Asus P5QL Pro Nightmare

[Rick Bragg]

On Sat, 2009-02-21 at 20:31 -0500, Rashkae wrote:
> Rick Bragg wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have a brand new Asus P5QL Pro, and I have been trying to get it
> > running with ubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64 and there are very strange
> > problems.  It seems I can NEVER reboot the from the Ubuntu CD 2 times in
> > a row, but if I wait a few hours after shutting down, then I can reboot
> > with the CD!  No changes at all, just wait a few hours!  Also, I want to
> > use a (software) raid 10 array as my main disk.  So I use cfdisk to
> > create a single partition with the FD type for each of my 4 disks, then
> > I install mdadm, and as soon as I try to create the array with the
> > command "mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=10
> > --raid-devices=4 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1" it says that
> > "mdadm: another array by this name is already running"!  How could this
> > be already running?!? I booted from the CD!  It seems I can't create a
> > raid array at all. and it can never reboot without waiting for hours
> > unplugged.  This makes no sense at all.
> > 
> > Any Clues?
> > 
> > Thanks
> > Rick
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> You have some seriously mis-behaving hardware there somewhere.
> 
> You can speed up that reboot problem by discharging the power to
> motherboard and devices.  Shut down the computer.  Turn off physical
> power (either from the switch on your power supply itself, or if your
> power supply is one of those that tries to skimp 10c on a switch, unplug
> it) press the power button on PC, you should see the LED flash on for
> half a second before it dies.  At that point, the power still residual
> in the Capacitors should be spent and you should be able to re-power the
> computer and the misbehaving chip, whether it be on Mobo or some other
> device, should reboot.
> 
> 
> Most boot cd's will rebuild raid arrays.  That's usually considered a
> good thing for boot cd's to do.  Try cat /proc/mdstat to see which
> arrays are active and what devices they consist of.
> 
> -- 


Thanks for your help.

I always unplug the computer altogether. The problem is not just during
"reboot" it is that it won't "boot" at all unless it has been unplugged
for hours, or if I pop out the cmos bat for a second.  This is
consistent and makes no sense at all.  Once the computer is up and
running on the CD, it will always takes hours before it will boot a
second time after a shutdown and total power unplug.  This is well
beyond the period of any caps holding a charge.  The only way I can get
it to boot right away after a shutdown is if I take out the cmos bat for
a few seconds, then I have to reset the bios.  

ahh!
Rick






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