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ACPI Forced On & Option Disabled in WinXP-Certified Motherboards
stealth_zipper asks: "I just got off the phone with a rep from Soyo Computer Inc trying to get the ability to change IRQs for the onboard hardware. It turns out that because of a deal to get WindowsXP certification, the Dragon-series motherboard ended up having the ability of Enabling/Disabling ACPI in the BIOS disabled. Now FreeBSD has complications with multiple devices on the same IRQs (especially sound, video, and nic all off the same one). Is there a way to get around this for new hardware? Has anyone else encountered this?" Why in the world does XP need this feature disabled, and are there workarounds to get OSes like FreeBSD working properly with motherboards of this sort?
wouldn't this easily add to their antitrust case?
microsoft makes so many smart moves.
Runnin' On Empty
ok this is just insane! so microsoft can influence the IHVs too? >sigh< i guess the answer "don't buy it" isn't viable? how about we get some l33t hardware dudes into it and see if they can't fix it :)
Are you sure that's the problem? These boards are having *tons* of problems, the P4 ones in particular.
I work at a computer shop in Wisconsin and we've gone so far as to stop carrying them because of the problems.
DOA.... bad slots.... bad ps/2 ports... "nothing after POST"... you name it.
I'd just make sure that it's ACPI causing the problem and not a defective board.
-kwishot
XP doesn't require ACPI to be disabled on all boards, far from it. This is quite an incorrect leap to assume that because some random tech says they needed to ditch ACPI to get XP certified, that XP cannot work with ACPI.
The best board to get right now are the MSI Athlon boards. XP certified, fast as crap, rock solid.
Buying shitty hardware may save you some money up front, but you'll pay through the teeth down the road.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I write video drivers for a living, and we have had nothing but problems with our software on the Dragon series of motherboards. In certain cases, the chipset is rejecting known configuration registers for AGP bus width, etc., which on some of our products causes the beta-level drivers we provide to bluescreen.
;-)
Some of our senior engineers have been in contact with their engineers, and they seem to be telling us the problem is ours, though we are following their specs to a tee.
Why can't it be easy like it did in the days where you supported a few int 10h BIOS calls? (sigh) Now that was cutting-edge for 1989!
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Seems like the perfect time for BSD to enter the 21st century.
:)
Seriously, ACPI is the wave of three years ago. It's a better interface in many ways, especially since (in theory) it eliminates the painful IRQ merrygoround we all rode back in 1997.
The choices here appear to be adapt, abort or avoid. I'd choose the latter. But then again, I'm running OSX anyway so it's a moot point
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I don't know why this is a problem. If you frequent the mobo forums, you'll see users asking questions left and right on how to disable ACPI. Why are people clamoring now for a BIOS option to be activated just so they'll clamor for on how to disable it?
Honestly, how important is this sticker? "Designed for Windows XP" and "Windows XP Compatible" are totally different concepts. ... "The Geeks" are the most likely crowd to be putting an alternative operating system, such as linux, on their assembled system, and wouldn't care much about how "Designed for XP" their systems are.
This list of requirements (which, btw, doesn't force ACPI to be disabled) is for companies to market their products as "Designed for Windows XP"
Ok...who are the people buying motherboards and other parts separately so that they can put it all together themselves? "The Geeks"
The companies who I would picture to be most worried about having this sticker are companies who use completely proprietary systems with Windows XP pre-installs anyways (Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc) and need to market their systems as such. If that's the case... no one can complain about their system not being linux or anything compatible because they bought a "Designed for Windows XP" system. Designed for XP... preinstalled with XP... marketed with XP.
To sum it up... this sticker has a much lower value than one might think...the only people who need it are... the people who need it (make sense?)
-kwishot
I'm sure they do want to force the motherboard manufacturers off APM onto ACPI. ACPI is needed (or at least helps) for a lot of the more advanced power management/hibernate functions, and they don't want motherboards to get the "Designed for Windows XP" logo if they don't support all of the OS features in that regard.
If the option to disable ACPI was there then you can bet some lazy motherboard manufacturers would ship it in the disabled mode just to avoid the trouble of getting ACPI to work properly.
If you ask me, the solution here is to fix whichever isn't handling ACPI properly, FreeBSD or the motherboard BIOS, not to complain about Microsoft..
I really hope you are joking about Linux-Only Motherboards. That's even dumber than Windows-Only Motherboards.
Replace Linux Only with "non-XP certified", and it makes more sense. I think anyone building their own machine is going to be smart enough not to care about certification as long as it works.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Riiiiight.
You mean the democratic congress and president who passed the DMCA?
No matter how bad MS is, the DMCA is the worst piece of legislation put into law in 30 years.
If IE's Windows integration is a monopoly, then I'm all for the removal of Konqueror from KDE.
Apples and oranges. Windows is an OS, KDE is a gui. You cannot remove IE from the OS (windows), but you are quite free to remove Konqueror from the OS (linux/*BSD/etc).