Configuration summary: ASUS A8V motherboard (socket 939), AMD 3800 X2
dual core processor, nVidia 5500 AGP video card, 1 GB DDR400 memory
I've installed Fedora 8 twice on this machine, both the i686 and x86_64
versions and had the same result both ways. The machine boots up fine,
but within a minute or two after logging on to Gnome (I haven't tried
KDE) I will get a hard freeze - mouse pointer freezes, no response to
keyboard (including CTRL-ALT-F1), and pings to the machine go
unreturned. Adding 'nosmp' to the kernel boot options makes the problem
go away, but that's a bit like having an SUV that conks out and has to
be towed if you engage 4WD.
FWIW, booting from the x86_64 live CD gives pretty much the same
symptoms - hard freeze within a minute or so after logon. With the i686
live CD I can't even get through startup - the machine freezes right
after getting an OK from the Starting udev.... step.
I've been running previous Fedora releases (back to FC5 at least) on
this machine for years with smp enabled without ever having any problems
like this, so I don't THINK it's a hardware issue. Still, I haven't
seen anyone else post similar symptoms so I have to wonder. I've seen
some references to freezes with the nvidia binary drivers, but that's
not my problem - I only have the default 'nv' drivers.
I've tried a couple of other boot options that seemed like they might be
relevant - noapic, nomce - but neither one made any difference.
I'd appreciate any suggestions on
a) what I should try next
b) other diagnostic information that would be useful
c) other places I should ask
Thanks
