hardware compatible with linux

My friend has the following configuration
processor AMD athlon 64 X2
motherboard asus M2N8-VMX nVidia based
he has problem in installing linux[fedora,ubuntu] with acpi enabled
he gets an error message
we tried with acpi disabled then we were able to
work with linux.
Is this the problem with only that specific piece of motherboard or is it general?
I am planning to buy the same ,
Plz help!