VIA chipset a problem?Forum: User Feedback Topic: VIA chipset a problem? started by: Doug W Posted by Doug W on Aug. 01 2007,03:01
Greetings,I have tried DSL, DELi, Slackware, Puppy and a couple of others on this computer. MOB: FIC VA 503+ CPU: Cyrix 333 MII HDD: 4 gig Quantum 5400 RPM RAM: 128 Meg Sound: ES1370 Video: I forget-16 Meg PCI card I have no idea why it is happening but the computer seems to freeze quite often with any of these distros. Sometimes, when I log on, all I see is large squares instead of a desktop. Can this somehow be related to the dreaded VIA chipset or possibly my own incompetence? My old copy of Redhat 6.2 seems to work fine on this computer. Go figger. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks, Doug Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Aug. 01 2007,03:46
How are you running DSL?You can check your video card/chipset by running System Stats or via console with `lspci -v` There are some vga= cheatcodes, or some x settings (see xsetup) that you can use that may be better for your system. You could also try a full x server (see mydsl) which may have a specific driver for your video hardware (or even those different tinyx servers - probably better to figure out what video system you have first though). For the freezing, does it happen only in X? Could be related to your video problem. Or maybe it might be something easily set in your BIOS. Posted by curaga on Aug. 01 2007,14:58
Via ide chipsets are buggy, but this could also be from the video card..
Posted by Doug W on Aug. 02 2007,03:58
Thanks for the replies,
Currently I am running Redhat 6.2 because that seems to be pretty stable for this computer but when I had DSL-N installed, I had a hard drive installation with LILO boot if that is what you are asking.
I ended up in setup and found my video card there: nVidia Riva TN2 Model 64.
It is possible that I had some bad RAM. Just today, the puter was going back and for recognizing 64 Meg, then at next bootup 128, then 64. I ended up pulling out one of the 64 Meg sticks and putting in a 32 Meg stick in it's place so now I have a total of 96 Meg of RAM. This old version of Redhat is pretty stable but there are some things I want to try with newer software. This was my first audio recording computer and at 16 bit 44.1 Mhz, and Win 95, I was able to do some decent, (at least in my own opinion), recordings so I thought I would try it with Linux. I have faster computers that I use for most of my recording stuff but using an audio recording program is the most fun way for me to learn Linux. Thanks for your help ^thehatsrule^ and curaga Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 02 2007,04:30
Kind of hard to miss that. < http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/MydslPanel > < http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Installing_MyDSL_Extensions > < http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/damnsmalllinux.org/mydsl/ >
It's more accurate to say that X allows for GUIs, but X is just the window system.
That version is more contemporaneous with your hardware, which is why it's easier to install and load than some new-fangled distro with spinning 3D windows and bleeding edge apps. The latter presumes you've already thrown that computer away. Posted by JohnnyH on Aug. 02 2007,08:26
I use the TNT2 Model 64 which works perfectly in DSL in a Gigabyte GA-6VXE7+ 'VIA Apollo Pro Family AGPset' motherboard, so, if the Red Hat 6.2 shows no failure there, the video card itself should not be the problem. Posted by Doug W on Aug. 04 2007,16:55
Thanks,I am going to give DSL-N another try assuming that the bad RAM was the cause. |