# [SOLVED] nForce Motherboards

## Vortigern

Hi,

I should like to buy a new computer. I decided to use M2N-SLI DeLuxe (AM2) NF570 or M2N32-SLI DeLuxe/Wi-Fi (AM2) NF590.

I read that there are some problem with nforce chipset, so I would like to know if it is possible to make AUDIO, SLI and LAN working on this motherboard.

If anyone encountered other issues, regarding this motherboard or chipset, please post it.

Thanks in advance!

P.S.

The SLI will be made with two nvidia 7600.Last edited by Vortigern on Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:56 am; edited 1 time in total

----------

## DextroA

I have nForce 4 SLI and 2 geforce LE6600. 

i haven't tried SLI yet because i just installed the new driver and for some reason nvidia-settings bugs right now but SLI is implemented. but hardware acceleration, onboard audio and Gigabit ethernet works.

----------

## Vortigern

Thanks DxtroA for your answer,

have you also tested nforce 570 and 590?

----------

## jonnevers

 *Vortigern wrote:*   

> Thanks DxtroA for your answer,
> 
> have you also tested nforce 570 and 590?

 

I've owned numerous nforce based motherboards (nforce2 and nforce3 but no nforece4 ones...) they all relied on the intel8x0 drivers to support the builtin audio chipset (AC'97)... well the intel8x0 drivers do not do hardware mixing (where multiple applications play sound at the same time and the hardware forms a single output stream), so only one app can have the audio device at a time. There are work around sound daemons like dmix available but they require extra work and imo are a hassle.

from google, it seems nforce4 uses this same chipset and thus the same drivers. maybe someone with a nforce4 can verify.

anyway, I bought a sb live! because I refuse to use audio w/o hardware mixing.

other then that my nforce chipsets have been absolutely stellar w/ the gigE ethernet being very well supported.

SLI i cannot help you with.

----------

## geniux

I have a MSI K9N SLI Platinum nForce 570 chipset, ethernet working (even though it's only 10/100 because I have to use the forcedeth driver) sound is working too with the snd_intel_hda driver the intel8x0 didn't work (the original sound driver Realtek ALC883 is not supported). Cannot tell you about the SLI though, because I don't use it. I'm very satisfied with this mainboard, one of the best I've ever owned  :Wink: 

----------

## Vortigern

Well, 

Thanks guys for your help. 

If anyone can report his/her experience, I will appreciate!

----------

## Scumpeter

I am using a nforce4ultra without SLI.

Lan works with 1000/100/10 (although I'm using the 100/10 driver from the kernel).

Stereo-sound works fine with alsa and dmix, but the sourround output is dead.

----------

## Vortigern

Well,

I've tested by myself the nforce 590 and I can say that it works pretty good!

I own an Abit AN9 32X, and the LAN is working (100/10Mb since I use forcedeth). The audio also is performing real good with Intel HD audio driver.

Sata perfectly working. I've not yet tested the FireWire, I plan to do it later on.

The real big problem is with APIC, I can't get it working also with the latest bios and kernel...   :Sad: 

But we can assume this post solved, since the nforce is working good, at least for the 590!

Thanks guys!

----------

## widan

 *Vortigern wrote:*   

> 100/10Mb since I use forcedeth

 

Gigabit is supported with forcedeth, it's just that the driver was initially written back when nForce chipsets only supported 10/100, and it stayed in the wrong category. You can check the supported modes with ethtool.

----------

## saber850

I just upgraded my system with an ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe which uses the NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset.

I've tried everything I can think of and cannot get the ethernet working.

I enabled the forcedeth driver (I built it into the kernel as opposed to a module) along w/ Marvell PHY.

I disabled APIC and APCI because I came across a couple online resources which indicated they were causing problems.

When I was building forcedeth as a module, it would load fine w/ "modprobe forcedeth".

But net.eth0 always fails with:

network interface eth0 does not exist

Please verify hardware or kernel module (driver)

At this point I'm completely out of ideas.

Any/all ideas/suggestions are desperately needed.

Can someone w/ this same motherboard please post their kernel configuration?  I tried vanilla sources (2.6.18.6 at this point) and the latest stable from kernel.org (2.6.20.3).

----------

## widan

Can you post the parts of dmesg output related to forcedeth ? It should look like this (I have an nForce4, but it should be similar):

```
forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.54.

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LMAC] enabled at IRQ 23

GSI 16 sharing vector 0xE1 and IRQ 16

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:13.0[A] -> Link [LMAC] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 225

PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:13.0 to 64

forcedeth: using HIGHDMA

eth0: forcedeth.c: subsystem: 01043:8141 bound to 0000:00:13.0
```

Also post the output of "ifconfig -a", just in case the interface is named eth1 and there is no eth0...

----------

## saber850

Thanks for the quick reply!

And I think you hit it on the head regarding eth1 instead of eth0!   :Very Happy: 

Here's the parts of dmesg related to forcedeth:

```

forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.59.

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [APCH] enabled at IRQ 23

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:08.0[A] -> Link [APCH] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 16

PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:08.0 to 64

forcedeth: using HIGHDMA

eth0: forcedeth.c: subsystem: 01043:8239 bound to 0000:00:08.0

```

Is that enough from dmesg?

The output of "ifconfig -a" lists "eth1" and "lo".

So now I hope to impose on you how to resolve the "eth0" vs. "eth1" issue.

Thanks again; it's a huge relief to get some hope back.[/code]

----------

## albright

It's possible this is a udev problem. Have you checked the udev

net rule?

----------

## saber850

Thanks for the suggestion albright.

widan's response gave me a clue and I verified that the issue is in fact an interface naming/assingment problem.  The dual network interfaces are being assigned to eth1 and eth2; entirely bypassing my system's previous setup of using eth0.

I guess this is a udev thing?

Any pointers on how I can instruct udev to assign the interfaces as eth0 and eth1?  Ideally, I'd like to retain eth0 because I need it to be the same static IP for some of the servers I'm running on this machine.

Thank you.

----------

## widan

Seems there are quite a few problems like that at the moment, like this one or that one... It's a udev problem, and you need to clean /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules, as it contains the MAC address of the NIC on your old motherboard.

----------

## saber850

After the all-nighter upgrading my hardware and then futzing w/ the network issue I'm running on empty at this point.

I can't seem to recall how to add the appropriate /etc/init.d/net.ethX scripts (now that I have 2 interfaces).  I thought it was a script but I can't seem to find it.  Anyone?

----------

## saber850

 *widan wrote:*   

> Seems there are quite a few problems like that at the moment, like this one or that one... It's a udev problem, and you need to clean /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules, as it contains the MAC address of the NIC on your old motherboard.

 

Cool!  I never new about that; thanks!  I'm going to reboot now to see if that helps.

----------

## saber850

I can't thank you enough!

This experience underscores the power of the community.  I couldn't pay for this service.  Responding to my initial request within hours on a Saturday, and solving the problem a few hours later...awesome.

I'm ecstatic; thanks again!    :Very Happy: 

----------

