to have been a good choice.  I have a general rule of not buying the
cheapest of anything.  Pretty much, every time I violate my rule, I get
burned.  The Gigabyte board was one of the cheapest there.  I would also
avoid MB's where the latest BIOS is version 1.0.  I decided I wanted to
go to the mid to upper price range.  The features of this board looked
very impressive, including the heat sinks and LED digits I mentioned
before.  It's a big board, with lots of slots, designed with an AMD AM3
socket for AMD CPU's.  It can take chips with power dissipation up to
145 W, which allows for the latest Phenom II X4 (4 core) and X6 (6 core)
chips if you flash it to the most recent BIOS.  It will also run the
Athlon chips, and possibly others.

I cannot say a whole lot about their "support" for Linux one way or the
other.  I'm running Ubuntu on it, and it runs fine.  However, there may
be features of the board that I'm not or cannot take advantage of.
Pretty much all their utility downloads are designed for Windows.
Things such as surround sound and HDMI may or may not work with Linux.
I've tried to use FireWire, and thus far, have been unsuccessful.  I
haven't pursued trying to get Linux support for those features to any
degree.  I did to a search for the word Linux on their site.  They make
a few Linux based computers.  A search for Linux on their forum led to a
number of messages, but I haven't read them.

One nice feature of this motherboard is what they call MFlash.  This
means you can flash the BIOS from a file on a memory stick, without any
operating system running.  This is very handy.

MSI has a bewildering array of products depending on what CPU, socket,
and chip set you want.  I searched their website for some with the
features I described.  I'm not sure I looked at every board, but only
found a few with the features I described, particularly the 2 digit LED
and the heavy duty heat sinks and heat pipes.

The board I have is the MSI 790FX-GD70.  It has an AMD AM3 socket, and
supports AMD / ATI CrossfireX technology for ganging graphics cards
together.  These boards do not have on board graphics.  It comes with a
nice assortment of accessories and cables.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/790FX-GD70.html

Their website is pretty impressive.  The board I have is a bit dated by
now, and the technology has moved on.  You might want to try their new
flagship product, which is the MSI 890FXA-GD70.  This more up to date
chip set might be important if you want extreme graphics support and
DirectX 11 support, etc.  They claim to use military grade components,
and while this may be partly marketing, I believe the components are
very good quality.

By the way, if you get something like a Phenom II X4 chip, assume the
supplied cooler is lame and cannot do the job.  When I first cranked
mine up, it pegged the CPU temperature at 62 degrees C within about a
minute, which is the limit for that chip.  I think the chip throttled
itself to prevent frying.  Note that the maximum temperature is
different for every chip.  I went to a Corsair H70 liquid cooling unit
and the chip never gets above 50 degrees C even under full load.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/890FXA-GD70.html

If you want to use an Intel CPU, I found the following board, although I
don't know anything about it.  The features look similar.  This is the
Big Bang-XPower board and has a Socket 1366 (Intel i7).  I think that's
the only kind of chip it supports.  This MB supports ATI / AMD
CrossfireX AND Nvidia SLI technology for ganging GPU's.  I've owned a
number of computers which came from the manufacturer with Intel chips.
However, for building computers, I lean toward AMD for price reasons.  I
have no experience with building computers with Intel.  Just based on
appearance, it looks easier to mount the CPU and cooler with AMD.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Big-Bang-XPower.html

One more thing that the ALE members might appreciate.  On the website
for the 890FXA-GD70, I find this feature, which relates to Linux:

quote -->

Winki 2.0

Winki 2.0 is a free Linux-based O/S which is based on the Linux core.
With an ultra-fast  booting speed and a multi-language interface, the
built-in Winki 2.0 provides an easy-to-use internet environment that
includes the most popular functions such as internet surfing, web mail,
instant messaging, picture browsing, and more. It’s the most practical
way to be online in the shortest time.

Features
- Power On and Run Applications in a Few Seconds
- Access Internet without Any OS
- Multi-language Interface Support

<-- end quote

I don't know anything about this, but I thought it sounded cool.

Hope this info is useful.

Sincerely,

Ron

On Sat, 2011-01-22 at 22:42 -0500, Scott Castaline wrote:
> Ron, I've pretty much done all of that all ready. The problem only 
> occurs during the kernel's initialization in the boot process, if I
> set 
> the BIOS to use any slot other than the onboard chip for boot. It
> goes 
> through POST fine, GRUB menu is displayed fine, as soon as I select
> the 
> kernel to boot it spews out several lines of the kernel initializing
> and 
> then stops. My guess is just before it gets to the entering LUKS 
> PassPhrase prompt. I was planning on trying a couple of other thins
> now 
> that I have the cable so I don't have to keep moving the TV over to
> hook 
> it up to my PC, everytime I want to try something else.
> 
> Anyway, about your MSI MoBo, which CPU is it for, AMD or Intel?
> Sounds 
> pretty good, I may even give ASUS another try in the future, but not 
> from any local sources, probably Newegg. I just can't believe the bad 
> luck I've been having, I feel like the little old man in the Lil
> Abner 
> comic strip that used to walk around with a storm cloud over his head 
> all the time. But then, if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have
> any 
> luck :-) 

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com