Has anyone found the F10 has done something nasty to their BIOS?
I transferred the Fedora-10-Snap3-i686-Live-KDE.iso to a USB stick following the instructions at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f9/en_US/sn-making-media.html. This went fine; I like the new (I think) liveusb-creator program.
I used the USB stick to install Fedora-10 on two Thinkpads. Then I tried it on a machine with an Asus/AMD motherboard. The Live CD seemed to start OK, but then it froze.
Now for the disaster. When I went to re-boot the machine it said "NO Keyboard Detected --- Press F1". On pressing F1 I found that the keyboard was indeed disabled. But after a couple of seconds Fedora - the default OS - booted, and when it started the keyboard was working normally.
I changed the default to Windows in grub.conf , and re-booted. Again, I could not change the chosen OS as the keyboard was disabled, but Windows started up fine.
I could not get back to Fedora easily, as I could not access grub.conf in Windows; but I was able to use a Knoppix CD to mount Fedora \boot , and edit grub.conf .
Now, my question is: Was the fact that this happened after running F10 a pure coincidence?
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
From: "Timothy Murphy" gayleard@eircom.net
Now, my question is: Was the fact that this happened after running F10 a pure coincidence?
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
There is no OS known that touching a BIOS. A OS does READ the BIOS. So yes, maybe you need to replace CMOS backup battery.
Also, on a old mainboard i have just 1 HDD set in bios, rest of the 3 HDD's are not set. Still any kind of Linux does see all the drives. So maybe Linux does not read BIOS at all.
Good luck.
Danny.Terweij wrote:
From: "Timothy Murphy" gayleard@eircom.net
Now, my question is: Was the fact that this happened after running F10 a pure coincidence?
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
There is no OS known that touching a BIOS. A OS does READ the BIOS. So yes, maybe you need to replace CMOS backup battery.
Also, on a old mainboard i have just 1 HDD set in bios, rest of the 3 HDD's are not set. Still any kind of Linux does see all the drives. So maybe Linux does not read BIOS at all.
Good luck.
Fair bit of nonsense there: 1. I have systems with Windows XP applications to configure the BIOS. Therefore, an OS _can_ touch the BIOS. 2. I don't have information to hand, but there are Linux tools to manipulate the BIOS settings, and that may be enough to hide the keyboard. 3. Linux does use the BIOS, just not for everything. Look at the kernel messages, for strings containing BIOS. This, for example: parport: PnPBIOS parport detected. parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7 [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
Become geekier, read this:-) http://www.openfirmware.info/Welcome_to_OpenBIOS
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:38 AM, John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org wrote:
- I don't have information to hand, but there are Linux tools to manipulate
the BIOS settings, and that may be enough to hide the keyboard.
pnpbios, vgabios and there are lots more. libsmbios is a key library. ASUS provides a tool too.
The OP has not indicated the mainboard and bios specs yet.
Best
A. Mani
Danny.Terweij wrote:
Now, my question is: Was the fact that this happened after running F10 a pure coincidence?
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
There is no OS known that touching a BIOS. A OS does READ the BIOS. So yes, maybe you need to replace CMOS backup battery.
I'm almost completely ignorant of the inside of a computer, but is the BIOS normally the only NVRAM inside?
Timothy Murphy wrote:
I'm almost completely ignorant of the inside of a computer, but is the BIOS normally the only NVRAM inside?
The BIOS is one of several NVRAM modules on your motherboard/peripherals. As was said earlier, it is common for the video card to have its own BIOS for bringing up screens in text mode, etc. It's also common that SCSI cards have their own BIOS for configuration, booting from devices, etc. The same applies to RAID controllers. Even many ethernet adapters have their own BIOS for PXE boot, as well as general operating firmware (hence the recent issues with Intel E1000s being bricked by pre-release kernels). Most non-trivial devices now have some firmware which must either be loaded by the driver or stored in NVRAM. Hope this helps,
- Ben
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:08 AM, Timothy Murphy gayleard@eircom.net wrote:
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Do you have a Graphics card on the system?
Look at the keyboard too and the mainboard
Anyway Reset the bios first
Best
A. Mani
Mani A wrote:
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Do you have a Graphics card on the system?
According to lspci, it is a VIA Technologies, Inc. S3 Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter
Look at the keyboard too and the mainboard
But I don't see how either of these can be at fault, since the machine works perfectly under Windows and Linux, once it is booted. The keyboard is only disabled during boot-up.
Probably a silly question, but is it a USB keyboard? If so, does your BIOS support USB keyboard and is it enabled in the BIOS? Does the machine have PS/2 connectors and can you try a PS/2 keyboard?
Dave
On 10/26/08, Timothy Murphy tim@maths.tcd.ie wrote:
Mani A wrote:
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Do you have a Graphics card on the system?
According to lspci, it is a VIA Technologies, Inc. S3 Unichrome Pro VGA Adapter
Look at the keyboard too and the mainboard
But I don't see how either of these can be at fault, since the machine works perfectly under Windows and Linux, once it is booted. The keyboard is only disabled during boot-up.
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On Tuesday 28 October 2008 20:12:13 David Mack wrote:
Probably a silly question, but is it a USB keyboard? If so, does your BIOS support USB keyboard and is it enabled in the BIOS? Does the machine have PS/2 connectors and can you try a PS/2 keyboard?
No, it is a standard PS/2 keyboard. As I mentioned in another post, the problem was almost certainly due to a dying CMOS battery, which I have now replaced.
Mani A wrote:
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:08 AM, Timothy Murphy gayleard@eircom.net wrote:
I'm intending to look at the CMOS battery, and perhaps try re-installing the BIOS. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Do you have a Graphics card on the system?
Look at the keyboard too and the mainboard
Anyway Reset the bios first
Did you actually read the problem description? How is he to reset the BIOS?
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:32 AM, John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org wrote:
Mani A wrote:
Anyway Reset the bios first
Did you actually read the problem description? How is he to reset the BIOS?
By simply removing the battery for a few secs or 'by changing the jumpers as per instructions in the manual'. Of course, this is ... if the bios has actually been corrupted.
It is also possible that the mainboard has a power related problem
Best
A. Mani
Mani A wrote:
Did you actually read the problem description? How is he to reset the BIOS?
By simply removing the battery for a few secs or 'by changing the jumpers as per instructions in the manual'. Of course, this is ... if the bios has actually been corrupted.
It is also possible that the mainboard has a power related problem
As I said, Fedora and Windows XP both run perfectly on this machine, once it has booted. Is that compatible with a mainboard power problem?
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 7:09 AM, Timothy Murphy tim@maths.tcd.ie wrote:
Mani A wrote:
Did you actually read the problem description? How is he to reset the BIOS?
By simply removing the battery for a few secs or 'by changing the jumpers as per instructions in the manual'. Of course, this is ... if the bios has actually been corrupted.
It is also possible that the mainboard has a power related problem
As I said, Fedora and Windows XP both run perfectly on this machine, once it has booted. Is that compatible with a mainboard power problem?
When the power button of a PC is switched on, then the keyboard draws power immediately. This happens even before the completion of post. So theoretically it is possible.
Best
A. Mani
On Oct 26, 2008, Timothy Murphy gayleard@eircom.net wrote:
Has anyone found the F10 has done something nasty to their BIOS?
I've had something like that happen to me instaling the Beta, and also installing some earlier release.
I ended up resetting the BIOS to work around the nasty "USB current overflow detected, shutting down" message (in spite of my having disconnected everything from USB ports), but I decided the machine had kind-of overheated because the install didn't enable cpu frequency scaling. I used to start cpuspeed by hand to enable Cool&Quiet during installs, but I'm pretty sure that one time I didn't.
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Oct 26, 2008, Timothy Murphy gayleard@eircom.net wrote:
Has anyone found the F10 has done something nasty to their BIOS?
I've had something like that happen to me instaling the Beta, and also installing some earlier release.
Actually, I found the CMOS battery in that desktop needed replacing. I guess repeated re-booting while installing F-10 might have made the CMOS battery woozy.
I have one customer with an older computer (single-core Intel, 933 MHz, pretty old Asus motherboard) who showed me how his Windows XP would boot and then lock up nastily. No BSODs. I noticed the shiny new Logitech USB keyboard was connected to the PS/2 keyboard port with a USB-to-PS2 adapter but the PS2 connection was actually loose. I tossed the adapter and plugged the keyboard directly into a USB port and the lock ups vanished from that point forward.
Poorly connected hardware can cause a lot of problems.
Bob Cochran
Timothy Murphy wrote:
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Oct 26, 2008, Timothy Murphy gayleard@eircom.net wrote:
Has anyone found the F10 has done something nasty to their BIOS?
I've had something like that happen to me instaling the Beta, and also installing some earlier release.
Actually, I found the CMOS battery in that desktop needed replacing. I guess repeated re-booting while installing F-10 might have made the CMOS battery woozy.
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A. Mani -
Alexandre Oliva -
Ben Gamari -
Danny.Terweij -
David Mack -
John Summerfield -
Robert L Cochran -
Timothy Murphy -
Timothy Murphy