ASUS Service No=276140

Wed Nov 5 19:27:16 UTC 2008

On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 08:46:56PM -0500, Colin McGregor wrote:
> 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.

The MCFG area thing seems to happen on every system I have ever booted
linux on (only recent kernels check that).

> 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.

The stupid nvidia reverse mac thing, was just dumb on nvidia's part when
they originally did it, and in trying to fix it they have now caused
other bugs in existing drivers that don't know it has been fixed, as
well as some bioses that seem to not have realized it is supposed to be
fixed.  So that issue is to a large extent nvidia ethernet specific.

But if you changed the MAC address on the board, then what problem is
left to fix now?

According to this discussion from 2 years ago the reverse mac address
after PXE boot was a bug which was fixed in newer PXE code and any BIOS
vendor should update to the new PXE code to fix it.
http://groups.google.ca/group/fa.linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/2a34f3ce3591e34e?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&pli=1

Apparently if your PXE version is less than 243.0537, neither linux nor
windows will have the correct mac address after a PXE boot on an nvidia
chipset board.

I see the latest bios for the M2N-MX SE is 0501 which came out in late
april this year.  Which bios is on your board?

> 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.

Weill it netboot windows?  Didn't they claim it supported netbooting
after all?

> 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.

Canada Computers claims to have 5 M3N78-VM boards at their downtown
store.  Seems to be quite available in fact.  Will it netboot?  Who
knows.  Will it work with the 2.6.18 kernel that knoppmyth appears to be
using?  Probably not.  A kernel that isn't 3 years old would be much
more likely to work.  In fact a quick check says it requires 2.6.26 or
higher to work with that chipset.

> So, here is what I need:
> 
> - Support for Linux network booting.

Could be hard to ensure, given how few people netboot, it may be rarely
tested.

> - No Linux hostile BIOS bugs

Not sure there exists a bug free bios. :)

> - MicroATX form factor
> - Support for an AMD Socket AM2 Athlon 3200+ CPU
> - Support for DDR2 PC2 - 5300 memory

Those seem reasonable.

> - Onboard nVidia graphics, GeForce 5200 or better

That requires the nvidia chipset, which brings back the reverse mac
address stupidity issue in most cases (at least I suspect so).

> - 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...

No idea.  Asus is the only brand I will buy.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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