What MotherBoards & CPU Do You Use

dake · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2012 Posts: 7

Right guys,

I have searched the net and this forum for motherboards + CPU that can run Linux without any issues.

So come on, help us new users to Linux find what kind of hardware is best to run Linux on.

Thank you everyone.

Dake.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 7:54 pm Post subject:

dake,

Motherboards and CPUs rarely cause issues. Its the things that users plug into them.
Google linux hardware compatibility
Beware of out of date hits. If you have a list of PCI Vendor and Device IDs, Debian runs a good site to tell the drivers you need.
Choose items from the list on the left if you don't have a specific list you are interested in.

WiFi gives the most problems.
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Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

In my experience, Intel boards have a higher chance of using a sloppily-written BIOS that doesn't play nice with Linux. It's usually small things like not being able to use sensors/fancontrol, but I've had one board that I couldn't enable hugepages on because of it.

dch24 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 99

I've had good luck with Asus motherboards for desktops. It sounds like you're building a desktop.

But to be perfectly honest, Asus does not support Linux so unless you want to choose a specific board and spend some time googling, you may end up with some problems. I'm guessing you want something fairly high end, or you could go with a laptop instead.

If you want good Linux compatibility, vote with your dollars. Spend your money with someone who guarantees Linux compatibility. system76.com and zareason.com have a good reputation, or google "buy linux desktop pc"

For laptops, there's everything from netbooks and ultrabooks like the Google Chromebook that officially support Linux. Lenovo laptops are high-end and generally have good Linux support but again you'd have to spend time googling to be sure.

dake · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2012 Posts: 7

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

hi dake,

Pretty much what others have stated, but here's my take:

Be more specific if you have something particular in mind, particularly in CPU flavoring.
To my knowledge, there are no major motherboard vendors (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc.) who will list or offer any real support for Linux. To be fair, in the category you're asking about you're essentially being your own OEM, so those same vendors won't really give you the time of day on any other operating system either. Welcome to the world of the PC enthusiast.
Intel is going to stop producing reference boards. This is now a minor issue but used to be viewed as the defacto big deal when Intel jumped into the chipset industry years ago.
BIOSes and firmware; try to avoid a product that hasn't been in the marketplace for volume of customers yelling and screaming at least 6 months where many of these are 'resolved' with updates. Vendors all too often rush things to market to compete with us being the testbed. When you find a particular board that interests you, spend time to investigate these. This can save you a tremendous amount of headaches.
Motherboard chipsets can have varying issues due to being bleeding edge or lacking any information for the Linux community to work with producing a driver for short of reverse engineering hacks. The good news, again, is you can easily find all the technical specs of major motherboards and chipsets installed to investigate for any outstanding issues prior to purchase.

That said, in the last 8 years, I have installed various linux distros, particularly Gentoo, on varied hardware ranging dated from the late 90's to 5 months ago, desktops to laptops, brand packaged OEM builds and my own assembled. If you follow the guidelines of the last two items mentioned above for a unit with components you chose, you're pretty much set. Without zealotry behind it, I can honestly assert that Gentoo ultimately supported hardware either the best or at least first. Your mileage absolutely will vary with other mainstream distros with newer (and sometimes older :roll:

) hardware without a good amount of patience and experience on your end to resolve their variant of the one size fits all but won't problems that inevitably appear.

Good luck!

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Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

Now that I see you replied with a CPU first...

I can vouch for Gigabyte's GA-Z77X-UD5H with the F14 BIOS here. It's feature rich with quality components for the price. Mind you I'm enjoying not hearing the unit at all in a case designed for sound dampening, so I haven't made use of RAID. I have bought ASUS primarily in the past (AMD&Intel) and I'm sure someone will mention an equivalent Z77 model there.
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dch24 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 99

I think Navar's answer is the best you can get.

You probably want a motherboard with a Z77 chipset, like Navar says.

Hopefully his Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H also works for you. Then Navar can share any specific config needed to get everything to work.

If his motherboard isn't the one you want, please do some careful research on the Linux experience others are having. Usually the big things work ok but the tiny things become a big pain:

the intel integrated graphics on the i7 will work fine
if you buy a PCIe graphics card it will probably work fine
the sound may need some config changes but will probably work fine
USB and SATA should be fine

Some items may not work:

If you get a motherboard that hasn't been used by hundreds of other people already, the BIOS will have bugs that cause you random problems, like Navar says
the ethernet works most of the time (but I just recently had an issue with an ethernet controller that locked up under 100% use so be careful)
if there are any "special" devices "integrated" on the motherboard, they probably won't work. I mean like IR remote, bluetooth, wifi, Dolby Live through an S/PDIF port, ... You might have success with a mini-PCIe wifi add-on.
temperature monitoring and fan control will probably not be available in Linux, but if you can just set it in the BIOS and forget it, then it is not a problem. Most desktops today can be as quiet as you desire so there's much less interest in seeing the motherboard temp. Note that the actual CPU temp is no problem, the "coretemp" kernel module supports i7 CPUs. I'm referring to motherboard temperatures, fan speeds, and any "automatic overclocking" features. The 3770k overclocks well, have fun with that, but only through the BIOS.
Software RAID is no problem at all. With an i7 CPU even just the time to set up hardware RAID in the BIOS isn't worth it I think, since your CPU can handle the RAID processing overhead no sweat.

But none of that I just said is much good because it's too general, it's just a checklist of things that might go wrong. There will probably be more things

dake · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2012 Posts: 7

I am a bit concerned with that Marvell 88SE9172 Chipset and the VIA USB Hubs.

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

i92guboj · Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:48 am Post subject:

Ugh, issues with VIA usb chips and VIA sound chips are far from minor.

The formers have caused completely system freezes for me, for years, and I can confirm issues are not 100% sorted out by today.

The laters have given me issues regarding not being able to set a master volume and/or being unable to use jack without a lot of work and investigation. But I am sure ALSA has its own share of guilt in that.

Low-mid price ASUS board have always given me problems, but hey, maybe that's just me.

So, I cat tell you what not to buy, rathern than what to buy. It's true that, in most cases, the mobo-cpu combo is not tool relevant (other than for the price/performance ratio).

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

i92guboj,

The VIA VL810 are used on the UD5H to provide additional internal USB 3.0 headers (as an internal hub, versus the additional cost of providing an additional controller chip that people would also gripe about (see Marvell prior)) rather than replicating the existing Z77 chipset provided. I know the mac x86 folk had some issues with these early on until a firmware upgrade occurred and this is otherwise one of their favored boards to pick. Again, if it were that big of an issue and non-functional/reliable, there would have been a lot more bad press and fallout than a few reviews speculating possible problems.

Again, I've personally had no USB issues within WinXP/7 or Linux (2.6-to current) with the UD5H, with the exception of only certain old Logitech USB keyboards (the original G15) showing an odd buffering problem (ignoring keystrokes or stuck repeating) when plugged into any USB 3.0. I'd be more apt to blame Logitech here given their track record and I was not able to reproduce the issue with anything else. Plugging in USB 1/2 devices into 3 sounds silly to begin with sure (but is supposed to just work), but before someone sounds off on that, the majority of connectors provided on the unit are USB3. Anyway, once kernels were loaded from respective OSs mentioned, that problem seen only within the BIOS, while definitely annoying, was non-existant. Workaround remains to simply use the USB2 connections in this case.

VIA sound was irrelevant in this case as it's like most, Intel HD w/ Realtek ALC898. I stopped caring about expensive non-integrated sound after NForce2 chipsets ate into those dedicated margins and they're (nvidia/ati) driving HD audio on my graphic card too now for cripes sake. The newer Realtek ALC898 with slightly older kernels (3.2) tossed in with pulseaudio crap from other distros certainly IS a problem (as in kernel oops). But I blame this more on Debian based distributions with their plethora of testing.

As an aside and my final take on this; because I really don't have anything to gain by mentioning my personal experiences with this product, I merely was stating its effectiveness in the realm originally concerned and the OP has been far too vague. If you're looking at Z77 based motherboards in the $250+ bracket with generally an overtouch of nonsense, bells and whistles--don't. It tends to be $100+ in hype. If you've got that much money you'd rather blow on the motherboard (which, again, I don't agree with), you may as well start looking at X79 (edit correction: nevermind, you already picked the CPU first) based to actually get something claimed extra for the extra money (whether you'll notice a real difference remains subjective). If your price point is $200 or less and considering the OP bought the CPU first, this board remains in the top 5.
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dch24 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 99

@dake

The kind of detailed, in depth testing that Navar provides for his UD5H is way beyond what you would likely find for any other motherboard.

Doesn't mean you have to buy that one, but if it's at all interesting you'll have the best luck by using the info Navar is providing.

Navar mentions "Z79" but he means X79

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

Oops my bad. 1155 LGA socket doesn't equate to 2011 (X79) and there is no Z79. So the OP is stuck with Z77 flavorings for the ivy-bridge CPU pre-chosen.
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dake · n00b Joined: 04 Aug 2012 Posts: 7

Thanks everyone for you thoughts on motherboards and cpu's

Navar has talked me into the motherboard UD5H,

There is just one thing, my friend has a gigabyte Z77X-UD3H with the I7 3770k and has a problem with ACPI see below

0.526610] ACPI Warning: 0x000000000000f000-0x000000000000f01f SystemIO conflicts with Region \_SB_.PCI0.SBUS.SMBI 1 (20120913/utaddress-251)
[ 0.527266] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver
[ 0.527936] device-mapper: ioctl: 4.23.0-ioctl (2012-07-25) initialised:
[ 0.528512] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[ 0.528813] cpuidle: using governor menu
[ 0.529110] EFI Variables Facility v0.08 2004-May-17
[ 0.529838] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[ 0.530137] usbhid: USB HID core driver
[ 0.530723] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1b.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 0.551062] hda_intel: Disabling MSI
[ 0.576619] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: GetStatus port:1 status 001803 0 ACK POWER sig=j CSC CONNECT
[ 0.576624] hub 1-0:1.0: port 1: status 0501 change 0001
[ 0.590578] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: GetStatus port:1 status 001803 0 ACK POWER sig=j CSC CONNECT
[ 0.590581] hub 2-0:1.0: port 1: status 0501 change 0001
[ 0.595579] hub 3-0:1.0: port 4: status 0101 change 0001
[ 0.610559] hub 5-0:1.0: port 1: status 0101 change 0001
[ 0.614567] hub 6-0:1.0: state 7 ports 4 chg 0000 evt 0000
[ 0.676500] hub 1-0:1.0: state 7 ports 2 chg 0002 evt 0000
[ 0.676513] hub 1-0:1.0: port 1, status 0501, change 0000, 480 Mb/s
[ 0.727730] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: port 1 reset complete, port enabled
[ 0.727733] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: GetStatus port:1 status 001005 0 ACK POWER sig=se0 PE CONNECT
[ 0.762423] ata2: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[ 0.762753] ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[ 0.763070] ata3: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 300)
[ 0.763649] ACPI Error: [DSSP] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psargs-359)
[ 0.764330] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SAT0.SPT1._GTF] (Node ffff88040c47df78), AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psparse-536)
[ 0.765250] ACPI Error: [DSSP] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psargs-359)
[ 0.765442] ata7: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[ 0.765494] ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[ 0.766593] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SAT0.SPT0._GTF] (Node ffff88040c47df00), AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psparse-536)
[ 0.767519] ACPI Error: [DSSP] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psargs-359)
[ 0.768198] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SAT0.SPT2._GTF] (Node ffff88040c493000), AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psparse-536)
[ 0.768945] ata3.00: ATAPI: ATAPI iHAS120 D, GL02, max UDMA/100
[ 0.769249] ata2.00: ATA-8: WDC WD10EZRX-00A8LB0, 01.01A01, max UDMA/133
[ 0.769560] ata2.00: 1953525168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
[ 0.770120] ata1.00: ATA-9: OCZ-VERTEX4, 1.5, max UDMA/133
[ 0.770431] ata1.00: 250069680 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32), AA
[ 0.771461] ACPI Error: [DSSP] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psargs-359)
[ 0.772140] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SAT0.SPT0._GTF] (Node ffff88040c47df00), AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psparse-536)
[ 0.773053] ACPI Error: [DSSP] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psargs-359)
[ 0.773751] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SAT0.SPT1._GTF] (Node ffff88040c47df78), AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psparse-536)
[ 0.774671] ACPI Error: [DSSP] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psargs-359)
[ 0.775349] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SAT0.SPT2._GTF] (Node ffff88040c493000), AE_NOT_FOUND (20120913/psparse-536)
[ 0.776096] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/100
[ 0.776415] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 0.776720] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
[ 0.776786] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA OCZ-VERTEX4 1.5 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 0.777000] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 250069680 512-byte logical blocks: (128 GB/119 GiB)
[ 0.777142] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 0.777143] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 0.777147] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 0.777173] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 0.777662] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
[ 0.777939] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[ 0.778423] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd
[ 0.786767] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA WDC WD10EZRX-00A 01.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 0.787468] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
[ 0.787542] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[ 0.787691] ACPI: Invalid Power Resource to register!
[ 0.788347] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks
[ 0.788702] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 0.789006] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 0.789020] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 0.792098] scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM ATAPI iHAS120 D GL02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 0.796345] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x writer dvd-ram cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[ 0.796912] cdrom: Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[ 0.797283] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[ 0.797342] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5
[ 0.797799] ACPI: Invalid Power Resource to register!

Will this be a problem with the UD5H

Dake

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

Short answer: yes, similar on BIOS F14 I'm using.

Long answer: We're going out of scope here. But if you're hoping for a Z77 motherboard model with a perfect ACPI table (DSDT) from the BIOS for Linux, you've got your homework cut out for you.

First, a shout out 'Hai' to Gigabyte, ASUS, MSI, Foxconn et. al. Here are the parts they all mean when they all say in their support sections they do not support Linux:

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Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

Here are mine for the UD5H with BIOS F14:

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

Also, since you may not be able to avoid that issue (regardless of vendor chosen), see active https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43229 for you and your friend. It's been about 6 months since I went looking into this.
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nlsa8z6zoz7lyih3ap · Guru Joined: 25 Sep 2007 Posts: 388 Location: Canada

I recently faced some challenges concerning the way the memory, cpu and mob interact, after building a new PC. This is discussed on the gentoo forums in
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-956000-highlight-.html

Perhaps this would interest the readers of this topic.