Knoppix Freezes During Loading

[brafo96874]

First I just want to say I've check the Md5 sum and burned at 4x speed, so those are not my problems.

Here are my system specs: Intel P4 Northwood 3.4ghz, Asus P4C800-E mobo, 2gb of Corsair CMX-DDR400 memory (4x512), 36gb WD Raptor, Nvidia 7800gs.

When I boot to the Knoppix cd the splash screen comes up and says to hit enter to continue loading Knoppix. I hit enter and it says it's loading then all of a sudden the screen goes black and stays that way until I reboot. This exact same problem happens with Ubuntu when I try to use it as a Live cd. Also, my memory has LED's on the end of each stick. When the screen goes black, the first and third sticks' LEDs go red and freeze, and the second and fourth sticks' LEDs turn green and freeze (normally the LEDs are constantly flashing under any kind of use). Could I have a hardware incompatibility? The memory is fine b/c I've run MemTest on all of the sticks and I use this computer everyday in Windows XP with no memory problems. Thanks for your help.

[Harry Kuhman]

First, type typing knoppix xmodule=vesa at the Knoppix boot pompt.

If that doesn't help, try typing failsafe at the boot prompt. You will not like failsafe mode, networking and some other stuff will not work, your mouse might not even be detected, but if knoppix comes up with a KDE gui screen that will tell us a lot and you can work on figuring out what cheat codes that you need from there. Hit F2 and/or F3 at the boot prompt for more details.

[brafo96874]

Ok, here's a quick update: I tried inputting "knoppix xmodule=vesa" and it still just gave me a blank black screen immediately after. Next, I inputted "failsafe" and I was actually able to load up Knoppix and get to it's GUI (desktop). Unfortunately, my mouse and keyboard were disabled in the Failsafe mode so I was sitting "dead in the water". What cheat codes should I use to help get into Knoppix without disabling everything?

[Harry Kuhman]

Loss of the mouse after using failsafe is pretty typical. Loss of the keyboard is not, I'm guessing that you may be using a USB keyboard rather than the more typical ps2 style keyboard. I don't know what code will resolve things for you. I suggest reading through the cheat codes text file that comes down with a BitTorrent download or should be on the mirrors. There is a also a write-up on cheat codes in the wiki that is worth looking at. You might also want to try booting in expert mode and making notes about how you answer each question, if you hit a problem try again and vary your last answer. I can't off much more than that, you know at this point that Knoppix can run on your system and that the display will work, it's just a matter of finding a working configuration. And if you are using a USB keyboard and have an old PS2 style available, you might want to connect that temporarily while you try to work things out, it will make life a little easier until you work out your USB issue.