ASUS Service No=276140

[Colin McGregor]

On 11/5/08, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 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?

Well, getting the board to boot under KnoppMyth is the issue...

> 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?

501, it does not fix the PXE issues.

>> 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?

They seem to be saying it will not netboot period. But the fact that
the board can run Windows, a supported OS seems to mean in their minds
the board is okay...

>> 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.

Well, for years ASUS has been the only motherboard brand I would buy,
some of the nice things I have had to say about an ASUS motherboard
can be seen here:

   http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8219

Right now however I am feeling burnt on the M2N-MX SE PLUS
motherboard, and while I would like to think that it is one bad board,
I am open to other options at this point...

> --
> Len Sorensen

Colin McGregor
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