# Dell Dimension 4600 with Intel 865PE chipset

## tbenson

Hello,

I recently purchased a Dell Dimension 4600 with an Intel 865PE chipset.  Both the chipset and the Dimension 4600 series are very new (I believe both came out in late May).  Of course, the first thing that I did when I got the machine was throw Gentoo at it, but I've had some problems since the chipset doesn't really seem to be supported by any kernels that I've tried. 

Does anyone know of a kernel that includes support for the Intel 865PE chipset?  Or a patch that I can apply to one of the kernels?

In particular, the onboard NIC (an Intel PRO/100 VE) doesn't work with some kernels.  It did not work with the kernel that came with the 1.4_rc4 installer, despite including the correct NIC module (e100).  I got around that by installing a 3COM card for the install and have since found some kernels that support it.  But I cannot get the SB Live! sound card to work in any kernel I've tried.  lspci can see it fine and I know there is excellent support for this card, so I assume it's due to the chipset.  I've even tried both ALSA and OSS in several kernels, built the emu10k1 driver into the kernel and as a module, etc.  The modules always insert fine, but no lines show up in the system log noting that a device was found and the /dev files are never created.

Here are the kernels that I've tried and their results:

linux-2.4.20-gentoo-r5

agpgart cannot recognize the chipset at all.  Neither the NIC nor sound card work, but everything else is fine.

linux-2.5.70

agpgart recognizes the chipset as an 865, although I assume that's different than the 865PE.  The NIC works, sound card does not.

linux-2.4.21-rc4-ac1

agpgart recognizes the chipset as an 865G, which is again not exactly correct.  The NIC works (well the module loaded, I didn't really test it), but the sound card still does not.

I also tried a RedHat 9 install and it could not find the sound card either.  I know the card works however as it works in Windows.

Has anyone else tried putting Gentoo on a Dimension 4600 or a mobo based on the Intel 865PE chipset?  Did you have similar problems?

Thanks.

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## Xenophon

I just purchased an Albatron PX864PE Pro, and trying to install Gentoo on it gave me the same problems.  I have not yet tried other kernels, and I am still looking for real 865PE support in Linux.  I will post my findings here, but until then, I too would like anyone with a solution to assist.

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## tbenson

I've gotten this mostly working now.  I'm running kernel 2.4.21_rc6-ac1, which recognizes the board as an 865G (the G apparently has integrated video, so I get a warning saying that it can't find that).  Despite that warning, the video card works with AGP now.  The NIC also works with this kernel and the e100 module.  My sound card issue turned out to be unrelated.  Dell ships an OEM version of the SoundBlaster Live! that is unsupported in Linux (unless you want to pay for drivers).  I'm just using the onboard audio now, which also works with the above kernel.

I just noticed that 2.4.21_rc7-ac1 made it into the portage tree Friday.  I might try that one as well, but I'm pretty happy with rc6.

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## dhughes

I've just built up a system based on the MSI 865PE Neo2-S motherboard.  I tried to install Gentoo 1.4 RC4 but it hung on bootup.  Then I found a BIOS setting that put the chipset into "legacy mode".  That restricted what I could set up with the extra IDE channels, but with a bit of re-plugging of cables I got a working system I could boot to.  Yes, I got through my first Gentoo install! 

This MoBo does not have the onboard LAN or graphics to confuse the issue.  I guess at some stage I'll have to go back and update the kernel to support this MoBo properly, but that can happen when I'm further along the learning curve.  

I'd tried Gentoo previously on an old K6-2/350 box but it was painfully slow.   :Sad:    I decided not to try again until I had a better system to use it on, and now I have it.   :Very Happy:    This is one fast box.  Dual-bank DDR400 RAM (1GB), a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 with 800Mhz FSB, and a WD 10,000rpm SATA  hard drive.  :Cool:    I think I can cope with it partially crippled for a while!

Don

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## orkid

same problem here.

i'm using the 1.4_rc2 disc and can't modprobe eepro100 or e100. It won't load the modules saying device does not exist.

anyone know when support for this chipset will be in the kernel. If it already is, what versions? (hopefully it's in a 2.4, i'd rather stay with that than go to 2.5)

tia

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## jmquigs

I have an Asus P4P800 which is based on the 865PE.  gentoo-r5 doesn't recognize it, so the disk DMA is disabled by default and NVIDIA uses its own driver instead of AGPGART.  I tried 2.4.21_rc7-ac1, but it hung on boot, right after printing a line about ac97 audio codec.  If I disable audio entirely it works, but I would rather have audio through my SBLive card.  

Does anyone know how to disable the ac97 without disabling all sound?  Even if I disable it in the BIOS I still get the hang.

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## orkid

how did you 'disable audio entirely'?

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## Xenophon

 *tbenson wrote:*   

> I've gotten this mostly working now.  I'm running kernel 2.4.21_rc6-ac1, which recognizes the board as an 865G (the G apparently has integrated video, so I get a warning saying that it can't find that).  Despite that warning, the video card works with AGP now.  The NIC also works with this kernel and the e100 module.

 

I'm really interested in getting HyperThreading and thermal management (as well as CPU scaling) working, for power and efficiency purposes.  I still haven't got 2.5.70 out of the development-sources to compile (unresolved symbols in various board specific modules, ICH and epro100).

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## jmquigs

orkid, in the kernel menu configure, I just disabled sound on the "Sound" menu.

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## orkid

Xenophon. I have 2.5.70 compiled with no problems on an MSI Neo2-LS board. P4 2.4C. 1gb ram.  and the e100 driver.

do you have any leftover 2.4 pieces from a previous 2.4 kernel install attempt?

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## Xenophon

As a sidenote, I did have bits of broken 2.4 install lying around, but removing them did not fix the problem.

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## ceuric01

I have a Dell 4550 with the same problem i have been struggling with this for 2 days now but now all I have to do is update the kernel without internet... I guess ill need to fire up the cd burner again  :Twisted Evil:   I also sent an email to Intel ill post it here and on my other thread if it is worth reading.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=484607#484607

Skeeg

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## Antimatter

i have an onboard gigabit ethernet its an intel i belive on my IC7-G motherboard, anyway i have no other access to the internet so what should i do with the inital installation, i can probably install windows for a while to get the files i need but i don't want to have to do that, it takes time.

anyway is there a guide on how to work with an onboard gigabit ethernet?

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## ceuric01

 :Shocked: 

if you can maybe try to download new drivers from  intel who knows maybe youll get lucky.

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## Moled

I have an 875 which is pretty much the same

to get agp working I used agpgart as a module and did:

```
modprobe agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1
```

dmesg gives me:

```
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann

agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 941M

agpgart: Trying generic Intel routines for device id: 2578

agpgart: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0xd0000000

```

agp works ok with this, or at least the nvidia driver picks it up ok

```
Host Bridge:     Intel Corp. 82875P Memory Controller Hub

Fast Writes:     Supported

SBA:             Supported

AGP Rates:       8x 4x

Registers:       0x1f004a1b:0x00000912
```

proper support is in 2.6

to get HT to work I enabled the following options in the kernel:

under

Processor type and features  --->  

```

(Pentium-4) Processor family  

 [*] Symmetric multi-processing support 

```

under:

General setup  --->  

ACPI Support  --->   

```

[*] ACPI Support

[*] CPU Enumeration Only
```

this is disabled by default (read the help for that last option)

so also to my lilo.conf I added the following to each appropriate kernel section:

```
append="acpismp=force"
```

the inbuilt ethernet uses the e1000 module

ie "modprobe e1000" should work

in the kernel I used:

Network device support  --->

Ethernet (1000 Mbit)  ---> 

```
<M> Intel(R) PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet support 
```

and added "e1000" to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.4

remember to run "modules-update"

hope this makes sense/help at all

----------

