DMA Timeout Error

[weirdwolf]

Greetings to all
Once again I'm trying to install Linux (preferably PCLinuxOS) on a 9-10 yr.old laptop for a neighbor. She bought it cheap and has bought a newer HDD for it. On trying to boot it up It gets to
hda: <4>hda: dma-timer-expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: DMA timeout error
and just stops.
The laptop: Compaq Armada E500
the HDD: Hitachi HTS541640J9AT (40 Gig)
the other: PIII 896 MHz
440bx chipset
bios 11 30 99 Shadowram active ( the heck is that?)
128mb sdram
vesa-vga video
Have tried adding NODMA to boot line but does nothing to help. Is there a different way to tell it not to bother with DMA on boot ? Or do I have other fish to fry ?
the HDD was wiped by me (1pass "0's", KillDisk) and checked by a disk checker from the Ultimate Boot Disk. I'm going to see if she has the original HDD later today.
Other than needing more ram it should run something , or at least make it to the boot screen I'd think. (The sticker on it says "Windows 2000" which I believe is half the problem )

[menotu]

From Microsoft web site:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/78528

"What Is Shadow RAM and Why Do Machines Use It?
Every MS-DOS computer has hardware code that is built into ROM. Such code includes the instructions in the BIOS, as well as code for specific hardware adapters, such as video adapters. For example, EGA and VGA adapters usually include ROM that contains code for manipulating the display.

In general, ROM operates much more slowly than RAM. Because hardware code is typically stored in ROM, performance can suffer each time hardware code is executed. Performance can be improved by copying code in the slow ROMs into RAM, and executing the code from RAM instead. The RAM that contains the copied code is called "shadow RAM." Although RAM shadowing can dramatically improve performance, it uses some additional RAM, which is then no longer available to applications. "

[weirdwolf]

Thanks menotu , At least that explains that part.

[menotu]

Just a thought weirdwolf - have you checked the RAM module(s) is seated properly?

[weirdwolf]

It's on my list of things to do next Don't think its the problem though, Just pulled the HDD out and it seems to be missing the back cover of the drive as I can see the circuit board and the are no screws in the screw holes (she paid more for the HDD than she did the laptop on ebay)

The Keyboard ( to get to mem) pops out pretty slick and easy though. Hopefully she has the old drive (she thought it might have a bad sector on it ) I can check out.

[weirdwolf]

More info ,
reading further up the list I show lines that say
PIIX4 IDE controller (Ox8086 :0x711 rev 0X01 ) at PCI slot 000:00:07.1
PIIX4 not 100% native mode: will probe irq's later
PIIX4: IDE port disabled
   ide0 BM-DMA at 0x3420-0x3427
hda: Hitachi HTS541640J9AT00, ATA DISK drive

so....Am I able to enable the ide port from boot prompt?
other drive not available (can't find).
If it was network booted, could that be a problem possibly ?
on boot ,under the "Compaq" I get a "F12=Network Service Boot" in the botton right, almost too fast to even notice (I didn't at first)

Is it Hammertime yet?

[Village Idiot]

Can you run the memory check from the boot menu of the live cd?

[Ertain]

Just to throw this out as a possibility: check the power supply (the battery).  That could be a source of error.

[weirdwolf]

Can you run the memory check from the boot menu of the live cd?

Reseated mem, ran mem check from UBCD --all good

Just to throw this out as a possibility: check the power supply (the battery).  That could be a source of error.

Battery is probably no good , but it's running from power adapter anyways
done with it for tonight. Thanks to all.

[weirdwolf]

Well , It's going kinda weird. The HDD in question is now one big 40gig partition in ext2 courtesy of fdisk, running in DSL 3.4 (knew I kept that for some reason). I can access the hard drive and even made a new directory just to see if I could, so I'm guessing the HDD is fine. Tried PCLOS (LXDE) again and it still hangs, tried a 2005 Kanotix, hangs. Tried Puppy 5.0, hangs. So I thought it must be a 2.6 kernel thing (DSL is 2.4) but it boots DSL-N which has a 2.6.x kernel and not knoppix 3.7 with a 2.4.x. (a couple others as well) all give the DMA time out error except DSL. I'm stumped. (Not that it takes alot these days )
Have tried nodma, no acpi and irqpoll to no effect.
Looks like I have no choice for a install other than DSL (3.4.12 or 4.4 probably if bootable), which being more or less dead is not what I had in mind. Then there's it not being LXDE like the last one, she'll look at it and as soon as I leave will probably start looking for a windows disk to try to install with.

[weirdwolf]

Well, As far as I can tell it's just FUBAR'rd as nothing works 'cept DSL, and she doesn't want it (not that I could blame her) Tried to do a bios update and either it's the same story or the floppy drive just don't work either. apparently this is why she got it cheap (I'll have to ask how cheap) and why I don't do anything with ebay (I have zero trust in them) as I know more people who have got burned than end up with something usable.

[mlc.au]

I'm running Pclinuxos on two E500 and have no issues in general. I haven't had to add any additional arguments to the kernel boot string.  While I am currently updating them they have performed very well with now., KDE4. My specs are: 1Ghz uP, 512Mb ram. They had a slight display issue and turned off compiz and 3D.  The BIOS (F10 when the the flashing cursor appears in the top right hand of the screen) has a few settings but nothing major.  However, have never seen the error your getting so it maybe something more hardware related.

mlc

[weirdwolf]

Does yours have "Intel Boot Agent" on it ?

[mlc.au]

No.  I used to have it on one of them because I updated it from HP download site, but its no longer there.  Haven't thought about it because I don't boot from a network.

[weirdwolf]

Thanks mlc.au . I'm thinking "Intel Boot Agent" is the problem, would like to know how DSL gets around it while the others don't. I'm going to give it back and tell her I can't do anything with it. Just another reason to hate Intel.