1. FIC PAG 2130 with AMD K6-2 and 128M RAM Built-in Cyberblade (Trident) video
and "SB-compatible:" sound on the SouthBridge VIA MVP4 Chipset
GRaphical install worked. Sound reported "device or resource busy" Tried
three more installs with different BIOS settings for enabling/disabling sound.
Tried Lother, which also saw the sound, but could not make it audible.
Video was twitchy. 640x480 at 16 bit depth was all the install would do.
After playing with the graphical configurator for a while, I managed to get a
flickering 1024x768 at 32 bit. Strangely enough, Xconfigurator on LM 6.1
working with this board found a non-flickering 1024x768 in 32 bit depth the
first time.
2. S3 Trio 64V+ with 2 Meg... Vanilla sound card (ESS1688) Cyrix 686MX PR-200
processor on an Antec Motherboard using the 430 TX intel chipset. Stayed in
text install. Froze "in second stage install" and this was from a boot off
the CD-ROM. CD was a vanilla 24X and HDD was WD24300. Only other hardware
present was an RTL8029 NIC. This one was running SuSE 6.1.
2a. Trident 9440 video substituted Came up in graphics this time, but froze
"in second stage install" again.
2b. Switched to a Cyrix 686-PR200+ Processor and dropped the bus speed to 66,
making it essentially a 686-pr166+ Graphical install started working. This is
probably an artifact of the TX chipset overclocking the PCI bus when it is
pushed past 66MHz (but why did SuSE work?).
I have had more difficulty with Cyrix Processors under Mandrake than I can
properly deal with. I still have two machines that won't update (Cyrix GXi-S
types) because, while Mandrake will install, the update packages claim "this is
for a different architecture". Moreover, in the linuxmall ads, it is posted
that there are issues with Mandrake and Cyrix processors and that while a patch
exists, it was never made available on the Mandrake sites.
I have machines running 686MX-PR200 processors running L-M 6.1 using terrible
chipsets, but not the Intel 430TX, which seems to be in a category by itself.
Strangely, the TX Chipset can be used to advantage at 75MHz bus speed with a
K6-233 running at 3x bus speed, and LM 6.1 runs there as well, but it fails
with a 686MX running at 2x 75MHz on the 430TX. I am beginning to wonder if some
instructions do a "not quite back to back" bus locking that evokes a version of
the 686 coma bug which shows up only at the higher clock speed with the timing
of the intel 430 TX chipset for the bus.
Anyone have any similar experiences to share?
Civileme
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