# ACPI: Unable to load the System Description Tables: SOLVED

## cerddwr

I have just installed Gentoo 2006.0 (amd64) on new hardware, consisting of Asus A8N-VM CSM (which uses nvidia chips), 200 GB sata disk, 1GB ram, AMD64 3500.  The system essentially works, and I have got networking, Xorg and a few applications (Fluxbox, Firefox-bin) up and running.  But there are several error messages seen upon booting.  They may be independent of each other so I shall put them in separate posts.  This is the first:  Immediately after "Booting the Kernel" appears, the screen says "ACPI: Unable to load the System Description Tables".  The output from what I think is the relevant part of dmesg is:

```
Bootdata ok (command line is root=/dev/sda6 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1280x1024-16@60 splash=silent,theme:livecd-2006.0 quiet CONSOLE=/dev/tty1)

Linux version 2.6.15-gentoo-r5 (root@compi) (gcc version 3.4.4 (Gentoo 3.4.4-r1, ssp-3.4.4-1.0, pie-8.7.8)) #3 Mon Mar 20 19:50:22 Local time zone must be set--see zic manu

BIOS-provided physical RAM map:

 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e5000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000003bfc0000 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 000000003bfc0000 - 000000003bfce000 (ACPI data)

 BIOS-e820: 000000003bfce000 - 000000003bff0000 (ACPI NVS)

 BIOS-e820: 000000003bff0000 - 000000003c000000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fef00000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000ff780000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)

ACPI: RSDP (v002 ACPIAM                                ) @ 0x00000000000fb870

ACPI: XSDT (v001 A M I  OEMXSDT  0x11000517 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x000000003bfc0100

ACPI: FADT (v003 A M I  OEMFACP  0x11000517 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x000000003bfc0290

ACPI: MADT (v001 A M I  OEMAPIC  0x11000517 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x000000003bfc0390

ACPI: MCFG (v001 A M I  OEMMCFG  0x11000517 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x000000003bfc0400

ACPI: OEMB (v001 A M I  AMI_OEM  0x11000517 MSFT 0x00000097) @ 0x000000003bfce040

ACPI: DSDT (v001  A0368 A0368001 0x00000001 INTL 0x02002026) @ 0x0000000000000000

On node 0 totalpages: 241266

  DMA zone: 2969 pages, LIFO batch:0

  DMA32 zone: 238297 pages, LIFO batch:31

  Normal zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0

  HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:0

Nvidia board detected. Ignoring ACPI timer override.

ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x508

ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000

ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)

Processor #0 15:15 APIC version 16

ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x81] disabled)

ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0])

IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 1, version 17, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23

ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl)

ACPI: BIOS IRQ0 pin2 override ignored.

ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level)

ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 14 global_irq 14 high edge)

ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 15 global_irq 15 high edge)

ACPI: IRQ9 used by override.

ACPI: IRQ14 used by override.

ACPI: IRQ15 used by override.

Setting APIC routing to flat

Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information

Allocating PCI resources starting at 40000000 (gap: 3c000000:c2c00000)

Checking aperture...

CPU 0: aperture @ 840000000 size 32 MB

Aperture from northbridge cpu 0 too small (32 MB)

No AGP bridge found

Built 1 zonelists

Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda6 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr,1280x1024-16@60 splash=silent,theme:livecd-2006.0 quiet CONSOLE=/dev/tty1

Initializing CPU#0

PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 131072 bytes)

time.c: Using 3.579545 MHz PM timer.

time.c: Detected 2210.120 MHz processor.

time.c: Using PIT/TSC based timekeeping.

Console: colour VGA+ 80x25

Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)

Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)

Memory: 962380k/982784k available (2449k kernel code, 19564k reserved, 907k data, 172k init)

Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4426.79 BogoMIPS (lpj=8853593)

Mount-cache hash table entries: 256

CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)

CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)

mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ stepping 02

    ACPI-0311: *** Error: ns_search_and_enter: Bad character in ACPI Name: 43045350

    ACPI-0292: *** Error: Looking up [0x43045350] (NON-ASCII)

 in namespace, AE_BAD_CHARACTER

    ACPI-0115: *** Error: acpi_load_tables: Could not load namespace: AE_BAD_CHARACTER

    ACPI-0123: *** Error: acpi_load_tables: Could not load tables: AE_BAD_CHARACTER

ACPI: Unable to load the System Description Tables

Using local APIC timer interrupts.

Detected 12.557 MHz APIC timer.

testing NMI watchdog ... OK.

```

When I shutdown, the power does not turn itself off.  As far as I know the kernel is properly configured for ACPI.  

I suspect either a kernel or a BIOS problem;  does anyone have any ideas?

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## blinx

There has been a long and well known bios problem on that board, upgrade to version 0901 linked from this thread: http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20060330015850652&board_id=1&model=A8N-VM+CSM&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

It doesn't seem like asus has put it in their download section yet, but the one linked from above fixes it.

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## cerddwr

Thank you for that.  I have now installed the BIOS update.  Unfortunately I have more serious problems, namely frequent freezes in graphic mode, and I need to sort those out first.  Some of the topics on the forum seem to suggest that the problems may be related.

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## cerddwr

I was able to prevent the crashes by booting with the option "acpi=off".  Now the BIOS update 1001 has solved all these problems.

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