I installed the memory and the CPU and the motherboard and the new video card all together tonight. CentOS installed very nicely and I'm currently running the CentOS-Plus version, with which I _can_ access my Windows partitions. Well, one of the disks is getting flaky and I'm having trouble with it - of course, that's the one I need the most.
Glitches, with which I would be delighted to obtain feedback and/or advice:
1) In the boot screen, it tells me "CPU0 Memory information: single channel, 64-bits." I have 2Gb of DDR2 PC6400 (800MHz) memory - is this a problem, or does it mean something else entirely? (ECS NFORCE4M-A m/b, Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG)
2) While the system is booting up, it tells me: MP-BUG: 8254 timer is not connected to APIC What does this mean and is there a way around it?
3) CentOS does not appear to have the drivers for my video card or monitor. I have an e-GEForce 7100gs card and an Envision en910e monitor (yeah, that old 19" CRT that has been working fine for 3+ years). How can I get more than 800x600 (need 1280x1024 to work properly? And please don't say buy a new monitor - no money for that for a while....
4) Here's the bad part (sort of) - I can't boot my Windows any more. It comes part way up and reboots, whether I try to run Safe Mode (hahahahahaha) or Crashing (I mean Normal) Mode. The video card is different, and I thought that might be the problem, but it should come up in safe mode no matter what - no video driver loaded. (I also went from a P4 to an Athlon 64 X2 - could that be part/all of it?).
Some of this might be O/T, so please point me at the right place if so (except that last one - there is no right place for that stuff....)-;
Thanks.
mhr (aka mhull-richter@datallegro.com)
Mark Hull-Richter wrote:
I installed the memory and the CPU and the motherboard and the new video card all together tonight. CentOS installed very nicely and I'm currently running the CentOS-Plus version, with which I _can_ access my Windows partitions. Well, one of the disks is getting flaky and I'm having trouble with it - of course, that's the one I need the most.
Glitches, with which I would be delighted to obtain feedback and/or advice:
- In the boot screen, it tells me "CPU0 Memory information: single
channel, 64-bits." I have 2Gb of DDR2 PC6400 (800MHz) memory - is this a problem, or does it mean something else entirely?
Is it supposed to be dual channel - typically in my limited experience you have four RAM slots in two pairs. If you have two equal-sized sticks of RAM, they should be in same-coloured sockets.
otherise, it probably doesn't mean anything.
(ECS NFORCE4M-A m/b, Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG)
- While the system is booting up, it tells me:
MP-BUG: 8254 timer is not connected to APIC What does this mean and is there a way around it?
Dunno. Unless you get better advice, look for a BIOS upgrade. It doesn't look good.
- CentOS does not appear to have the drivers for my video card or monitor.
I have an e-GEForce 7100gs card and an Envision en910e monitor (yeah, that old 19" CRT that has been working fine for 3+ years). How can I get more than 800x600 (need 1280x1024 to work properly? And please don't say buy a new monitor - no money for that for a while....
It's not the screen, I'm sure of that:-) You could try various vga/vesa framebuffer drivers, they might work.
You could also try booting with VGA=794 (VGA791 if that doesn't work). It might not help X (but it might), but if it works, you will have very nice virtual consoles: I get 160x64 on my laptop.
- Here's the bad part (sort of) - I can't boot my Windows any more. It
comes part way up and reboots, whether I try to run Safe Mode (hahahahahaha) or Crashing (I mean Normal) Mode. The video card is different, and I thought that might be the problem, but it should come up in safe mode no matter what - no video driver loaded. (I also went from a P4 to an Athlon 64 X2 - could that be part/all of it?).
Backup the data (Knoppix helps here, or simply find the NTFS tools), and reinstall Windows. DO NOT reformat the partition, and do have a rescue disk for Linux handy:-)
Hopefully, Windows will sort itself out.
Some of this might be O/T, so please point me at the right place if so (except that last one - there is no right place for that stuff....)-;
Windows is definitely off-topic, and I've given too much advice already.
John Summerfield schrieb am 16.03.2007 09:23:
- Here's the bad part (sort of) - I can't boot my Windows any more. It
comes part way up and reboots, whether I try to run Safe Mode (hahahahahaha) or Crashing (I mean Normal) Mode. The video card is different, and I thought that might be the problem, but it should come up in safe mode no matter what - no video driver loaded. (I also went from a P4 to an Athlon 64 X2 - could that be part/all of it?).
Backup the data (Knoppix helps here, or simply find the NTFS tools), and reinstall Windows. DO NOT reformat the partition, and do have a rescue disk for Linux handy:-)
Only to safe your time: Try a repair installation of Windows. If you change the MB chipset (e.g. from VIA to Nvidia or from an Intel to an AMD chipset), windows will get a bluescreen because it the windows-kernel expects the old chipset.
But John has right, this isn't a windows-list :-)
Greets René
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of John Summerfield Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 1:23 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] Fun with CentOS and Windows
Is it supposed to be dual channel - typically in my limited experience you have four RAM slots in two pairs. If you have two equal-sized
sticks
of RAM, they should be in same-coloured sockets.
That explains it.
Dunno. Unless you get better advice, look for a BIOS upgrade. It
doesn't
look good.
Doesn't seem to affect the system, but I'll keep eyes on it.
It's not the screen, I'm sure of that:-) You could try various
vga/vesa
framebuffer drivers, they might work.
Not sure what that means.
You could also try booting with VGA=794 (VGA791 if that doesn't work). It might not help X (but it might), but if it works, you will have
very
nice virtual consoles: I get 160x64 on my laptop.
Ok....
Backup the data (Knoppix helps here, or simply find the NTFS tools),
and
reinstall Windows. DO NOT reformat the partition, and do have a rescue disk for Linux handy:-)
Hopefully, Windows will sort itself out.
I'll pick it up under vmware once I have larger screens. Meanwhile, the data is accessible and relatively safe.
Windows is definitely off-topic, and I've given too much advice
already.
But I thank you from the bottom of my cold, cold heart anyway. :-)
- While the system is booting up, it tells me:
MP-BUG: 8254 timer is not connected to APIC What does this mean and is there a way around it?
Hmm...maybe try noapic if you get stability issues.
- CentOS does not appear to have the drivers for my video card or
monitor. I have an e-GEForce 7100gs card and an Envision en910e monitor (yeah, that old 19" CRT that has been working fine for 3+ years). How can I get more than 800x600 (need 1280x1024 to work properly? And please don't say buy a new monitor - no money for that for a while....
Just hit www.nvidia.com and get their binary driver.
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Feizhou Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 2:03 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] Fun with CentOS and Windows
- While the system is booting up, it tells me:
MP-BUG: 8254 timer is not connected to APIC What does this mean and is there a way around it?
Hmm...maybe try noapic if you get stability issues.
Nothing so far - I'll keep my eyes open....
- CentOS does not appear to have the drivers for my video card or
monitor. I have an e-GEForce 7100gs card and an Envision en910e
monitor
(yeah, that old 19" CRT that has been working fine for 3+ years).
How
can I get more than 800x600 (need 1280x1024 to work properly? And
please
don't say buy a new monitor - no money for that for a while....
Just hit www.nvidia.com and get their binary driver.
I thought of that, but their new driver refuses to install unless I halt the X server, and I don't know how to do that yet. I tried a terminal session, but it's no different.
Thanks.
Mark Hull-Richter wrote:
Just hit www.nvidia.com and get their binary driver.
I thought of that, but their new driver refuses to install unless I halt the X server, and I don't know how to do that yet. I tried a terminal session, but it's no different.
Thanks.
While in a terminal window enter init 3, as root. This should stop X. Or you could boot with a 3 (runlevel) at the end of the kernel command line.
Bob...
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Bob Chiodini Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 9:51 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] Fun with CentOS and Windows
While in a terminal window enter init 3, as root. This should stop X. Or you could boot with a 3 (runlevel) at the end of the kernel command line.
Okay, now I'm a little confused. Is this driver package from nvidia going to update my hardware drivers in the kernel also? Or is that needed? Also, don't I need a better monitor configuration than Generic VGA or whatever the default for an unrecognized monitor is? I could probably get away with that as long as the card driver can still do higher res than 800x600 and the monitor doesn't balk.
I feel so dumb here - I've been doing this stuff for a long time, but it all seems completely new and different enough to be a problem. (sigh)
Okay, now I'm a little confused. Is this driver package from nvidia going to update my hardware drivers in the kernel also? Or is that needed? Also, don't I need a better monitor configuration than Generic VGA or whatever the default for an unrecognized monitor is? I could probably get away with that as long as the card driver can still do higher res than 800x600 and the monitor doesn't balk.
I feel so dumb here - I've been doing this stuff for a long time, but it all seems completely new and different enough to be a problem. (sigh)
Good day and well met, Mark
Don't feel dumb. Step back, breathe, relax, sip the beverage of your choice and clear your head.
Download the Linux Nvidia driver from www.nvidia.com.
Bring your system into runlevel 3 by one of the following:
Typing "/sbin/telinit 3" as root in a terminal window
OR
As root edit /etc/inittab and change the line "id:5:initdefault:" to "id:3:initdefault" and reboot (remember to change it back to 5 when you're done if you want X to be your boot default).
Once you're in runlevel 3 you need to first install the kernel-devel package so that the nvidia driver can build kernel modules.
yum install kernel-devel
After that's complete, go to where you downloaded the NVidia driver, chmod it to be executable, and run the driver file like you would run any other executable.
It will ask you questions and create a kernel module against the kernel-devel package. If all goes well the module will install into the kernel and create a new xorg.conf file for you.
Reboot again but Boot Into Runlevel 3 Again and manually start the X server with the startx command, to make sure X will start correctly. If there are problems it will be much easier to troubleshoot them in runlevel 3 as opposed to runlevel 5.
If all checks out, change your inittab default to 5 again (if you changed it in the first place), reboot one last time, and you're golden.
And then drink some more of that relaxing beverage. :)
W.
On Fri, 2007-03-16 at 21:58 -0400, Winter wrote:
On Fri, 2007-03-16 at 15:09 -0400, Mark Hull-Richter wrote:
Okay, now I'm a little confused. Is this driver package from nvidia going to update my hardware drivers in the kernel also? Or is that needed? Also, don't I need a better monitor configuration than Generic VGA or whatever the default for an unrecognized monitor is? I could probably get away with that as long as the card driver can still do higher res than 800x600 and the monitor doesn't balk.
You should be able to get better resolution without installing the proprietary nvidia driver. Sounds like your monitor is not being automatically recognized. Should be able to run system-config-display (from runlevel 3) as root and set the monitor type in the Hardware tab. Should then see higher resolutions available. Set the resolution you want, exit system-config-display, and then "telinit 5" to get back to the GUI login.
...
Once you're in runlevel 3 you need to first install the kernel-devel package so that the nvidia driver can build kernel modules.
...
If you still want the proprietary nvidia driver, nothing wrong with Winter's fine advice, but would like to suggest another alternative that applies at this point. Skip downloading the nvidia drivers and instead enable ATrpms repo, being sure you first set up the yum-plugin-protectbase to keep from clobbering core packages. The repo config package at
http://dl.atrpms.net/all/atrpms-package-config-115-3.el4.at.i386.rpm
should get you started (or the x86_64 version if appropriate - don't think you mentioned which flavor you are running on your 64-bit processor). You may want to be sure that Axel is not still enabling the EL4 or Scientific Linux repos in /etc/yum.repos.d/base.repo by default. The stanzas for [release], [updates], [sl-release], and [sl-updates] should all have "enabled=0" set.
Should then be able to yum install the metapackage nvidia-graphics that will pull in the necessary kmdl. In my case the related packages are:
nvidia-graphics-1.0.9755-18.at nvidia-graphics9755-1.0_9755-86.el4.at nvidia-graphics9755-kmdl-2.6.9-42.0.10.ELsmp-1.0_9755-86.el4.at nvidia-graphics9755-libs-1.0_9755-86.el4.at
Seem to recall that for the CentOSplus kernel I had to install the modules for the standard kernel and copy them to the corresponding locations in /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/... as ATrpms did not recognize the Plus kernel. Not running the Plus kernels now so can't check.
Phil
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Phil Schaffner Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 9:35 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] Fun with CentOS and Windows
You should be able to get better resolution without installing the proprietary nvidia driver. Sounds like your monitor is not being automatically recognized. Should be able to run system-config-display (from runlevel 3) as root and set the monitor type in the Hardware
tab.
Should then see higher resolutions available. Set the resolution you want, exit system-config-display, and then "telinit 5" to get back to the GUI login.
Well, actually, after I installed the NVIDIA driver, I reset the monitor type to something like Generic 1600x1200 and ran with that for a while, but it didn't behave properly. After anywhere from 15-30 minutes of running, it would scramble all new window data and only refresh buttons I moved the mouse over. I changed it to Generic 1280x1024 and so far have not had any problems, but I haven't run on it all that long, either. So I don't really know if the driver helped or not.
If you still want the proprietary nvidia driver, nothing wrong with Winter's fine advice, but would like to suggest another alternative
that
applies at this point. Skip downloading the nvidia drivers and
instead
enable ATrpms repo, being sure you first set up the yum-plugin-protectbase to keep from clobbering core packages.
Please remind me how to do that - I did it here at work but forgot how (for home).
I'll have to decrypt the rest of your post - it's too technical for me to delve into at the moment, but thanks for all of it.
mhr
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Winter Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 6:58 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] Fun with CentOS and Windows
Good day and well met, Mark
Don't feel dumb. Step back, breathe, relax, sip the beverage of your choice and clear your head.
<snip>
Thanks - got it all done (finally), screens are 1280x1024 and I'm plowing ahead. In converting my Windows partitions to Linux, I found one I had forgotten was there (it was for doing an image backup of the C drive in case Windows got killed, but obviously has not been used in so long I forgot all about it - 30 more Gb of space to waste, er, I mean use - yeah, that's the ticket. It was restoring that partition (now ext3) when I left for work this AM, and that leaves only the C partition to go.
FTR, I already added VMWare Workstation - built with only minor hitches that I navigated through and it runs.
Thanks all for everything, especially Barry for solving my init 3 problem yesterday.
mhr
On Mar 16, 2007, at 12:40, Mark Hull-Richter wrote:
Just hit www.nvidia.com and get their binary driver.
I thought of that, but their new driver refuses to install unless I halt the X server, and I don't know how to do that yet. I tried a terminal session, but it's no different.
It's not that hard. If you are already at run level 5, just do a "/ sbin/telinit 3". If the system has not booted yet, use the Grub command "a" to append either a 1 or a 3 to the command line so that you only go to runlevel 1 or 3. You can then install the Binary Nvidia driver. To go (back) to run level 5, just do a "/sbin/telinit 5". All these commands have to be done as root, BTW.
Alfred
Mark Hull-Richter spake the following on 3/16/2007 12:40 AM:
I installed the memory and the CPU and the motherboard and the new video card all together tonight. CentOS installed very nicely and I'm currently running the CentOS-Plus version, with which I _can_ access my Windows partitions. Well, one of the disks is getting flaky and I'm having trouble with it - of course, that's the one I need the most.
Glitches, with which I would be delighted to obtain feedback and/or advice:
- In the boot screen, it tells me "CPU0 Memory information: single
channel, 64-bits." I have 2Gb of DDR2 PC6400 (800MHz) memory - is this a problem, or does it mean something else entirely? (ECS NFORCE4M-A m/b, Phoenix BIOS 6.00PG)
Look at your mobo manual and make sure the memory is in pairs in the proper slots.
- While the system is booting up, it tells me:
MP-BUG: 8254 timer is not connected to APIC What does this mean and is there a way around it?
- CentOS does not appear to have the drivers for my video card or
monitor. I have an e-GEForce 7100gs card and an Envision en910e monitor (yeah, that old 19" CRT that has been working fine for 3+ years). How can I get more than 800x600 (need 1280x1024 to work properly? And please don't say buy a new monitor - no money for that for a while....
- Here's the bad part (sort of) - I can't boot my Windows any more. It
comes part way up and reboots, whether I try to run Safe Mode (hahahahahaha) or Crashing (I mean Normal) Mode. The video card is different, and I thought that might be the problem, but it should come up in safe mode no matter what - no video driver loaded. (I also went from a P4 to an Athlon 64 X2 - could that be part/all of it?).
You will have to do a repair install of your windows. Unfortunately, after this you will also need to boot from a rescue disk and re-install grub, as the windows repair will usually hose the bootloader.
Some of this might be O/T, so please point me at the right place if so (except that last one - there is no right place for that stuff....)-;
Thanks.
-
Alfred von Campe -
Bob Chiodini -
Feizhou -
John Summerfield -
Mark Hull-Richter -
Mark Hull-Richter -
Phil Schaffner -
René Standfest -
Scott Silva -
Winter