I have a AL-B583 motherboard (based on i430TX chipset, Award BIOS) that gets a reset when Linux boots. I tried some kernels (up to the 2.0.32) but the result was the same for all.

I hacked the Linux source code and I discovered that Linux on a PC assumes that the keyboard is initialised by BIOS and so doesn't initialise it again.
Probably this assumption isn't valid for my PC because I discovered that if I enforce Linux to do the keyboard initialisation (I obtained the result modifying the source code and recompiling the kernel) the problem I described before disappear, Linux boots normally and all works fine.
The problem should not be caused by my keyboard because I also tried to swap my keyboard with another stolen from a PC where Linux works but the problem remains in my PC and the other continues to work.

The changes I made are only relative to two lines of the file drivers/char/keyboard.c as shown below

Original keyboard.c code fragment
 

#ifndef __i386__  #define INIT_KBD  static int initialize_kbd(void);  #endif

Modified keyboard.c code fragment
 

/*#ifndef __i386__*/  #define INIT_KBD  static int initialize_kbd(void);  /*#endif*/

This modification should not affect the behaviour of the system on a "normal" PC except for a imperceptible delay during the boot phase.

Notes:

On my motherboard Microsoft OSs have no problem (who could believe to sell a PC motherboard on which they don't work?), but I tried also a QNX demo that appears to have the same symptoms I described for Linux.

I'm not sure that this problem is relative to ALL AL-B583 motherboards neither that this problem is relative ONLY to AL-B583 motherboards. So:

• if your AL-B583 motherboard have no problem with Linux
• if you know a better way to solve my problem
• if you know another motherboard that present the same symptoms and my patch solves the problem