intel DQ965GF and nVidia PCI woes

[michael]

On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 07:55 -0700, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
> On 8/1/07, michael <cs at networkingnewsletter.org.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-08-01 at 15:26 +0100, Ian Malone wrote:
> > > On 01/08/07, Lonni J Friedman <netllama at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On 8/1/07, michael <cs at networkingnewsletter.org.uk> wrote:
> > > > > Folks, I'm new to Fedora so please excuse anything I'm ignorant about!
> > > > > Having said that, I've been Googling about and trying different things
> > > > > for a couple of days so I think it's now time to ask the experts (you!).
> > > > >
> > > > > I've got a new box, it's got a intel DQ965GF mobo, with 2 SATA disks
> > > > > (LVM) and came with Fedora 2.6.22.1-41.fc7 running on it. I wanted to
> > > > > put my old nVidia geForce fx 5200 (PCI card) into it to allow me to use
> > > > > both my TFTs. However, when I do this it gets to the GRUB menu, starts
> > > > > to load a kernel (is that the right phrase) and then falls over. If I
> > > > > leave the card in but tell the BIOS to use the internal graphics it
> > > > > boots okay. But when return BIOS to auto detect or explicitly use the
> > > > > nVidia card it falls over during boot. I've tried appending
> > > > >  acpi=off
> > > > >  pci=nommconf
> > > > > at the end of the GRUB boot command but with no success. Generally the
> > > > > failure messages say (at about the time there's agpgart messages):
> > > > >   general protection fault 0000[1] SMP
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm at a loss as to why it's not working!
> > > >
> > > > Most likely the motherboard was never meant to boot with an external
> > > > graphics card.
> > > >
> > >
> > > While I can't suggest what might be wrong (maybe see
> > > if it's possible to boot to runlevel 3: add the single digit '3' at
> > > the end of the kernel line), it sounds like the motherboard is
> > > happily starting up with the graphics card, and if the BIOS
> > > has an option to not use an add-on card then it it's natural
> > > to think the flip side is to use one.  Sounds like a driver issue.
> > >
> > > The OP doesn't have two displays plugged in by any chance?
> > > (And by that I mean two cables, even if they go to the same
> > > monitor.) The nv driver doesn't like doing dual-head.
> >
> > I'm pretty sure it will take an ext graphics card. It is indeed for
> > dual-head that I wish to use this card (I've used it and 'nv' (under
> > Debian) in the past.
> >
> > Runlevel 3 hangs... does some ACPI, does some agpgart then hangs. Can't
> > see an obvious error message
> >
> >
> > > But which driver?  From the initial description it sounds like things
> > > are going south well before X even starts up, and a graphics card this
> > > old has worked fine under vesa, nv & nvidia X drivers for ages now.
> > >
> >
> > yes, it's before we get to X. I'm wondering if its a detection of SATA and PCI issue...
> >
> > anybody out there got this mobo and used PCI okay or had to do workaround?
> 
> Have you verified that you're using the latest motherboard BIOS?
> 

I've just flashed the latest mobo BIOS and still the same problems...

> The system boots fine with the onboard video, but not with the
> nVidia card added, right? 
> 

that's correct

> Will the system boot Linux from one of the
> live CDs, or any other OS with the nVidia card installed?
> 

it will boot from certain other *installation* CDs... I'll try a live CD tomorrow...

>  Even
> though it should not happen, it could be the card is not compatible
> with the motherboard. (Or you may need a BIOS update...) Remember,
> there are more then one AGV "standard". (Different speeds, 1.5V and
> 3.3V cards, etc...)
>