Swapping out motherboards for different brands

[CrustyOldGeezer]

This is what I have

XFX nForce 750a Motherboard

8 Gig of DDR2 ram

AMD quad core CPU.

And windoze vista Home Premium 64 bit....

Vista has caused more problems than any previous version I have had, and I started to windows 3.0.

This MB does not support Linux. GParted cannot find any volumes.

I built this from a bare bones kit, plus other toys I thought I needed.

How much trouble is it going to be to replace the MB with something that I can dual boot from?

Thanks, I appreciate the knowledge.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

I don't think there is any reason to change your motherboard...i doubt its a motherboard problem with gparted.

 

[red1776]

Hi Crusty,
I think you may be on the wrong track here. can you list more and specific details about your machine? Vista is very stable if you have the service packs installed and your motherboard should have nothing to do with not letting you create another partition. are you sure you have enough space left on the HDD to create one?

 

[CrustyOldGeezer]

Apparently it is in the AMI BIOS.

The CPU is an AMD Phenom quad core.

Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit. SP2. (it 'updates' on a daily basis)
(1) 500 Gig HD w/ 340 Gig free.
(1) 160 Gig HD w/ 149 Gig free
(1) 160 Gig HD unformatted and available.

All are SATA drives.

I have installed Ubuntu to a 4 Gig USB drive and can boot from it, but no physical drives are ever recognized.

Currently, vista cannot update 5 'important' updates (to office 2003)

It does not allow and upgrade to AVG 9.

Numerous programs will not install at all.

H&R Block Tax software reaches about 3/4the through the install, then I get a Error 1935 and it backs the install out.

It refuses to allow HP printers to be installed due to a variety of errors. (I gave up and bought a Brother)

I have PC Doctor w/ antivirus, PC reg mechanic.

Uniblue regbooster (because the nice people at MS recommended it, along with system tweaker.
They also recommended SuperAntiSpyWare and MalwareByte, both of which have run in Safemode and normal mode, no issues have been found by any of these CPU hogs.

But, I suppose they are a necessary evil....

The Ubuntu site has several mentions of issues with this MB and Linux.

 

[Ritwik7]

I too think that the motherboard might not be the issue.

I strongly suggest that you first reinstall Windows after formatting your hard drive. You also seem to be using too many softwares for maintaining your system. Get rid of them. Use any one good antivirus such as Avira and for cleaning the system use CCleaner. Never have more than one AV installed on your system.

 

[CrustyOldGeezer]

I agree with the "way damned many software programs" to manage my computer.

I started with PC Spyware Doctor and AVG.

When I started having issues with vista 64, I turned to MS 'support'.

All additional programs were installed at their suggestions with their knowledge of what was pre existing.

I also have CCleaner. Sorry for not mentioning that earlier.

I'll go look at Avira.

As for 'formatting and re-installing'....

If it comes to that, I'll back everything up, reformat the 500Gig drive, reinstall vista and sell the computer.

Buy a new bunch of parts and build another from scratch instead of a 'bare bones' from Tigerdirect.

I know why it was such a good price now.... ;=)

One of the problems I encountered while working on the H&R Block install was Enabling the Hidden, Built-in Administrator account.
From the command prompt: net user administrator /active:yes (enter)

I was unable to setup the desktop or any other options, and any attempts to install, or do anything that required 'permissions' I was denied access.

I tried it from both normal and 'safe' mode.

There is something, somewhere deep down inside this beast that has changed a setting to "screw the user until he goes nuts..."

On the other hand, it could be something serious like... a real life?

 

[CrustyOldGeezer]

From a tech at XFX... ( XFX Does NOT support Linux. This was as a favor to get me to stop whining I think...)

"**** “The standard installer will not see any sata drives, or if you simply moved your Ubuntu drive to this system it will dump into the initrd prompt. To get the SATA drives detected:

· Boot the Ubuntu CD / HDD

· Jump into the Ubuntu boot loader by pressing ESC just as it detects the CD

· Edit the first option by pressing e

· Cursor down to the second line (starts with kernel) and press e

· Go to the end of the line and remove the splash option replacing it with 'pci=nomsi'

· Press enter and press b

The steps above should solve the failure to detect the SATA drives. A technical guide to PCI-MSI can be found here.
***(http://devresources.linux-foundation.org/dev/robustmutexes/src/fusyn.hg/Documentation/MSI-HOWTO.txt)

Video

Once you get your system going video will NOT work, barely even VESA will work. Here are the steps I took to get it going:

· Boot up the system to the command line

· Run '/etc/init.d/gdm stop' and kill off any X processes

· Login and install the envyng-core package via 'sudo apt-get install envyng-core'

· Execute the envyng video card installer via 'envyng -t'

· Follow the prompts installing the Nvidia 177 driver

· Copy this file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, backing up your old xorg.conf

· Run '/etc/init.d/gdm start'

· After you login, you may want to run the following command on login: 'nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1', it may help your performance.

· Enjoy accelerated video

SATA Update 11/02/2008: I recently found the following page about the nForce 730a (8200) chipset which lists a SATA fix similar to mine. It seems this should be fixed in Linux 2.6.26+

NViDIA Update 11/03/2008: Updating your 177.79 nvidia drivers to 177.80 from the Ubuntu repository will greatly help sluggish graphics. (tested on Ubuntu 8.10)”****"

The caveat included from the Tech is... " Keep in mind we don`t officially support linux. However I emailed you some steps that should help. "

This got my SATA drives noticed for the first time......

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Wow XFX is so weird i'll never get a motherboard from them...i have an nforce chipset and linux works fine.

NViDIA Update 11/03/2008: Updating your 177.79 nvidia drivers to 177.80 from the Ubuntu repository will greatly help sluggish graphics. (tested on Ubuntu 8.10)”****"

Ahh yes, getting the proper graphics drivers usually helps.