I don't want sound modules loaded at bootup!

[tommy]

Hi everybody,
I own a cheapo M758lmr motherboard ( Sis 630, socket 370, pentium 866MHz) with integrated video and sound. It had swelled capacitors, it randomly freezed Puppy at the keyboard layout screen or after loading X. Sometimes it works well. Last week I replaced the capacitors, thinking to solve the lockups, with no luck. So I think the problem is somewhere else.

3 bad things about this crappy motherboard:

1) The onboard audio chip is broken. It's very hot, it doesn't work in Puppy ( nor in Window$ 98 ) . May I boot Puppy with a no-sound kernel parameter? I.e.: puppy alsa=off (I don't have Puppy installed on HD, I run it in CD mode, so please don't tell me to blacklist sound modules .. if possible!)
I found that if X loads the desktop AND the sound icon in the taskbar is normal, the system freezes easily. If the sound icon shows a red cross ( I thnk it means that the sistem found a sound problem), Puppy tends to work well. It's random to have the sound icon with the red cross or without. Disabling / enabling the onboard chip on the bios makes no difference.

2) When the pc freezes, hitting briefly the power button makes the system unlock- unfreeze for 1/10th of a second, then it freezes again. Maybe a problem with acpi ( or the bios acpi interferes with the hot blown sound chip??). If i press again and again the power button, the screen goes in sleep mode, pressing again wakes up the pc and the monitor, but puppy is still freezed.
When Puppy freezes, I always have to hard reset the machine (keyboard and mouse don't work).

3) Sometimes this sistem boots well... Puppy 4.00 and Puppy 3.01 will boot and work perfectly for hours! Puppy 2.16 works, but the mouse cursor becomes crazy and goes where it wants, opening tons of start menus/ apps or shifting to the second virtual desktop. Maybe the problem is the mouse?

Anyway I think the problem simply resides in the cheap mobo... bought it second hand for 10 euros.... Yet any help is very appreciated.

[cb88]

at least on puppy 2.14R you can blacklist modules when booting from CD

like:
puppy blacklist=sound_module_name

I think that is the syntax anyway

[tommy]

Thanks, cb88. I have (almost) good news.
I did a lsmod and I saw at least 10 snd-xxx modules with different names, so the blacklist= kernel parameter would be too long to be usable. I digged into the problem and found that:
if the mainboard let X display the desktop, and if the sound icon on the taskbar doesn't have the red cross, I can do things with the keyboard. F12 opens the start menu, I am able to open apps and to close them using alt-F4. Then, as soon as I move the (ps/2) mouse, Puppy freezes.

If the sound icon has the red cross ( this is random), the ps/2 mouse and Puppy work well for hours.

Today I disconnected the ps/2 mouse and used a serial mouse instead.
Ta-daaaan!!! Now Puppy works in any condition, the sound icon in the taskbar can be with or without the red cross, this makes no difference, Puppy is stable, everything works!


Bye!!

So this bad motherboard has even hardware conflicts with ps/2 interrupts?? Really crappy ... the worst motherboard I ever had.... My Hyundai super 386 c motherboard at 20MHz dated 1991 is ways more stable... !!!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Your problems may be the soldering in a spot.

With something getting real hot, I would check the soldering again!

More information at badcaps.net:

http://badcaps.net