[SOLVED] unable to start a linux system whatever the distro

[Guylin]

Hi guys,

I just changed a motherboard on an HTPC and I bought an ASUS M4A785G. The problem is, I cannot start a Linux system with this motherboard. The system loads for half a minute, then displays a black (or purple with Ubuntu 10.04) screen and just freezes. I cannot switch to another terminal nor do a ctrl-alt-suppr or ctrl-alt-bkspace.

I tried Mandriva 2009 (the system installed on this machine), and live CDs from Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu 10.4, Mandriva 2009, all in standard and failsafe modes (including text mode).
I'll try an old Slackware CD I might still have somewhere (have to explore my old archives...) but I'm wondering if someone had this problem. The graphic chipset is a Radeon HD 4200, which is now supported on Ubuntu since 9.04 but I now there have been some problems with ATI cards.

Windows XP works fine so the motherboard is not faulty...

Thanx

Guillaume

[coopstah13]

should be a graphics problem, I'm guessing that you had a different graphics chipset before this one

you should boot up in single user mode, there should be an entry in grub for it, then you can edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and find the line for your video device that specifies the driver, maybe Driver "intel" or Driver "i810" or Driver "nvidia", put a # before the line, save, and reboot machine

[Guylin]

Thanks for your answer, actually I found the solution an hour ago. I booted a Slax system (minimalist) in text mode and it crashed too. So I unplugged all USB devices and the Hauppauge TV board, and it worked... The problem comes from the WinTV NovaT. It was working fine with the previous motherboard (MSI) so I guess I'll have to tune up the internal peripherals.

Anyway it works now!