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Gherald2
Guru
Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 326
Location: Madison, WI USA
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 Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 10:10 pm Post subject: Epox EP-8HDA3+ vs. MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R |
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Epox EP-8HDA3+ vs. MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R
I am planning on getting two of these boards for a distcc farm. One will also be a file server. So which should I get?
I'm kind of tempted to go with the Epox cuz of it's RAID 5 support, but which is better for Gentoo? |
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Lv
Retired Dev
Joined: 22 Jun 2003
Posts: 352
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| Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 5:06 am Post subject: |
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i have an msi k8t neo fis2r. it would be my advice /not/ to get one. the board is iffy with ram... though with an update to bios version 1.2 it shouldn't be AS picky, since they list this in their changelog. plus it appears almost all onboard devices share an irq and there's no bios config option to change this.
11: 11334938 XT-PIC uhci_hcd, uhci_hcd, eth0, nvidia
(i have almost everything disabled except onboard nic + usb)
when i attempt to play ut2004-demo with my usb keyboard, it jerks, freezes, loses input, and randomly doesn't do what i tell it to. however, if i use a ps2 keyboard and mouse, it works perfectly. i cant fix this, i have no idea how.
there are at least three people in #gentoo-amd64 who report random crashes using an nvidia with this board at all...
also, another peson found out the hard way that the bios recover feature doesn't work and has a fried board. if you mis-flash your bios, you should be able to boot holding shift-home with a floppy that has your backup bios rom (such as the one made by the msi live update bios flash utility for windows xp). apparently that's broken and the bios isn't easily replacable.
the audio chipset sucks, and either sounds like chipmunks on crack or slows down the machine. (no idea how that can happen...)
the third PATA isn't supported under linux.
but then again, your other option is via based, so it might have the same or similar problems. i'd stay stay away from via based motherboards. |
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mallchin
l33t
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 655
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 12:47 am Post subject: |
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| ttilley wrote: | i have an msi k8t neo fis2r. it would be my advice /not/ to get one. the board is iffy with ram... though with an update to bios version 1.2 it shouldn't be AS picky, since they list this in their changelog. plus it appears almost all onboard devices share an irq and there's no bios config option to change this.
11: 11334938 XT-PIC uhci_hcd, uhci_hcd, eth0, nvidia
(i have almost everything disabled except onboard nic + usb)
when i attempt to play ut2004-demo with my usb keyboard, it jerks, freezes, loses input, and randomly doesn't do what i tell it to. however, if i use a ps2 keyboard and mouse, it works perfectly. i cant fix this, i have no idea how.
there are at least three people in #gentoo-amd64 who report random crashes using an nvidia with this board at all...
also, another peson found out the hard way that the bios recover feature doesn't work and has a fried board. if you mis-flash your bios, you should be able to boot holding shift-home with a floppy that has your backup bios rom (such as the one made by the msi live update bios flash utility for windows xp). apparently that's broken and the bios isn't easily replacable.
the audio chipset sucks, and either sounds like chipmunks on crack or slows down the machine. (no idea how that can happen...)
the third PATA isn't supported under linux.
but then again, your other option is via based, so it might have the same or similar problems. i'd stay stay away from via based motherboards. |
This is a real shame, I am sorry you didn't have a better experience...
I am installing on a K8T-NEO as I type, all going smoothly, no memory issues here. I haven't got X up yet so can't confirm gfx but will be using an Audigy2 for sfx so on-board sound isn't rellevant (usually being of inferior quality).
The two parts that cause concern are IRQ sharing and the 3rd PATA; in the long run I'll probably use SATA or SCSI and move away from on-board devices in favour of dedicated cards, hopefully this will overcome both of these if they ever pose a problem.
Ultimately having everything built-in on a motherboard is useful but you don't get something for nothing; cheap and cheerful is what it is, and I'm cheery...
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6700 @ 2.66GHz, 4Gb RAM, 2 x 500Gb, 8800 GTX, PhysX, X-Fi, 24" Widescreen, Tux mascot |
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mallchin
l33t
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 655
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 12:51 am Post subject: |
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Also VIA chipset roxx man, what where you thinking??
Better support in Linux too (then nForce alternative)...
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superpat
n00b
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 48
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 3:15 pm Post subject: I have an Epox 8hda3+ |
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Hi,
I have the Epox 8HDA3+ motherboard. I am running with an Amd 3000+, in 64 bit mode, kernel 2.6.3 I have two SATA drives on the VIA ports, running as a mirror (Raid 1) set. So far I have had NO crashes! I am running KDE3.2 and Gnome 2.4. ( To see which I prefer best)
BE AWARE The Via two port SATA controller ONLY supports RAID 0/1.
If you want Raid 5 you have to use the SILICON IMAGE 3114 controller chipset (also on the M/b) this will support 4 SATA drives.
There are of course primary and secondary parallel IDE ports (another 4 drives), but I do not know if you can mix parallel and serial drives in a raid set.
Another slight problem is that EPOX are a Windows biased outfit, so their support (uk at least) is not very good with Linux questions.They don't know much about the board either.
The board has very good power regulator system and is rock solid.
There are only two memory slots so you need to buy large capacity modules if you want 1 or 2 GB!
If you have any questions drop me a personal message.
regards
Patrick |
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mallchin
l33t
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 655
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 4:31 pm Post subject: Re: I have an Epox 8hda3+ |
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| superpat wrote: |
BE AWARE The Via two port SATA controller ONLY supports RAID 0/1.
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This is the case with all on-board RAID chipsets due to the way in which they are designed; they are simply cheaper alternatives and do not have the full functionality of proper, dedicated hardware. For more information read here.
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Gherald2
Guru
Joined: 02 Jul 2003
Posts: 326
Location: Madison, WI USA
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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There's nothing inherently impossible about building a RAID 5 into the chipset,
but it would be impractical because RAID 5 by definition requires at least 3 channels.
Thanks for the insight on the Epox, superpat, if I was going to buy now I think I'd go with that.
But I've decided I can afford to wait for a board based on Via's K8T800 Pro which was just shown at CeBIT. |
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mallchin
l33t
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 655
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Gherald wrote: | | There's nothing inherently impossible about building a RAID 5 into the chipset, but it would be impractical because RAID 5 by definition requires at least 3 channels. |
Theortically it's possible but only if the whole chipset was intergrated and not impared. The RAID functionality of current on-board controllers is provided by the OS thus you cannot have bootable RAID 5 system; it's a chicken and the egg situation.
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6700 @ 2.66GHz, 4Gb RAM, 2 x 500Gb, 8800 GTX, PhysX, X-Fi, 24" Widescreen, Tux mascot
Last edited by mallchin on Sun Mar 21, 2004 10:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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srs5694
Apprentice
Joined: 08 Mar 2004
Posts: 178
Location: Woonsocket, RI
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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| ttilley wrote: | | i have an msi k8t neo fis2r. it would be my advice /not/ to get one. |
I've got a K8T Neo-FSR (the FIS2R's lower-end variant, which is missing a few options). So far (about a week), my experience has been positive.
| Quote: | | the board is iffy with ram... though with an update to bios version 1.2 it shouldn't be AS picky, since they list this in their changelog. |
I'm only one data point, of course, but I've had no problems with the Buffalo-brand ECC 512MB DDR400 DIMM I installed. I don't recall what BIOS version the board has.
| Quote: | plus it appears almost all onboard devices share an irq and there's no bios config option to change this.
11: 11334938 XT-PIC uhci_hcd, uhci_hcd, eth0, nvidia |
I can verify this, although it's not quite as bad for me, and I've actually not discovered any problems that I believe are related to it. The worst on mine are IRQs 10 and 11:
10: 4268162 XT-PIC uhci_hcd, uhci_hcd, eth0
11: 211081 XT-PIC ide3, uhci_hcd, uhci_hcd
| Quote: | | the audio chipset sucks, and either sounds like chipmunks on crack or slows down the machine. (no idea how that can happen...) |
The VT8237's audio support is definitely "bleeding-edge" as far as Linux is concerned. I get the impression that's true of the built-in audio on all the Athlon 64 motherboards, though. Also, I've gotten it to the point where it's mostly acceptable. I use ALSA drivers and I've futzed with audio utilities and compile options. For some programs, I need to use esound; for others, native ALSA drivers work best. The OSS compatibility layer seems to be the flakiest on my system, and native OSS isn't really any better.
| Quote: | | the third PATA isn't supported under linux. |
That's one of the additions going from the Neo-FSR to the Neo-FIS2R, so I can't comment from personal experience. I thought the FIS2R used a fairly common Promise controller to implement its additional IDE channels, though, so I'd expect it at least should work. Perhaps there's some trick, or a bugfix/workaround needs to be written and/or work its way into regular kernel distribution. If the latter, that obviously won't be much help if you need the support now, though....
| Quote: | | but then again, your other option is via based, so it might have the same or similar problems. i'd stay stay away from via based motherboards. |
Options are limited. Currently, only three chipsets are in widespread use on Athlon 64 motherboards: The nVidia nForce3 150, the SiS 755/964, and the VIA K8T800/VT8237. (ALi's got one, too, but when I was shopping a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't find any boards that used it, much less reports on Linux compatibility.) The SiS looks nice on paper, but Linux support is weak at best (I've seen reports of poor PATA disk performance and no released SATA drive support; and the audio support is a big question mark in my mind). Support for all of the nVidia devices is present in the 2.6.x kernel, but some are marked as "beta," IIRC. The chipset has no SATA support, so motherboard manufacturers need third-party SATA chipsets, which vary in Linux compatibility. The VIA chipset seems about the same in terms of Linux support, but the SATA support is built into the main chipset, and drivers seem to work fairly well. So my own reading of the current state of Athlon 64 chipsets for Linux is that the nVidia and VIA chipsets are about equal in compatibility, while the SiS is several notches lower.
That said, if you (or anybody else) has first-hand experience with two or more of these chipsets, I'd certainly be interested in hearing your opinions. My own are derived from first-hand experience with only one and lots of reading about the others. |
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C.M
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 14 Mar 2003
Posts: 132
Location: Göteborg - Sweden
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| Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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I'm using the MSI Neo with a 3000+ and Kingston value ram (cas 2.5) and it's been rock solid. The sound is working fine, and I haven't had a crash since I put it together 2 weeks ago, and it's been on the whole time. (At most 5 days uptime). Played ut2004demo with no problems and usb and the nic works. The only problem is that Cool 'n Quiet doesn't work with the 2.6.4 kernel because the current BIOS (1.2) gives faulty values on the "maxvid". The gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.3 have some patch that ignores this and I had cpudynd adjusting my speed earlier. The chip is very cool at 800MHz. 
A good tip is to buy a decent powersupply. The important thing is how many amps you have on the 12V rail. At least 18 is needed. Especially if you plan to use a newer graphicscard. I recommend the MSI-board, and their forums are great! (http://forum.msi.com.tw/board.php?boardid=24)  |
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alshain
Apprentice
Joined: 02 Aug 2002
Posts: 202
Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 8:41 pm Post subject: |
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| C.M wrote: | | I recommend the MSI-board, and their forums are great! |
I agree, but then I do like a challenge! I'm using a couple of OCZ 512Mb sticks of memory with no problems and overall it seems like a pretty decent board.
I have had a couple of lockups, but I think that was more to do with me unwisely fiddling with my bttv board than anything else, and having an extremely well patched kernel! 
I did have a problem with the machine locking up instead of powering down when I did a shutdown -h command, but I compiled in all the ACPI Support options and it works now.
And it's a great colour!
Andrew |
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