motherboard decision help

[Fred Smith]

Gang:

I'm about to buy a bunch of parts to build a new machine, and am looking
for suggestions/referrals on the motherboard to use.

I'm interested in an Athlon XP 2600+ (because that seems to be the sweet
spot, pricewise) and there are a ton of motherboards that can support
that processor.

One MB that has caught my eye is the Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L, a Via KT600
chipset board. It also has integrated audio and LAN, using Realtec ALC-655
audio chipset and Realtec 8101L 10/100 LAN chipset. I'd appreciate it if
any of you know of how well this board and these chipsets are supported
in a modern Linux if you'd let me know. This Gigabyte board can be
purchased today for US$63 from newegg (not a plug, just a fact).

Alternatively, I'd also appreciate suggestions for similarly priced boards
that are known to work well (I'd like to not go much over about $80). (I'm
leaning away from an Nvidia chipset board merely because I don't want to
depend on nvidia for closed-source drivers for the board, though I could
perhaps be convinced otherwise!) One small caveat is I need two serial
ports, and some new boards come with only one (I'm using both a serial modem
and serial UPS).

I'm not certain which LInux I'm ultimately going to end up using either,
but probably one of Fedora FC1/FC2, or maybe one of the RHEL 3 derivatives,
Whitebox or Tao.

Feedback will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

[Randy Kelsoe]

fred smith wrote:
> One MB that has caught my eye is the Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L, a Via KT600
> chipset board. It also has integrated audio and LAN, using Realtec ALC-655
> audio chipset and Realtec 8101L 10/100 LAN chipset. I'd appreciate it if
> any of you know of how well this board and these chipsets are supported
> in a modern Linux if you'd let me know. This Gigabyte board can be
> purchased today for US$63 from newegg (not a plug, just a fact).

This MB will work fine as long as you don't need accelerated 3D 
graphics. The AGP 8X port is not supported well with the 2.4 kernel, but 
does have support in the 2.6 kernels. I could not get direct rendering 
to work with a 2.4 kernel, but had success with the 2.6 kernel. So, if 
you want accelerated 3D, go with the 2.6 kernel.
> Alternatively, I'd also appreciate suggestions for similarly priced boards
> that are known to work well (I'd like to not go much over about $80). (I'm
> leaning away from an Nvidia chipset board merely because I don't want to
> depend on nvidia for closed-source drivers for the board, though I could
> perhaps be convinced otherwise!) One small caveat is I need two serial
> ports, and some new boards come with only one (I'm using both a serial modem
> and serial UPS).

I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia nforce2 
chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo uses the 
RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I tried using 
the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had problems. 
Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard video, and that 
works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo has worked well with 
RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked well with FC1 right out 
of the box. It's almost twice the price of the GA-7VT600-L, but it has 
SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not using the RAID, but SATA 
works (though not at full speed yet), and dual channel memory is about 
50% faster than single channel mode. There is also a cheaper model that 
does not have the RAID and SATA, and has a 100base T NIC.

[Randy Kelsoe]

Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0

driver for the onboard video, and that works much better than the Nvidia 
driver. This mobo has worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), 
and has worked

(yikes! that should have been 'onboard audio' not 'onboard video')

well with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and dual 
channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. There is 
also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, and has a 
100base T NIC.
>

[Fred Smith]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 07:09:09AM -0600, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> > tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> > problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0
>
> driver for the onboard video, and that works much better than the Nvidia 
> driver. This mobo has worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), 
> and has worked
>
> (yikes! that should have been 'onboard audio' not 'onboard video')

understood
> well with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
> GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
> using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and dual 
> channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. There is 
> also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, and has a 
> 100base T NIC.

Hmm. I see that on newegg it's $107. There's also one named GA 7N400-L
that looks pretty similar for about 30 bucks less, perhaps that's the
cheaper model to which you refer... know anything about it?

Re the GA-7N400 Pro2 that you discuss above, one thing I've always
wondered about these boards with onboard RAID,... is it possible to 
attach additional drives to the RAID cable sockets and use them as
ordinary (i.e., NON-RAID) drives? So that we could have more than four
IDE drives on the system? The SATA is of no immediate use to me, I have
no SATA drives and no prospect of buying any in the foreseeable future.
(In fact I've a surplus of ATA drives already, with several in the range
of 8-40 gigs lying on the "spare parts" shelf at the moment.)

NIC speed is of no consequence to me either, the LAN here at the house
is only a 10Mb network anyhow.

I've just gotten a deal on RAM today at COMP USA (big one-day sale on 
512MB PC2700 parts), which may just save me enough money I could spring
for a more expensive MB.

I'd appreciate any additional comments you could make, Randy, or from
anyone else either. Thanks!

Fred

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 16:25 3/14/2004, you wrote:
> Re the GA-7N400 Pro2 that you discuss above, one thing I've always
> wondered about these boards with onboard RAID,... is it possible to
> attach additional drives to the RAID cable sockets and use them as
> ordinary (i.e., NON-RAID) drives? So that we could have more than four
> IDE drives on the system?

Yes. As a matter of fact, that's the best way to use them, since the 
onboard RAID is usually some sort of proprietary software RAID in the 
drivers anyway, and the Linux software RAID is far better tested and more 
reliable (plus, supported and built-in and open source and free and 
gratis...) I definitely recommend using those ports as simple EIDE ports; 
if you want RAID, use Linux software RAID or get a hardware RAID adapter 
like 3Ware which is a far better choice and is also supported natively by 
the Linux kernel.
> (In fact I've a surplus of ATA drives already, with several in the range
> of 8-40 gigs lying on the "spare parts" shelf at the moment.)

If you get to the point where some/any of those drives are no longer useful 
to you, but they still work, can I have them? Any drive of 1GB or more is 
useful to me, since we use them to rebuild old computers (Pentium Classic 
boxes usually, between 75 and 200 MHz) and then donate them to rural public 
schools, orphanages, etc. See http://www.rule-project.org for the software 
to do this if desired.

[Fred Smith]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 08:57:13PM -0600, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> At 16:25 3/14/2004, you wrote:
> > Re the GA-7N400 Pro2 that you discuss above, one thing I've always
> > wondered about these boards with onboard RAID,... is it possible to
> > attach additional drives to the RAID cable sockets and use them as
> > ordinary (i.e., NON-RAID) drives? So that we could have more than four
> > IDE drives on the system?
>
> Yes. As a matter of fact, that's the best way to use them, since the 
> onboard RAID is usually some sort of proprietary software RAID in the 
> drivers anyway, and the Linux software RAID is far better tested and more 
> reliable (plus, supported and built-in and open source and free and 
> gratis...) I definitely recommend using those ports as simple EIDE ports; 
> if you want RAID, use Linux software RAID or get a hardware RAID adapter 
> like 3Ware which is a far better choice and is also supported natively by 
> the Linux kernel.

Thanks for the info!
> > (In fact I've a surplus of ATA drives already, with several in the range
> > of 8-40 gigs lying on the "spare parts" shelf at the moment.)
>
> If you get to the point where some/any of those drives are no longer useful 
> to you, but they still work, can I have them? Any drive of 1GB or more is 
> useful to me, since we use them to rebuild old computers (Pentium Classic 
> boxes usually, between 75 and 200 MHz) and then donate them to rural public 
> schools, orphanages, etc. See http://www.rule-project.org for the software 
> to do this if desired.

Actually I do similar things myself. I've given several "frankenclones"
to friends (people from church and their friends) who wanted email and
had no computer. Old things, but they run.

But I'll keep your request in mind should I get to where I can't 
stand looking at them any longer. ;^)

[Randy Kelsoe]

fred smith wrote:
> Hmm. I see that on newegg it's $107. There's also one named GA 7N400-L
> that looks pretty similar for about 30 bucks less, perhaps that's the
> cheaper model to which you refer... know anything about it?

The GA 7N400-L is basically the same mobo, without the SATA, the RAID, 
Dual Bios, and the IEEE1394 (firewire). It also uses a RealTek 8100C 
instead of the 8169 (GigaBit). The 400 Pro2 has 4 PATA interfaces, where 
the 400-L only has 2.
> Re the GA-7N400 Pro2 that you discuss above, one thing I've always
> wondered about these boards with onboard RAID,... is it possible to 
> attach additional drives to the RAID cable sockets and use them as
> ordinary (i.e., NON-RAID) drives? So that we could have more than four
> IDE drives on the system? The SATA is of no immediate use to me, I have
> no SATA drives and no prospect of buying any in the foreseeable future.
> (In fact I've a surplus of ATA drives already, with several in the range
> of 8-40 gigs lying on the "spare parts" shelf at the moment.)

Yes, you can disable the RAID function in BIOS. If you need more than 2 
PATA's, you might want to go with the 7N400 Pro2, which has 2 SATA's and 
4 PATA's.

http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/ComparisonSheet_ChipsetType_nF...

[Michal Zeravik]

I'm thinking about nforce2 chipset mobo, It's should be more powerful 
and faster than KT600 for Athlon-xp.
Do you have any experience with nvidia nforce2 drivers?

michalz

[Randy Kelsoe]

Michal Zeravik wrote:
> I'm thinking about nforce2 chipset mobo, It's should be more powerful 
> and faster than KT600 for Athlon-xp.
> Do you have any experience with nvidia nforce2 drivers?

My mobo is a GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2, and it works fine without the 
Nvidia drivers. Some mobo's use the nforce2 onboard lan. If you get a 
mobo that his the nforce2 lan, you will have to load the Nvidia drivers. 
I tried the Nvidia onboard sound driver, but it did not work as well as 
the intel8x0 driver. Your experience will depend on which mobo you buy.

[Fred Smith]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 07:09:09AM -0600, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I

Randy:

What network driver is being used for this gigbit chipset?

I've just installed TAO linux on it and it didn't pick up the presence
of that chip. (Though knoppix does, it "just worked"!)

Thanks!
> > tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> > problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0
>
> driver for the onboard video, and that works much better than the Nvidia 
> driver. This mobo has worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), 
> and has worked
>
> (yikes! that should have been 'onboard audio' not 'onboard video')
>
> well with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
> GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
> using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and dual 
> channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. There is 
> also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, and has a 
> 100base T NIC.
> >
>
> -- 
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Randy Kelsoe]

fred smith wrote:
> > > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I
>
> Randy:
>
> What network driver is being used for this gigbit chipset?
>
> I've just installed TAO linux on it and it didn't pick up the presence
> of that chip. (Though knoppix does, it "just worked"!)
>
> Thanks!

With FC1, I'm using the 'r8169' module (RealTek 8169).

[Christopher Bottaro]

On Mar 14, 2004, at 1:41 AM, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard video, 
> and that works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo has 
> worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked well 
> with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
> GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
> using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and 
> dual channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. 
> There is also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, 
> and has a 100base T NIC.

excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware raid OS 
transparent?

i'm looking to build a new computer also.  i can't decide if its going 
to be a windows box (for games) or a linux system.  if i can afford it, 
i want SATA, RAID 0, and dual channel memory.  if the hardware RAID is 
transparent to the OS, i'd rather do that.

a couple of questions.

1)  how do i know if dual channel memory is working?  is it OS 
transparent, or do i need to install drivers?

2)  "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know 
what speed its working at?

3)  how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?

btw, i heard nforce2 has issues with linux:
http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/
opinions?

thanks for the help,
-- christopher

[Jonathan Horne]

I personally don't know anyone who has had 100% good luck with the nforce.
I have avoided it like the plague.  When running linux is your goal,
standards based hardware is the way to go.  Personally, I only use intel
chipsets, 3com or intel Ethernet cards, adaptec scsi, etc.

However, nvidia rocks it where it counts when it comes to 3d support in
linux.

jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
On Behalf Of Christopher Bottaro
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 2:54 PM
To: For users of Fedora Core releases
Cc: Randy Kelsoe
Subject: Re: motherboard decision help

On Mar 14, 2004, at 1:41 AM, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard video, 
> and that works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo has 
> worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked well 
> with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
> GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
> using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and 
> dual channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. 
> There is also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, 
> and has a 100base T NIC.

excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware raid OS 
transparent?

i'm looking to build a new computer also.  i can't decide if its going 
to be a windows box (for games) or a linux system.  if i can afford it, 
i want SATA, RAID 0, and dual channel memory.  if the hardware RAID is 
transparent to the OS, i'd rather do that.

a couple of questions.

1)  how do i know if dual channel memory is working?  is it OS 
transparent, or do i need to install drivers?

2)  "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know 
what speed its working at?

3)  how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?

btw, i heard nforce2 has issues with linux:
http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/
opinions?

thanks for the help,
-- christopher

[Ben Steeves]

On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 17:09, Jonathan Horne wrote:
> I personally don't know anyone who has had 100% good luck with the nforce.
> I have avoided it like the plague.  When running linux is your goal,
> standards based hardware is the way to go.  Personally, I only use intel
> chipsets, 3com or intel Ethernet cards, adaptec scsi, etc.
>
> However, nvidia rocks it where it counts when it comes to 3d support in
> linux.

I just installed an nforce2-based Shuttle MN31-N mATX board on the
weekend and things have "just worked" with the exception of graphics (of
course) -- the latest NVidia drivers don't want to work with the latest
2.6.3 kernel, but it works fine with the original 2.6.1 kernel, so I'm
sticking with that for now.  On-board sound and LAN work just fine, as
do the USB and Firewire (well, the Firewire is recognized, I don't have
any Firewire hardware to test out on it).

So far I'm very happy with the Shuttle board.  The price was right for
the performance and capability of the board IMHO.

[Fred Smith]

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 03:09:48PM -0600, Jonathan Horne wrote:
> I personally don't know anyone who has had 100% good luck with the nforce.
> I have avoided it like the plague.  When running linux is your goal,
> standards based hardware is the way to go.  Personally, I only use intel
> chipsets, 3com or intel Ethernet cards, adaptec scsi, etc.

I've got the same board as Randy (In fact I bought it largely because of
his report of having had good results with it). I've installed TAO linux
on it, and with one (resolvable) exception it has been a breeze. I've NOT
installed the nvidia chipset drivers, and have not encountered a need
for them. (I do have an nvidia video card and have the nvidia drivers
for it installed).

Perhaps the kind of problems of which you speak come from the older
nforce (as compared to nforce 2) chipset?
> However, nvidia rocks it where it counts when it comes to 3d support in
> linux.

Yes, but it'd be nice if the drivers were open sourced.

I'm getting over 1800 fps on glxgears at its default size with my
geforce4 MX4/440 board on an athlon 2600+ processor. around 175 fps
when maximized. Not too shabby, I'd say. Only tweak was I had to force
it to use nvidia's AGP support else I get a black screen with a small
Xcursor (which moves around) but nothing else, and cannot switch to a
text screen.
> jonathan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
> On Behalf Of Christopher Bottaro
> Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 2:54 PM
> To: For users of Fedora Core releases
> Cc: Randy Kelsoe
> Subject: Re: motherboard decision help
>
> On Mar 14, 2004, at 1:41 AM, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> > tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> > problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard video, 
> > and that works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo has 
> > worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked well 
> > with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
> > GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
> > using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and 
> > dual channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. 
> > There is also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, 
> > and has a 100base T NIC.
>
> excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware raid OS 
> transparent?
>
> i'm looking to build a new computer also.  i can't decide if its going 
> to be a windows box (for games) or a linux system.  if i can afford it, 
> i want SATA, RAID 0, and dual channel memory.  if the hardware RAID is 
> transparent to the OS, i'd rather do that.
>
> a couple of questions.
> how do i know if dual channel memory is working?  is it OS
>
> transparent, or do i need to install drivers?
> "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know
>
> what speed its working at?
> how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?
>
> btw, i heard nforce2 has issues with linux:
> http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/
> opinions?
>
> thanks for the help,
> -- christopher
>
> -- 
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>
> -- 
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Brian Chase]

Don't know about dual channel memory, but will watch this thread to learn 
more....

I have had personal experience with hardware parallel RAID and have done 
research on SATA.  If you've got Promise RAID chipsets, forget about it, 
none of them play well with Linux.

A pretty good summary which should tell you more than my humble 
experiences here is provided in the following link.  Myself, I'll be 
doing 3WARE SATA controllers going forward, which is TRUE hardware RAID 
and has excellent Linux support, while SATA technology keeps my hard 
drive costs to a minimum.  MicronPC has some intel based RAID mobo 
solutions that should work as well, but haven't tested them.

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

Let me know how you go, I'd like to follow anything like this, as I'm 
often putting servers together on a modest budget.

Regards,

BC

Christopher Bottaro wrote:
> On Mar 14, 2004, at 1:41 AM, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> > tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> > problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard video, 
> > and that works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo has 
> > worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked well 
> > with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of the 
> > GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm not 
> > using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), and 
> > dual channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. 
> > There is also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, 
> > and has a 100base T NIC.
>
> excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware raid OS 
> transparent?
>
> i'm looking to build a new computer also.  i can't decide if its going 
> to be a windows box (for games) or a linux system.  if i can afford it, 
> i want SATA, RAID 0, and dual channel memory.  if the hardware RAID is 
> transparent to the OS, i'd rather do that.
>
> a couple of questions.
> how do i know if dual channel memory is working?  is it OS
>
> transparent, or do i need to install drivers?
> "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know
>
> what speed its working at?
> how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?
>
> btw, i heard nforce2 has issues with linux:
> http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/
> opinions?
>
> thanks for the help,
> -- christopher

[Markku Kolkka]

Christopher Bottaro kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika maanantai, 
29. maaliskuuta 2004 23:54):
> excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware
> raid OS transparent?

Dual channel RAM is completely transparent, so is true hardware 
RAID but any "RAID" controller integrated on a motherboard is 
software RAID.
> how do i know if dual channel memory is working?

See the POST startup messages.
> how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?

If it works, it's properly setup :-)

[Jonathan Horne]

So if its software raid (when built onto the motherboard), how can the raid
array be functional without an operating system on it?  I was under the
impression that if you went into a piece of hardware's bios and set up the
array, that software was not involved?

jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
On Behalf Of Markku Kolkka
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 3:22 PM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: motherboard decision help

Christopher Bottaro kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika maanantai, 
29. maaliskuuta 2004 23:54):
> excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware
> raid OS transparent?

Dual channel RAM is completely transparent, so is true hardware 
RAID but any "RAID" controller integrated on a motherboard is 
software RAID.
> how do i know if dual channel memory is working?

See the POST startup messages.
> how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?

If it works, it's properly setup :-)

[Markku Kolkka]

Jonathan Horne kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika tiistai, 30. 
maaliskuuta 2004 00:32):
> So if its software raid (when built onto the motherboard), how
> can the raid array be functional without an operating system
> on it?  I was under the impression that if you went into a
> piece of hardware's bios and set up the array, that software
> was not involved?

BIOS _is_ software. Sometimes it's called "firmware" to 
distinguish it from the OS and programs running under the OS, 
but it is machine language instructions running on the main CPU 
of the system in any case.

[Andre Costa]

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 14:54:05 -0600
Christopher Bottaro  wrote:
> On Mar 14, 2004, at 1:41 AM, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan.
> > I tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had
> >
> > problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard
> > video, and that works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo
> > has worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked
> > well with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of
> > the GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm
> > not using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet),
> > and dual channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel
> > mode. There is also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and
> > SATA, and has a 100base T NIC.
>
> excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware raid OS 
> transparent?

dual-channel RAM, yes. Hardware RAID, no -- you will need to tweak your
kernel for that.
> i'm looking to build a new computer also.  i can't decide if its going
> to be a windows box (for games) or a linux system.  if i can afford
> it, i want SATA, RAID 0, and dual channel memory.  if the hardware
> RAID is transparent to the OS, i'd rather do that.

Well, you can have both (a dual boot system), that's what I have here. I
have a ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, which has dual-channel mem and onboard SATA
RAID. I personally don't use SATA RAID yet, but I've read reports on
this list of people using it successfully.
> a couple of questions.
> how do i know if dual channel memory is working?  is it OS
>
> transparent, or do i need to install drivers?

In my case, BIOS prints useful diagnostics during boot.
> "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know
>
> what speed its working at?

hdparm -T /dev/hdX
hdparm -t /dev/hdX
> how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?

Can't help you with this, sorry.
> btw, i heard nforce2 has issues with linux:
> http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/
> opinions?

My mobo uses this chipset. Network can only be achieved with NVidia
drivers, but works well (there is a reverse-engineered GPL driver in the
wild, but it is still beta AFAIK). ALSA supports nforce2 just
fine (actually better than NVidia).

HTH

Andre

[Rodolfo J. Paiz]

At 15:39 3/29/2004, you wrote:
> > "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know
> >
> > what speed its working at?
>
> hdparm -T /dev/hdX
> hdparm -t /dev/hdX

Lazier:

# hdparm -tT /dev/hdX

<grin>

[Randy Kelsoe]

Christopher Bottaro wrote:
> On Mar 14, 2004, at 1:41 AM, Randy Kelsoe wrote:
> > I am using the GigaByte GA-7N400 Pro2 MB, which uses the Nvidia 
> > nforce2 chipset. I'm not using any of the Nvidia drivers. This mobo 
> > uses the RealTek 8169 onboard gigabit lan, and not the nforce2 lan. I 
> > tried using the Nvidia drivers for the onboard sound, and they had 
> > problems. Anaconda selected the intel8x0 driver for the onboard 
> > video, and that works much better than the Nvidia driver. This mobo 
> > has worked well with RH9 (but needed a later kernel), and has worked 
> > well with FC1 right out of the box. It's almost twice the price of 
> > the GA-7VT600-L, but it has SATA, RAID, and Dual Channel memory. I'm 
> > not using the RAID, but SATA works (though not at full speed yet), 
> > and dual channel memory is about 50% faster than single channel mode. 
> > There is also a cheaper model that does not have the RAID and SATA, 
> > and has a 100base T NIC.
>
> excuse my naivety, but is dual channel memory and hardware raid OS 
> transparent?
>
> i'm looking to build a new computer also.  i can't decide if its going 
> to be a windows box (for games) or a linux system.  if i can afford 
> it, i want SATA, RAID 0, and dual channel memory.  if the hardware 
> RAID is transparent to the OS, i'd rather do that.
>
> a couple of questions.
> how do i know if dual channel memory is working?  is it OS
>
> transparent, or do i need to install drivers?

It's done in hardware and is OS transparent, so there are no drivers to 
install. With the GigaByte MB, there is a BIOS message that appears 
after POST.
> "but SATA works (though not at full speed yet)", how do you know
>
> what speed its working at?

From my SATA drive:

# hdparm -t /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  126 MB in  3.02 seconds =  41.72 MB/sec

and from my PATA, Western Digital ATA100 drive:

# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  140 MB in  3.00 seconds =  46.67 MB/sec

There is a libata driver that (IIRC), will be included in the 2.6 kernel 
that should speed things up a lot. Last I saw, the Si3112 SATA 
controller was still in alpha.
> how do you know if you got the RAID setup properly?

I'm not using the RAID with mine, since it is not true hardware raid.
> btw, i heard nforce2 has issues with linux:
> http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/
> opinions?

Interesting.... I notice they don't mention the GigaByte GA 7N400 Pro 2. 
I have seen about four unexplained hangs, with nothing in the logs. 
Reading the article, it mentions heavy disk usage or IO being a problem. 
I have not seen this. I have done quite a lot of heavy disk IO, and have 
never seen a hang during disk IO. I first saw the hang twice in a row 
when I upgraded my kernel to 2.4.22--1.2135.nptl, or some kernel close 
to it. I went back to my previous kernel and everything was fine. Since 
then, I have seen the hang twice, and both times I was accessing the 
network. They also mentioned turning off "CPU bus disconnect" in BIOS  
and I don't see anything like that in my BIOS configuration. I also 
noticed that the first two working configurations posted are running 
their cpu's overclocked, which is something I don't do.

I did not expect this mobo to work very well with linux, since the 
chipset is so new. I decided to give it a try and I was pleasantly 
surprised.  My  SATA drive is slower than my PATA drive, but I expect 
this to change soon when libata gets more mature. 3D acceleration is not 
as good as what I saw with RH9, but I don't use this box for games, so 
that's not a big deal.

[Chris Jones]

On Sunday 14 Mar 2004 3:28 am, fred smith wrote:
> Gang:
>
> I'm about to buy a bunch of parts to build a new machine, and am looking
> for suggestions/referrals on the motherboard to use.
>
> I'm interested in an Athlon XP 2600+ (because that seems to be the sweet
> spot, pricewise) and there are a ton of motherboards that can support
> that processor.
>
> One MB that has caught my eye is the Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L, a Via KT600
> chipset board. It also has integrated audio and LAN, using Realtec ALC-655
> audio chipset and Realtec 8101L 10/100 LAN chipset. I'd appreciate it if
> any of you know of how well this board and these chipsets are supported
> in a modern Linux if you'd let me know. This Gigabyte board can be
> purchased today for US$63 from newegg (not a plug, just a fact).
>
> Alternatively, I'd also appreciate suggestions for similarly priced boards
> that are known to work well (I'd like to not go much over about $80). (I'm
> leaning away from an Nvidia chipset board merely because I don't want to
> depend on nvidia for closed-source drivers for the board, though I could
> perhaps be convinced otherwise!) One small caveat is I need two serial
> ports, and some new boards come with only one (I'm using both a serial
> modem and serial UPS).
>
> I'm not certain which LInux I'm ultimately going to end up using either,
> but probably one of Fedora FC1/FC2, or maybe one of the RHEL 3 derivatives,
> Whitebox or Tao.
>
> Feedback will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

I also use an Athlon XP 2600 mounted on a K7N2 Delta MB which has the Nvidia 
chipset. I loaded FC1 onto that with no trouble at all. I did an upgrade to 
an old PII MB to achieve this and can honestly say that I do not regret this 
at all.

[Paul F. Johnson]

Hi,
> One MB that has caught my eye is the Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L, a Via KT600
> chipset board. It also has integrated audio and LAN, using Realtec ALC-655
> audio chipset and Realtec 8101L 10/100 LAN chipset. I'd appreciate it if
> any of you know of how well this board and these chipsets are supported
> in a modern Linux if you'd let me know. This Gigabyte board can be
> purchased today for US$63 from newegg (not a plug, just a fact).

I have this same board in a machine at work and while it works fine, the
VIA chipset tends to muck up frequently (that said, I've never liked VIA
or SiS). The ALC65 is a bog standard AC97 device and the network works
fine, though again, I never like onboard networking (though it has
becoming a hell of a lot better recently), so use a Realtek 8139 100base
nic. Much nicer IMO.

I would avoid AOpen motherboards - from my experience they give nothing
but trouble. Asus are pretty neat though, but the best out there are
gigabyte mobos.

TTFN

Paul

[ByteEnable]

On Saturday 13 March 2004 09:28 pm, fred smith wrote:
> Gang:
>
> I'm about to buy a bunch of parts to build a new machine, and am looking
> for suggestions/referrals on the motherboard to use.
>
> I'm interested in an Athlon XP 2600+ (because that seems to be the sweet
> spot, pricewise) and there are a ton of motherboards that can support
> that processor.
>
> One MB that has caught my eye is the Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L, a Via KT600
> chipset board. It also has integrated audio and LAN, using Realtec ALC-655
> audio chipset and Realtec 8101L 10/100 LAN chipset. I'd appreciate it if
> any of you know of how well this board and these chipsets are supported
> in a modern Linux if you'd let me know. This Gigabyte board can be
> purchased today for US$63 from newegg (not a plug, just a fact).
>
> Alternatively, I'd also appreciate suggestions for similarly priced boards
> that are known to work well (I'd like to not go much over about $80). (I'm
> leaning away from an Nvidia chipset board merely because I don't want to
> depend on nvidia for closed-source drivers for the board, though I could
> perhaps be convinced otherwise!) One small caveat is I need two serial
> ports, and some new boards come with only one (I'm using both a serial
> modem and serial UPS).
>
> I'm not certain which LInux I'm ultimately going to end up using either,
> but probably one of Fedora FC1/FC2, or maybe one of the RHEL 3 derivatives,
> Whitebox or Tao.
>
> Feedback will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

One thing to also consider if this motherboard is on the AMD motherboard 
approved list.  If its on this list, it will be solid.   The list can be 
found here: 
http://www2.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/1,,30_182_869_4348%5...

Byte