[ardour-users] Machine configurations

[James Coates]

On Friday 27 Feb 2004 7:49 am, Robert Jonsson wrote:

> could you elaborate on your findings and why you think the motherboard is
> the perpetrator?

The machine has problems, even when installing Mandrake from the DVD.

Originally, I wondered whether this was chance but I've installed 9.2 from DVD 
on other machines without the problem manifesting itself. The machine was 
dying during heavy I/O operations - high disc, network activity - so this 
came about both whilst the drive was being formatted in install and when 
attempting to copy the backup of its disc across the network.

Some Googling and a complete lack of hardware understanding later, I discover 
many postings to alt.os.linux.mandrake and the Mandrake Club forums with 
people complaining of similar symptoms with this motherboard.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&q=a7n8x+deluxe+mandrake+9.2

It seems stable with APIC off in BIOS and boot options, and with the -smp 
kernel - which Mandrake chose by default - running badblocks and copying gigs 
of stuff across the network simultaneously overnight hasn't managed to cause 
it to fall over. But I don't know what's in the -smp kernel that's not in the 
normal one and whether we're going to encounter this problem straight away 
once we (if ever) get Ardour working.

We're using Mandrake because the person (a neighbour) who wants to use Ardour 
is a novice when it comes to using computers for more than web and mail and 
it's my distro of choice so I can help out if things go wobbly. There's a 
SuSE user close-by too if we decide to change, but I've seen the same - 
although fewer - postings in SuSE groups. Something has to change because we 
simply can't say "well, it's a harware/software problem and we don't know xx 
distro so can't help" to someone who's just spent 700EUR on their first PC 
...

James.
xx

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