Installation on nVidia MCP7a / GeForce 9300 Chipset

[RC_tech]

Hello,

I'm trying a fresh installation of Icaros Desktop 2.3.0. The board is a Zotac GeForce 9300 ITX with nVidia MCP7a chipset. This should be a nForce 730i chipset with integrated GeForce 9300 graphics. The board is socket 775, but I'm using a modified Socket 771 Xeon L5408 Quadcore with a very low TDP. The SATA settings can be IDE, AHCI and Linux-AHCI. Other operating systems like OSx86 are working fine.

So I tried two install media from the ISO: An USB stick created with WinSetupFromUSB and a DVD, booting from an USB drive. But in both cases the boot process stops after this message:

[BattClock] Got RTC century offset 0x32 from ACPI

I'm wondering about this because the MCP7a chipset is specifically listed in the AROS compatibility guide, even 3D graphics should be supported. Of course I tried some other boot options, edited the boot lines, made several BIOS changes, of course different SATA modes. Other drives are not connected to the system. Still, the installation always stops at the BattClock message. The board has a single PS/2 keyboard connector (no mouse), but is PS/2 still neccessary?

Do you have any ideas? I found a really small case which would be great for an AROS system, and I also have an old Samsung 830 SSD with 128 GB which should be enough for AROS. I also have a second board like this, so it would be easy to create an identical system just by cloning the drive. Here are more informatiuon about this board.

https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mainboards/zotac-geforce-9300-itx-wifi-0

Greets, RC.

[Amiwell]

Hi

I have a laptop with nvidia 8400m GS graphics card, only in vesa I can use the system, the same card in desktop version works perfectly, as regards your configuration I know you have the same problems as me, so as long as gallium will not be updated you will need to use the vesa solution

[RC_tech]

The GeForce 8400M is something different. Depending on the laptop you're using it may be a MXM mobile graphics card. The 8400M is also not listed as compatible in the AROS compatiblity guides.

https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Platforms/x86_support
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Platforms/x86_Complete_System_HCL

The nVidia MCP7a chipset is listed, with full 3D support. Otherwise I wouldn't even try an installation. Check your laptop, if it uses a dedicated MXM graphics card (no onboard-chip), it may be possible to exchange it with one which is AROS-compatible. The replacement mustn't have a higher TDP than the actual one, otherwise it will overheat. All mobile GPUs including TDP are listed in the Wikipedia. In some cases a laptop doesn't accept new hardware, but that's depending on the manufacturer.

My actual problem is that the installation media stops during the early boot process.

[Amiwell]

I understand, you will surely have some incompatibility problems unfortunately

[RC_tech]

First I'd like to get the install media booting to get to the Live DVD. Icaros stops on most of my computers after the BattClock message, except on my Thinkpad x61t. But this is not working anymore. The DVD us burnt with the Mac's Disk Utility and the following check was ok.

[Amiwell]

in some computers aros it may not work, I have only tried it on old but absolutely functional machines, i'm sorry that on your computers it doesn't work 

[RC_tech]

What is 'old' ?

[Amiwell]

i have one laptop with intel core duo 2 and another with intel celeron m

[RC_tech]

Yes, my board is socket 775, also Core 2 Duo. And the MCP7a chipset with included GeForce 9300 is explict listed in the hardware guide, including the green fields for 2D and 3D support. And why isn't even the install DVD booting? Why did it stop after the BattClock message? What should be displayed next? I used DVI, do I have to use VGA?

[Amiwell]

yes

[RC_tech]

So, I tried a board with nForce 4 Chipset and and AMD socket 939. I'm also using a PS/2 keyboard. The board is so old, it doesn't even have an AHCI option in the BIOS, onboard SATA-2 always works in IDE mode. As only drive connected to SATA I have a SSD, because these have real 512 byte sectors.

Using DVI I got past the BattClock message, but then the system stopped immateadly at the 'Bootable Media' screen. Booting in VGA mode I immediately got an 'Out of Range' message on my monitor. This is a professional HP TFT which is starting at 48 Hz (Amiga-PAL-compatible) and even has an inbuilt filckerfixer. So it's no cheapo-monitor. I tried in VGA mode, it stuck on the bootable media again. By the way, is the triangle cursor supposed to move? It doesn't react to an USB mouse.

This was booting from the USB stick created by WinSetupFromUSB, so the full ISO image was written to the stick. I now tried booting from DVD, but not even GRUB was loaded:

boot error 0x0 from 'hd31'

I immediately got into the console. I don't have normal DVD's at home, just dual-layer DVDs. So I searched and found a DVD+RW. Still, same error. The USB-DVD is from LG and requires just one USB port, no power from a secondary port is neccessary. I tried it directly on the motherboard and a powered USB hub. Still no success.

[magorium]

@RC_tech:
1. stop using those so called iso image to USB utilities, as they simply do not work for AROS.
2. do not boot a physical dvd from a dvd-drive that is connected through USB. It is already a stretch to make that happen successfully with an internal PATA or SATA connected device, let alone using a USB connected device using whatever (unsupported) hub(s), subtle power drainage/drops and/or other devices that are connected to the same header. The boot process is all about timing and that unfortunately isn't exact science with (certain) USB chipsets/connections/devices
3. always make sure that you do not boot with default grub settings, but select one from the list that displays some debug information and that do not try to boot with all kind of extra's such as entries that attempts to access hardware that isn't (properly) supported.


The easiest path for testing purpose would be to download the Icaros Desktop lite usb/pendrive image and image write that (correctly) to your usb-pendrive. Also there make sure to not boot with the default grub entry but select one from the list that is more defensive. You can always try the default entry later and see where that ends you up with.


If that allows you to at least boot properly (whatever grub options selected/chosen) then boot your dvd iso image file in a virtual machine (configuration of vmware/vbox is described in the Icaros Desktop manual), hook up your usb pendrive  (also make it accessible by your vm-software), then invoke the Icaros desktop installer and install Icaros Desktop onto your usb-pendrive. That is currently the only way to make/create a proper working AROS usb-pendrive (*).

If the installation succeeded, you now have a properly prepared USB pendrive that should allow you to boot from your machine (provided that the first test with the icaros desktop light image file worked for you as well, just  make sure to select the same options).

There are still some caveats left, but you can address those as you come across them. In case you stumble upon one of them before being able to make the steps as described then report that first. For example there are MoBo's/BIOS' that are not able to properly boot from USB to begin with (you can test that with most common Linux distro's or if you must a Windows pendrive distro).


(*) The only end-user proof way of doing so. There are other more convoluted ways to accomplish this task but that requires a lot more technical knowledge and can be hazardous to do so (especially if the person doing so is not aware of what exactly (s)he is doing).

[RC_tech]

Thanks, at least I got some tips now.

Well, usually I'm using OSx86. macOS can handle disk images very well, so if I double-click the Icaros Desktop ISO I can see all contents. I'm not sure if it will work to rewrite the ISO (or an USB-Image) to an USB-Stick via Disk Utility and then make it bootable. This could be done with fdisk, the primary partition has to be set active. The dd-command is also available, of course. For all other operation system installers I'm using WinSetupFromUSB. This tool is one if the few reason why I'm keeping a Win 7 installation. I didn't download the USB image yet because it is smaller. Is there something missing in comparison to the DVD?

Connecting a SATA DVD drive is a bit annoying. I don't know if I have a spare laying around. So the LG drive which needs only a single USB port is quite useful. The last time I used a DVD was during the new setup of my Powerbook G4.

Hm, I just remembered I can try my Dell XPS One All-In-One computer. It has an Intel chipset an a GeForce 9600M video card, the DVD drive is connected to SATA.

ADDON: On the XPS One I tried to boot from DVD+DL, DVD+RW and USB with various boot options. SATA was set to IDE and AHCI. Every time the 'Insert Boot Media' screen should appear, the system resets.

[Amiwell]

sorry you downloaded the icaros iso and burned it to cd or dvd and it won't start on your computers, is that correct? then every utility to create a usb key will not work, unfortunately, only after loading the system from dvd you can create a boot key, however I am convinced that your systems are incompatible, if you are booting the iso from an external cd player usb make sure you are using usb 2.0 ports

[RC_tech]

Why is hardware incompatible when it is shown in the AROS compatibility list?