[ILUG] Redhat 7.1 install freezing while "Initializing PC Car ddevices"

[McAuley, Tim]

Ah ha! I sorted the problem last night.

It turned out to be the network card. For some reason the kernel thought it
was a PCMCIA device, therefore the attempt to initialise it.

A few things I did last night:
- Swapped the TV tuner card into another slot, and thus freed up the IRQ
that was shared with the HPT366 controller. 
- Changed the IRQ of the parallel port to allow me to share it's IRQ with
the network card. For some reason the NW card could not use IRQ 7, so now it
uses IRQ 5. 
- Initialised the NW card from DOS appropriately. It is an old ISA card. For
some reason it reports that it is not using any IRQ in Windows any more...
interesting.

So everything is quite happy. I'll actually install Linux tonight and see
how things go. I'm interested to see how it behaves with the TV tuner card
but I'm guessing there won't be a problem because it is a Hauppauge one.

I then had a quick go at using the HPT366 controller once again (since
freeing up it's IRQ, and thus possibly removing conflicts), but one of the
Windows applications crashed immediately Win98 started up, so I'm putting it
back to bed. I guess it's not to be! And I'm really not sure if it would be
of much benefit anyway.

Anyway, thanks for the help yesterday.

Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ilug-admin at linux.ie [mailto:ilug-admin at linux.ie]On Behalf Of
> Stephane Dudzinski
> Sent: 23 April 2001 13:53
> To: Ilug (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: [ILUG] Redhat 7.1 install freezing while "Initializing PC
> Carddevices"
> 
> 
> In this case, two main factors : overclocking and HPT controller.
> 
> PCI bus and onboard controllers are quite concerned by 
> anything running
> at upper than 33mhz, therefore, did you try to reclock your CPU to the
> normal state ?
> 
> Now, redhat says that even a HPT370 (UATA 100) will run at 
> 33mhz during
> install BUT you need to specify some startup settings (best is to boot
> from expert mode just in case).
> 
> I got a Abit KT7A-RAID where they strongly insist on the fact that
> NOTHING ELSE than a 100MB/S HDD can run on that. CDROM drive 
> must not be
> connected to this controller.
> 
> Steph
> 
> 
> On 23 Apr 2001 12:31:53 +0100, McAuley, Tim wrote:
> > Hiya,
> > 
> > I burnt the CDs last week and got around to trying to 
> install 7.1 last
> > night. However it freezes on me, just after bringing up the 
> first windows
> > and while displaying the message "Initializing PC Card 
> devices". I'm not
> > sure how to work around it. Mind you, I was a bit tired 
> last night and only
> > spent an hour or so at it. For some reason I am having 
> trouble booting from
> > the CD, so I'm using "autoboot" from DOS. Unfortunately, 
> this means I can't
> > choose advanced (but will it make any difference?). There 
> are no other
> > consoles up and running, so that's a pain too.
> > 
> > Current Set-up:
> > ABit be6 (1st edition)
> > Intel Celeron 400 (running at 500)
> > Viper 550 graphics card
> > 10GB Fujitsu (UDMA 66) drive
> > TV Tuner card
> > N/W card
> > 
> > I detached a modem and serial infrared port just in case.
> > 
> > I wiped the machine fully last week, and installed Windows 
> 98 on it, after
> > partitioning it (using Partition Magic from a CD, usual - 
> /boot, Windows,
> > Linux Swap, / 
> > 
> > The hard disk and CD-Roms are both running off the standard 
> IDE UDMA33
> > interface. Nothing is attached to the HTP366/UDMA66 
> interface. The interface
> > is still detected in boot-up though, because I see messages 
> about it fly
> > past during the kernel initialisation.
> > 
> > ****************
> > Slightly Aside:
> > 
> > When I first got the machine, I put the hard drive on the 
> UDMA 66 slot.
> > However I found it unstable as anything and took it off, and ran the
> > CD-writer from it, no problems.
> > 
> > After the reinstall I decided to give the HPT366 another 
> go, and failed. It
> > just doesn't work for me. Windows would crash about half 
> the time during, or
> > shortly after reboot. I have the latest BIOS for the M/B 
> and latest drivers
> > for HPT366. I guess it is either the motherboard is 
> slightly dodgy or the
> > hard disk is not fully UDMA66 compliant (which I suspect 
> because I have a
> > friend with the same board but an IBM disk).
> > 
> > Has anyone else had issues with the same (or similar) set-up?
> > ****************
> > 
> > Any ideas? Can you add boot params to loadlin from DOS? 
> > i.e. ide2=c400, e800, 11 (I can't remember memory addresses)
> > I tried adding some last night just in case the HTP366 was 
> causing problem,
> > but it didn't seem to make any difference.
> > 
> > Thanks, it might save me some time this evening if anyone 
> has any ideas!
> > It's been a while since I've actually used Linux at home 
> properly and I want
> > to get stuck back into it. I've been looking after the 
> Linux servers here in
> > work for a while so I really want to start using Linux for 
> home use, and
> > playing with games, and non-work items in general!
> > 
> > Cya,
> >  
> > Tim McAuley
> > 
> > -- 
> > Irish Linux Users' Group: ilug at linux.ie
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> 
> -- 
> Email sent with Redhat 7.1 kernel 243 reiserfs
> "Never underestimate the true power of ChAoS"
> Mailto:stephane at antefacto.com
> Ph : +353 1 858 6009
> 
> 
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