New installation brick

Hi, I just installed 12.3 coincidentally with upgrading my hardware. Dumb, I know, but 12.2 would not recognize the ethernet port on the Gigabyte 990FX UPD3 motherboard. Since the 12.3 installation disk saw it, I started the install. Oh, I also could not repartition the disk because redoing the partitions yielded a layout that did not have some FAT file system mount under /boot. (Doing it directly yielded messages about not doing it right.) So I gave up and let the installer overwrite my last install, leaving me with no way back. (I still have the old motherboard, were push to have become shove. But I can’t do that now.)

Short version: I am now 100% committed to a new install.
My hope: I don’t have to re-install my old motherboard and re-install the os.

My problem: Despite the fact that the BIOS energizes all the USB ports, when I got to the install, the back ports (attached to the motherboard) are not energized. i.e. I cannot use a mouse plugged into the back like I can during BIOS configuration. So I used the front port. That worked. For the install. During normal boot, the laser light goes out when the desktop boots up.

In other words, I think I need another USB driver, but maybe I need to configure the BIOS differently. For sure, I don’t know how to tell.

Anyone with any recent Gigabyte mobo experience, please? Thank you!!

While waiting for someone to reply, I booted several times. On the third boot, I now have a laser light in my mouse. It would still be convenient to plug it into the back so I can insert my SD cards into a USB carrier…

Uh, well, gee wiz. On this boot, the laser light is still on, but the X subsystem (KDE) is not responding to it.
Also, I thought I’d use the network and that is a no-go. I can see the mac address, I can network-start IPV6,
but it is also unusable. Is there some special magic to know about using ethernet on this Gigabyte mobo?

Silly me. I neglected to spend hours scouring the internet for this:

With IOMMU DISABLED: USB and Networking do not work
With IOMMU ENABLED: USB and Networking work

I just ran across your post and sorry to not have provided any help before now, but I was busy here since it Saturday. Are you working properly now, for the entire motherboard or just what is your status?

Thank You,

Thank you. Yeah, everything’s cool now. I re-read the manual for the motherboard and went back to the one for the Asus board I returned. They mention Linux, but NEITHER ONE says a word about IOMMU. So, next time someone has the symptom of both Ethernet and USB being unusable on a new motherboard, the answer is to enable the IOMMU. I probably did not need to return the Asus board last week, but my Googling just didn’t lead me to the right answer.

Well all is well that ends well. I build my own PC’s, for some time now, and a config problem is not a disaster, but it does waste time. Often, just as you noticed, the store takes it back and does not check it at all and the problem still remains. As long as you did not blow up something, you can solve the rest. And to that end, never get in a hurry to upgrade or build your new PC. I try to start such tasks only on a Saturday morning with plenty of time and nothing else major you need to do. You can even have time to visit the computer store for something you forgot or a problem if you have one. I can recall forgetting to buy a CPU cooling fan and to run out of thermal compound in times past.

Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.

Thank You,