[SOLVED] BIOS problem

[laptopray]

I installed Mageia 2 (KDE) on my laptop yesterday, having never used it before. The laptop is a 3 year old Asus X59GL (nVidia graphics, Intel core 2 duo). I have previously only used Debian based distros, all Gnome (both 2 & 3), although I have played around with some KDE based ones to see how that desktop works.

So far, I am impressed with Mageia - it is easy to get used to, works well, and has up-to-date software, but there is just one problem. I have only found it before with Gnome based distros but never, until now, with KDE: every time I reboot, the year in BIOS changes to 2099 which, in turn, causes problems with updates. I usually remember to change it to the current year, and that is fine for one session, but then I have to change it again at the next boot, which gets a bit tiring! The odd thing to me is that it is only the year which is altered (I checked right through BIOS to make sure). Also, the correct year is shown on the desktop, whether or not I alter it in BIOS.

I have wondered in the past if this is caused by the GRUB, so I was pleased when I saw the LILO alternative. I tried that, but after each installation and restart with it, the computer froze, so I went back to GRUB. I really haven't found a satifactory permanent solution, even from Asus. Does anyone have any ideas here? They would be very welcome!

[wintpe]

im guessing this has something to do with the hwclock binary in the reboot, or nftp and halt scripts.

perhaps when it writes back the hwclock time from whatever the system time currently is (ie the time in memory).

something goes wring in the call to the bios.

ie during the hwclock --systohc

this in turn calls this system call

ioctl(4, RTC_SET_TIME, {tm_sec=5, tm_min=12, tm_hour=16, tm_mday=26, tm_mon=5, tm_year=112, ...}) = 0

you can see this yourself by running

strace -f hwclock --systohc

this talks through the kernel device /dev/rtc

(man rtc)

make sure that ioctl call has the right details.


a way of proving this maybe to move the binary /sbin/hwclock to hwclock.old

and then replace it with a script called hwclock that does nothing

ie

#!/bin/sh
exit 0

and then reboot, see if this stops the problem, if so we know the issue is between hwclock and your bios.

regards peter

[widget]

I am not familiar with asus bios but if I were you I would take a look around in there for a fix.

There could well be a setting that alows or does not alow the OS to change settings in the bios. In Dell bios this is under "Security". Have a look for something like that and set it so that the bios is not changed by the OS.

[laptopray]

Thank you both for your replies.

widget - I've checked Security in BIOS, and there is not a lot which can be changed. I have tried restoring the manufacturers' default, and this temporarily solved the problem. However, after a few boots, it returned to 2099 as its preferred year again! I'll do some more exploring tomorrow.

Peter - I haven't yet had time to try your idea out, but will do so tomorrow. I presume that I should carry out your suggested procedure in the root terminal. Is that correct?

Once again, thanks to you both.

[wintpe]

thats correct

[laptopray]

Hi.

I probably sound ungrateful now, but I really haven't had the time to explore Peter's ideas yet so, rather than mess up the system, I've installed Bodhi Linux (Enlightenment) instead, and it's behaving itself really well, even in BIOS!

However, it's an Ubuntu based distro (don't like Ubuntu ) , so I really can see myself having another go at Mageia some time in the future when I have more time.

Thank you for your input. I hope that you don't feel that it's been wasted - as far as I am concerned, it hasn't. I like the OS and I like the forum. I'll be back!

Ray.

[laptopray]

The problem is now solved! , so I'm happy to be back.

I installed Mageia 2, but without APIC. It worked, and I now have no BIOS problems whatsoever.

However, I do have issues with GIMP and RawTherapee, but that's for another post.

Thanks to all for your input.

Ray.