ASUS Service No=276140

[Colin McGregor]

On 11/4/08, Peter <plpeter2006-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Colin McGregor <colin.mc151 at ...> writes:
>> Since I can not trust the material in the ASUS manuals, what
>> motherboards do you sell, with the above features, that do work under
>> Linux? Further, what is the proper way to dispose of a motherboard
>> that does not perform to specification?
>
> google for: ballmer foxconn acpi specification

Well, ACPI was part of the issue I faced. The two error messages I got
when attempting to boot were :  "BIOS bug, the MCFG area at e0000000
is not E-820-reserved" and "MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to
IO-APIC". This after getting rid of a BIOS error regarding the MAC
address.

With the MAC address, the machine would boot with a broadcast MAC
address be default. After the third return to ASUS, they sent me an
MS-DOS utility that would let me change the MAC address, and some
interesting info. turned up, starting with how what ever MAC address
was put into the EEROM on the motherboard would reverse the bytes and
reverse some of the nibbles in those bytes, so an address like
01:23:45:67:89:ab would end up looking something like
ab:89:76:54:23:01 . Stuff that would cause real grief with the
Knoppmyth Linux I was using. I ended up changing the MAC address to
00:44:44:44:44:00 so everything could be reversed and still turn out.

Four trips to ASUS and now they say that since it will boot Windows
Vista, they are not going to do anything further to fix the
motherboard.... Which lands me back at square one, having spent over
$100 and a lot of hours on ASUS garbage.

I am very annoyed at the thought of buying another motherboard. I am
not going to buy another CPU, case, etc.. So, I am now in the market
for a replacement motherboard. I have called ASUS and they suggested
the M3N78 EMH HDMI motherboard which I gather from a tour of the
College & Spadina area clone dealers is no longer available.

So, here is what I need:

- Support for Linux network booting.
- No Linux hostile BIOS bugs
- MicroATX form factor
- Support for an AMD Socket AM2 Athlon 3200+ CPU
- Support for DDR2 PC2 - 5300 memory
- Onboard nVidia graphics, GeForce 5200 or better
- 1 (or more) PCIExpress x16 expansion slot.
- Something available locally, shipping charges would at this point be
an insult on top on an injury...

Suggestions? Normally I would be just looking at ASUS board, but after
this experience I think that is a brand I would like to avoid...

> I have similar problems with an asus laptop that misbehaves when operated
> with
> linux from the acpi p.o.v., f.ex. turning off all throttling and speed
> settings
> in the linux kernel fixes most problems mut the laptop can be used as a tea
> cooker (full cpu clock when idle etc). It is not an accident. A man has made
> some experiments and has enabled the acpi tables for windows for linux (the
> acpi
> code detects the os and supplies a different table for linux ! - this is a
> standards violation in itself). He came to the conclusion that the
> manufacturer
> deliberatley used an incomplete and erroneous acpi table for the linux
> response
> version and exchanged emails similar to yours with the makers (foxconn in
> that
> case). Imnsho this REQUIRES that the issue be discussed as widely as
> possible,
> especially in the open source community. I am not going as far as to say "do
> not
> buy that brand", but in view of the trouble I have had and still have, I
> would
> have heeded that advice if it would have been available at the time when I
> bought my hardware.
>
> Just google and follow the links (the first 5 or so are already relevant).
> Asus
> seems to also have a similar problem.
>
> Peter
>
>
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