Linux and latest bios problems

[greencorduroy]

Hello,
I noticed a problem with the latest bios and linux. I was running the bios posted January 30th, and everything worked fine. However, when I upgraded to the bios posted March 3rd, xfree would refuse to load. Instead of showing the desktop it displayed garbage on the monitor. I narrowed it down to the nvidia drivers. Though when I reverted to the January bios, everything worked fine again.

I am currently using Gentoo linux. I tried xfree 4.2 and 4.3 along with the nvidia drivers 3123 alon with 4192 drivers. Both would produce the same result.

I am using the 8RDA+ with an AthlonXP and an nVidia Geforce4 4400Ti

I hope you can remedy this in future bios releases.

[bahamot]

the prob not in Xfree but rather in nVidia's linux graphic driver, if u really want to use the new BIOS your have to switch back to default Xfree driver not Nvidia driver (e.g. nv or vesa will do).

[mibo]

This problem still seems to exist.
nForce2 users with nonEpox Boards do not have this problem - so it seems to be a problem of all EPOX 8RDA+ BIOS'es after 29th january 2003.

When will EPOX fix this?

Is there a working beta BIOS available?

Greetings
mibo

[Joker]

That "problem" also happens in windows....

According to Epox Tech there is no record of such problem, and it´s something beyond our compreension, so the answer to Epox fixing it is most likely "NO".

It´s the 29 jan bios or a better solution: a non epox board....

[Emphroon]

Hi,

Well, I have had the same problem. But you can disable IRQ#11 and #12 in the BIOS, then the nVidia driver works (1.0-4363). You will have all your devices to the same IRQ#5 then.

My hardware: Epox EP-8RDA+ BIOS version 8-5-2003.

My /proc/interrupts:

CPU0
0: 21702 XT-PIC timer
1: 807 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
5: 26229 XT-PIC usb-ohci, usb-ohci, NVIDIA nForce Audio, bttv, eth0, btaudio, nvidia
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
14: 7358 XT-PIC ide0
15: 43 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
ERR: 0

Take care that the MIDI gets assigned to IRQ#10.

Cheers

Peter.

[mibo]

I emailed to Epox support Germany and they replied that the problem is known, reported to Taiwan and I should stay tuned for BIOS updates ...

So, let's wait and hope.

Greetings
mibo