Re: [IPCop-devel] Floppy drive backup - *BIG* problem

[Haudy K. <kaz...@um...>]

At 09:24 AM 7/25/2005 +0100, Supporting Role Office wrote:
>Hi,
>
>We are running IPCop 1.4.6 and it's working just great but recently we
>tried to make a floppy backup (for the first time) and computer just 
>locked up, there was no
>response at all. No ping, no keyboard - nothing. We just could RESET it -
>that was only way to start it again.
>
>Without backup on floppy it's working OK - no problems.
>
>So we tried with 1.4.5, 1.4.4, 1.4.2 - the same thing
>
>But with 1.3.0 everything is OK
>
>We checked everything with Knoppix. Floppy disk is working fine and also 
>there are no problems with mainboard under any other OS (distribution)
>
>
>Now we believe that the problem is with SiS 661FX/963 chipset because on 
>mainboard with Intel chipset everything is working fine.
>
>
>
>Do you know anything about SiS issue ?
>
>ShuttleX with FS56 mainboard (http://www.shuttlecomputer.de/eu/fs56.htm)
>256DDR RAM
>PIV 2,6GHz
>
>
>Any ideas ?

I would hold the SiS chipset strongly suspect.  I had numerous intermittant
problems on a SiS chipset based system that I tried to run IPCop on.  The
main problem was a locking up of the distro during the boot process while
detecting the IDE drives/partitions.  Turning the PC off completely and
letting it sit for a while let things work when I tried it later, but it
still was not reliable.  I think this problem was due to an IDE driver
incompatibility with the onboard IDE controller.

Specs:
http://support.mpccorp.com/apps/syscomp.asp?ID=34&Categ=34
Micron Millenia M54Li
http://www.tacktech.com/pub/manuals/m54li.doc
SiS 85C550X chipset.
SMC 665 Super I/O chip
prominent chip on motherboard: SiS 5501

Other IPCop/SiS chipset problems that people have reported include:

[ 1098510 ] ide=nodma causes install to hang when partitioning on SiS CS
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1098510&group_id=4
0604&atid=428516

[ 973674 ] sis 600 ide chipset support
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=973674&group_id=40
604&atid=428516

I've also run into compatibility problems between a Geovision GV-900
security camera capture card running on an ASRock P4S61 
(SiS 661FX chipset) motherboard (Pentium 4 board).
http://www.asrock.com.tw/support/Download/dl_p4S61.htm  The problem I
encountered was whenever the GV-900 PCI board was installed in the
motherboard, the system either would not boot in ACPI mode, and when in
booted in APM mode, the system became very 'choppy', i.e. it'd run in short
bursts with painful slowness between the bursts.

Finally, a P4 2.6 ghz box is almost certainly overkill for IPCop and an old
x86 intel-chipset system would likely be easier to get working.

-hk