BSoD when installing Windows XP on ASUS K61IC notebook

If a bluescreen (Blue Screen of Death) occurs during Windows XP installation and the error message contains the 0x0000007B code, try to do the following:

1. restart the notebook,
2. press F2 to enter the BIOS setup,
3. go to Advanced and then IDE Configuration,
4. change the SATA Operation Mode setting to Compatible (the default setting is Enhanced).

Some information about the STOP: 0x0000007B error can be found here.

Upgrading Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04 on ASUS A6RP-AP069 laptop

If you are expecting a lengthy post with detailed list of encountered problems and their solutions, you will be disappointed, because... there were none.

We just clicked the Upgrade button in Update Manager and left the computer for a few hours to download the updates. Then, after the installation began, we answered 3 or 4 questions whether to keep or replace some configuration files (we replaced them all, but kept the copies of modified files just in case) and that's it.

After restart we had a laptop running Ubuntu 7.04 and everything - wireless networking (with WPA), sound, graphics - was working properly. No problem at all.

Installing Ubuntu on ASUS A6RP-AP069 notebook (part 3 - WPA)

I don't know why, but WPA doesn't work on Ubuntu out-of-the-box. WEP does and we were using it for some time, but recently we finally decided to switch to WPA.

First we found these instructions, but for some reason they didn't work for us. And even if they did, this method is way too complicated.

After some further searching, we found this post. Really simple and it works! Although, after having followed the steps 1, 2 and 3 listed there, we also had to reboot the machine and add ifup eth1 to /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh file.

Installing Ubuntu on ASUS A6RP-AP069 notebook (part 2 - headphones)

If you hear no sound after connecting headphones or external speakers to the headphones jack, try installing alsa-driver-1.0.14rc1, alsa-lib-1.0.14rc1 and alsa-utils-1.0.14rc1 packages and remove the options snd-hda-intel model=uniwill-m31 line from the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base file (if you added it before).

Thanks for the advice, mario_7!

Installing Ubuntu on ASUS A6RP-AP069 notebook

There were three problems that me and my girlfriend encountered while installing Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) on ASUS A6RP-AP069 notebook.

1. Starting the installation
   There was no problem to boot the laptop from the Ubuntu CD, it showed the available option, but after choosing any of them it... froze after a few seconds.
   We tried 3 or 4 different version of Ubuntu and Mandriva. Every time it hung as soon as Using hpet for high-res timesource message showed. (It is worth noticing that Ubuntu 6.10 does not show such information to the user by default, while its older version do.)
   We found the solution here - adding hpet=disable to the kernel parameters worked like a charm.
2. Connecting to the wireless network
   Ubuntu correctly detected the wireless card. We entered all necessary configuration parameters (SSID, key, etc.), activated the card and... it couldn't connect to the network no matter how many time we re-checked its configuration and restarted it.
   Finally, we found this post. It's really great! We followed the instructions and the WiFi network was up and running in no time.
3. Enabling sound
   That was the hardest part. Everything looked fine - Ubuntu detected the sound card, Amarok looked like it was playing a song, but... there was no sound. We tried to play files in different formats, we checked the headphones, we found countless posts telling to uncheck some External Amplifier option in KMix, but we found no such option.
   Late at night after a lot of googling I (my girlfriend went to sleep earlier) found this post. Another great post! I recompiled alsa-driver, alsa-lib and alsa-utils packages and the sound problem was gone.
4. Headphones
5. WPA