Text 13652, 93 rader
Skriven 2009-12-15 10:01:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av ROSS CASSELL
Ärende: Re: SPECIAL COMPUTER
============================
-=> ROSS CASSELL wrote to JEFF BINKLEY <=-

 RC> Hello Jeff!

 RC> 15 Dec 09 04:41, you wrote to me:

 RC> [..]
 RC>> After the OS has been loaded, the BIOS only responsibility is
 RC>> carrying out the instructions sent to it from the OS to control the
 RC>> hardware.

 JB> It also does a memory and keyboard check (unless they've been
 JB> disabled) before it looks for the MBR.  With SATA and SCSI drives the
 JB> BIOS will send a start command to the drives to spin them up before
 JB> checking the drives.

 RC> Like I said, polls the hardware, this part would be covered there.

 RC> There is no way LILO or any other bootloader is active until the BIOS
 RC> executes its code.

Uh huh, and exactly _what_ happens when the motherboard's 
intended BIOS is circumvented by the *BIOS* that exists 
on the Nvidia MX-400 executes *before anything* and corrupts
the motherboard's BIOS instructions.

That is what is happening here.

The Nvidia has a chip expressly labeled BIOS
and it fires off first tying to the lilo.conf file
before the motherboard BIOS ever gets going.

That's what nearly burned out my H.P. monitor.
Following *your* adevice to "reboot with the original motherboard
ATI Pro Rage Mach 64.

Also nearly fried the ATI motherboard card
as Nvidia's after market software both taints the Linux
kernel as well as alters Lilo.conf to execute higher resolutions
unsupported on the ATI AGP without that after market video card.

Totaly wiped out the operating system, diallowed booting.

Only by rebooting back to the Nvidia allowed
me enough access to the O.S. to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

ONLY when I did this was I able to access the CD-ROM drive to once 
again boot from this supported bootable CD.

The Nvidia card AND it's firmware AND software worked together
to corrupt the motherboard BIOS and scramble the O.S.
upon following YOUR advice to remove the aftermarket Nvidia card
and reboot the machine.

As I say AGAIN, readers, check it out for yourselves
and google:
Linux GeForce MX-400 experiences

Lot's of people in the Linux community
with actual hands on experience with this card 
seem to disagree with you Ross.

In fact all those google links I checked into showed quite remarkably
the same problems I had with the card.

I could have writen the first dozen or two account myself.

Too bad I didn't think to google this card ahead
of time but I'd actually ordered as first preference a used 
Matrox G200 but was convinced by the shop owner this card
would be adaquate.

To the moderator and others this annoys as it does me
I do feel an obligation to not allow the disemination of 
advice I know from both personal experience
as well as numerous accounts by others to have
potentially catatrophic consequences.

To me the O.S. itself however without timely action on
my part I risked losing both the motherboard AGP video
as well as the H.P. monitor I'd had hooked to that card all
along with no problems until the Nvidia card did its' thing.

The Nvidia had been hooked to the Gateway VX1110 which 
easily handled those resolutions.

Nvidia's corruption of lilo.conf however caused
it to seriously attempt to overdrive the Pro Rage
AGP and the H.P. monitor.


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