IRQ-less Geforce 4 Ti 4200

[WhiteRaven]

I'm trying to get the 3123 to install on RH8, but I'm not having much luck. When I first compiled the driver I got a message that the GF4 didn't have an IRQ and it suggested setting Assign IRQ to VGA in BIOS. Problem is, I don't have that option. Now everytime I try to start X, it reports that no devices were found. Fortunately, I was able to go back to the awful VESA driver by disabling GLX. Anyone know how to force the GF4 to an IRQ, or get the nv driver to ignore the IRQ?

[Klaus-P]

Verify that in your BIOS (if there is such an option) the first video card is set to AGP.
If it is set to PCI, glx could make trouble.
"... by disabling GLX" hmm, well do you have edited correctly your
XF86Config file ( Driver "nvidia" instead of Driver "vesa", etc,..., according to the README file ?

Btw. If you uncomment "load glx" X should also start. You won't get the hardware video acceleration.
And without an irq you will get NOTHING. Btw "lspci -v" will list you also your gforce card
with an irq.

[bwkaz]

Which motherboard is this? Remind me to stay away from them... :p

Seriously, though, that's just about as braindead as you can get for the people that wrote that BIOS. It sounds like they were almost specifically trying to prevent you from using anything other than Windows, the morons... Linux, at the moment, will not assign an IRQ to a device that the BIOS hasn't assigned an IRQ to. The thinking is something like "well, the BIOS must want it disabled". Or, I suppose it could just be not worth the effort it would take to add that to the kernel, that's a possibility as well.

It's like the "PnP-aware OS" setting. That setting is horribly misnamed; it should be named the "let the OS configure non-essential devices" setting instead, because that's what it does (however, to be fair, there are some motherboard manufacturers whose BIOS documentation does explain this). However, in OSes like Linux, the kernel figures "the BIOS didn't configure this device, so neither will I", and doesn't even detect it, usually. There might be some special cases of drivers being able to do that, but none that I know about. Which is why it's always a good idea to disable that setting as well.

[WhiteRaven]

Well, from the comments I've seen, it looks like I'm SOL. However, there's one trick that someone used to get soundcards to work when the first PnP cards came out. I might be able to force the GF4 to an IRQ by first booting into Win98, then using loadlin to load the kernel. I'm hoping that Windows will assign an IRQ to the GF4, and that it will keep that IRQ when the Linux kernel comes up. Any thoughts on this before I waste an hour or two installing Win98?

[r0gu3]

Try disabling APIC from your bios...

- r0gu3

[Klaus-P]

WhiteRaven,
Modestly, before you're going to comment any comments it would be very nice if you're, at least, trying
to answer the posted questions addressed to you. And... then suggesting your technical comments and answers.
Thanks and sorry ( ";-)" and ":-( " )!

[WhiteRaven]

Finally figured it out...bwkaz's mention of PnP Aware O/S made me take a look at that setting, and sure enough it was set to "Yes." Once I changed it to "No", I was able to confirm (with lspci - thanks Klaus-P) that my GF4 had acquired IRQ 11. My X server then started without complaining. Thanks, everyone.