Linux on Dimension E521

I have purchased the E521 with the AMD64 X2 processors, and have been having headaches with the USB usage running Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake)

I have tried to isolate the problem to a faulty piece of hardware, or even some software issues but I have been very unsuccessful in my tests and my searches to find similar problems.

Basically after a little bit of normal mouse usage (seems to vary, could be 5 minutes or 15 minutes) for web browsing or Ut2k4 or just mousting around within X it just freezes. The only way to get the mouse back has been to either rmmod and insmod the usb drivers, or unplug and replug the mouse itself.

I have gone as far as to run usbmon under the debugfs and haven't had much luck finding anything. I have compiled kernels, tried using i386 uniprocessor kernels, K7 SMP kernels and of course the expected K8 SMP kernels.

The only other piece of information is that the APIC stuff seems to fail on startup occasionally, Sometimes it boots fine, but other times it tells me there is some MP APIC bug and it takes steps to recover.

My current stance is I am going to gather all the data I can and hit the bug trackers and other forums to see if anyone else has had the same problems, and in the mean time wait for Ubuntu 6.10 to come out and see if the 2.6.18 kernel is a little hapier to play with the nforce based MB.

My suggestion... DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!

We bought five E521 systems and have run across the USB problems on all of them with
several different linux distros, including the latest Ubuntu.

They're just expensive paper weights at the moment....

OK folks, here's a $11 workaround...

Get yourselves a PCI USB card (low profile if you've got a C521) and install it in the PCI slot.
Next, get into the BIOS setup and turn off all the on-board USB ports. Then plug your mouse
and keyboard into the USB card.

We did this for our five C521's and have had no hangs since.

Got a brand new Dell E521 that will not boot or install any of the major linux distro's. This is because of poor hardware support (drivers). Either keyboard or mouse or both will malfunction (freeze) during or after install. I' have contacted Dell support before, but they don't offer linux support on the E521. Yet they advertise the E521 as being capable of running linux.

"Dell's new open-source n Series desktop solution provides customers with a DimensionTM E520, E521 or C521 desktop without an installed or included Microsoft® operating system. With the n Series desktop, customers have the flexibility to install an alternative operating system (such as a version of Linux® )".

I've had several pc's before (built myself). None of them have ever had any difficulty with linux. I'm really disappointed with the Dell support. Especially the way they seem to ignore all the customers having this problem. I will never buy any Dell hardware again!

Hi guys,
I bought an e521 too, and had some hard time with it.
I tried several linux distributions and finally I succeded with suse 10.1
The problem with the freezing usb mouse and keyboard was discussed on another thread (http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_other&message.id=54328&view=by_date_ascending&page=1), and the solution is to use a self powered usb hub, like the one that comes on the screen (and I was wondering what was the purpose for that :)).
The next problem was the sound. This was solved installing the last alsa distribution.
It also seems that it is mandatory to use "irqpoll" as kernel command line parameter.
Now, it seems that I cannot use ACPI, so I cannot shut down the computer without using the button. But I am trying different options in the kernel compilation so I hope I'll find the solution for this too.

I hope this will be usefull for somebody,
Dragos

Message Edited by dmoroian on 11-26-200604:56 AM

This may not be about Linux. I have seen posts that Windows system which
don't have the nvidia SMBus fix 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

applied can experience usb mouse problems.
My mouse under WinXP is a bit flakey (C521).

---

@sadams6696 wrote:
OK folks, here's a $11 workaround...

Get yourselves a PCI USB card (low profile if you've got a C521) and install it in the PCI slot.
Next, get into the BIOS setup and turn off all the on-board USB ports. Then plug your mouse
and keyboard into the USB card.

We did this for our five C521's and have had no hangs since.

---

installed 4-port usb card on new e521; disabled back ports
left 2 front ports enabled.
everything works fine; no more hanging of mouse and keyboard
o/s mandriva linux 2007

eric

Hi all,

Just wanted to put it out there what worked for me. I found that SuSe 10.2 plus a external self powered HUB or USB PCI card works. In my case I have both, but its all plugged into the internal USB PCI expansion card. SuSe 10.2 is running perfectly other wise. I know via research some distros like Ubuntu don't have all their stuff in order for x86_64 yet, but they will run on the E521 if its a 32 bit version. I had to have full 64 bit so SuSe was my option. Either way the setup works fantastically and anyone thats looking to run Linux on one of these should do it like I did. A bit off side, I'm a die hard Linux user and have no use for windows. When I got thrown back into windows it ed until I solved the problem. Anyhow this is my two cents of input I hope this helps some.


Paul

Message Edited by kake26 on 01-28-200709:15 PM

make sure you have the latest BIOS (1.1.4?) installed. Many USB issues were fixed by the BIOS update released in Jan 2007.