Asus A8N-SLI

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iDeJ · Post by **iDeJ** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 8:47 pm

i'm using the CFLAGs

CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon64 -ffast-math -funroll-all-loops -funit-at-a-time -fpeel-loops -ftracer -funswitch-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"

which run quite fast for me (and even if you don't expect it, stable)

has anybody tried the lm_sensors on the A8N? - which sensors do i need?

ahorn · Post by **ahorn** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 12:47 am

did you read the gcc manual about the o3 flag and what included in it?

ferrarif5 · Post by **ferrarif5** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 6:58 am

iDeJ wrote:i'm using the CFLAGs
Code: Select all
CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon64 -ffast-math -funroll-all-loops -funit-at-a-time -fpeel-loops -ftracer -funswitch-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe"
which run quite fast for me (and even if you don't expect it, stable)

has anybody tried the lm_sensors on the A8N? - which sensors do i need?

Am running lm_sensors, am using the it87 module with gkrellm, runs sweet got all my temperature measurements and fans.

Code: Select all

lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
it87                   23204  0 
i2c_sensor              3136  1 it87
i2c_isa                 2368  0 
i2c_voodoo3             5128  0 
i2c_algo_bit            8584  1 i2c_voodoo3
i2c_core               19672  4 it87,i2c_sensor,i2c_isa,i2c_algo_bit

(Got a voodoo card for graphics until I can get the PCI-E card I want)

As for the external USB issue, I still have it.. just weird how the pen drive powers up in the bios but dies when it starts to boot into Gentoo, haven't got windows on the system so I can't really test it with it.

stefanwa · Post by **stefanwa** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 8:19 am

I've problems with usb too.
My 2 CH joysticks connected to the "external" module don't get recognized. Tried 2.6.10-nitro4 and -morph19 yet. No problems in Windows.

iDeJ · Post by **iDeJ** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 7:25 pm

ahorn wrote:did you read the gcc manual about the o3 flag and what included in it?

no i haven't, but i found these flags on the amd website as the recomended cflags (okay i found a thread in this forum where somebody found this flags on the amd website)

but i will have a look in the man pages .....

you refering to

`-ffast-math'
Sets `-fno-math-errno', `-funsafe-math-optimizations',
`-fno-trapping-math', `-ffinite-math-only', `-fno-rounding-math'
and `-fno-signaling-nans'.

This option causes the preprocessor macro `__FAST_MATH__' to be
defined.

This option should never be turned on by any `-O' option since it
can result in incorrect output for programs which depend on an
exact implementation of IEEE or ISO rules/specifications for math
functions.

?

kip · Post by **kip** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:42 pm

@ guys with usb-problems: give kernel 2.6.9 a try! Seems like there is a bug in the usb-subsystem of kernel 2.6.10 ...

SAngeli · Post by **SAngeli** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 9:42 pm

Hi Guys,

I have to get myself a new motherboard with CPU and have to ask few questions:

1) I have to choose between ASUS (A8V-E Deluxe, A8N SLI, A8N SLI Deluxe) and Gigabyte (GA-K8NXP9, GA-K8NU-SLI, GA-K8NXP-SLI) Whoever has one of these boards can kindly post the lspci for compatibility purpose? Thanks!

2) I read some people having problems, while installing Gentoo, with SATA or Video or CFLAGS or Xorg. For those with an ASUS board, are all these issues now resolved or will I have to suffer like some of you did? I ask this because I intend on installing three SATA HD and a nVidia PCI E card. Can I peacefully go ahead and purchase them?

3) My main concern is at least being able to:
a. install gentoo 64-bit from stage 1 with optimized CFLAGS and other main configurations
b. get xorg fully working with nVidia video card Chipset
c. get kde installed and fully working
d. get all or what is possible of the motherboard configured, like sound, NIC, LPT, and others

I appreciate any comment reply.

Thank you,
Spiro

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:11 am

GA-K8NXP-SLI:

Code: Select all

bash-2.05b# lspci
0000:00:00.0 Memory controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Memory Controller (rev a3)
0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0050 (rev a3)
0000:00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2)
0000:00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a2)
0000:00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a3)
0000:00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a2)
0000:00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 IDE (rev a2)
0000:00:07.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev a3)
0000:00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev a3)
0000:00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
0000:00:0a.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
0000:00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
0000:00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
0000:00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
0000:00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3)
0000:01:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB82AA2 IEEE-1394b Link Layer Controller (rev 01)
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 19)
0000:05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0140 (rev a2)

I've gotten all the hardware working except for my 6600gt with xorg and I'm on the 2005.0 profile; I'm currently re-emergeing xorg with the 6600gt fix, will post back my results

{Edit}
Success!
6600GT works perfect in xorg now, with the composite stuff enabled.

Just to let you know I tried both the nv sata and the sil sata - they both worked, my 120GB PATA drive is running fine, as are my two PATA DVD drives, the sound is working great, so are both the ethernet ports and I've got my mouse and a PS2->pc controller adapter working on the usb ports. The only thing I haven't tested are the firewire (IEEE 1394) ports, I don't have any such hardware.

_asc_ · Post by **_asc_** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:14 am

1) I have to choose between ASUS (A8V-E Deluxe, A8N SLI, A8N SLI Deluxe) and Gigabyte (GA-K8NXP9, GA-K8NU-SLI, GA-K8NXP-SLI) Whoever has one of these boards can kindly post the lspci for compatibility purpose? Thanks!

2) I read some people having problems, while installing Gentoo, with SATA or Video or CFLAGS or Xorg. For those with an ASUS board, are all these issues now resolved or will I have to suffer like some of you did? I ask this because I intend on installing three SATA HD and a nVidia PCI E card. Can I peacefully go ahead and purchase them?

3) My main concern is at least being able to:
a. install gentoo 64-bit from stage 1 with optimized CFLAGS and other main configurations
b. get xorg fully working with nVidia video card Chipset
c. get kde installed and fully working
d. get all or what is possible of the motherboard configured, like sound, NIC, LPT, and others

I have the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe and I have had an SATA and xorg problem
when installing Gentoo but thanks to this forum all the problems were resolved rather easily.

SATA:
Boot the Live-CD kernel with "acpi=off" and "noapic" and then load the nvidia SATA driver (modprobe sata_nv). When configuring your own kernel make sure you enable SATA support. I have also compiled ACPI support in my own kernel and there is no conflict with the SATA driver (did not test ACPI functionality though).

The xorg problem with my 6600GT graphics card was due to a bug in xorg but there is a patch that resolved it.

All in all, SATA and 6600GT are working flawlessly on my system now and I did not experience any other problems so far.

SAngeli · Post by **SAngeli** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:38 am

Hi Malcolm and _asc_ ,

thank you for your post.

Questions for Malcolm & _asc_

1) Can you please tell me what hardware specs you have, in particular: CPU, Memory how many banks used and what memory? What is the brand name of your video card? Is your video card PCI E, correct?

2) What would the cost of your motherboard be, more and less?

3) You said "2005.0 profile". So, can you please post your CFLAGS ? as for desktop, are you using KDE or GNOME and which version?

4) I noticed that GA-K8NXP-SLI with chipset nForce4 SLI has many nice features, like: NV Firewall, AI NOS, SATA II,... How are you interracting with these one in within Linux / gentoo?

I ask all these questions because I am not very happy with KDE 3.3.2 It crashes several times (some of its apps), like Control Center, konqueror, etc.

Thank you a lot,
Spiro

_asc_ · Post by **_asc_** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 10:44 am

Hello SAngeli,

My hardware specs are:

Athlon 64 3200
2x 512MB Kingmax CL 2,5 (dual channel)
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
Leadtek Winfast Px6600GT Extreme
Tagan TG480-U01 PSU

I'm using a pure Gnome/GTK environment and I did a stage 1 installation from the minimal Live-CD 2004.3.

I don't use any special motherboard features yet. I guess you need the nvidia forceware-driver to use the hardwarefirewall, etc. As far as I know, the latest forceware driver for linux does not support the nforce4 chipset yet, so I am waiting until a new one comes out.

SAngeli · Post by **SAngeli** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:07 am

Hello _asc_ and thank you for your reply.

Question:

1) 2x 512MB Kingmax CL 2,5 (dual channel)
Is this Latency 2 rather than 3? Correct?

2) can you please post your CFLAGS? Is there a good website where to find all the optimized Flags for the CPU you have or other AMD64 ones?

3) Regardless the brand name (Asus vs Gigabyte) nVidia nForce 4 Ultra or SLI is more updated and advanced than VIA K8T890. Can this be said? What I like about VIA is the North and South bridge interconnect system. Instead, nVidia has it all in once. Would not be better to allow two bridges manage traffic I/O or just the contrary? Do you know anything about this?

Thank you,
Spiro

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 5:23 pm

SAngeli:

Specs:
AMD 3200+ S939
Corsair dual channel memory 2x512 PC3200 in banks 1 and 2
MSI 6600gt PCI-E (NX6600GT-TD128E)
Seagate 80Gb sata, tested on all sata connectors
2 LG 5163B DVD+-RW drives running on IDE channel 2
120 Gb Maxtor HDD running on IDE channel 1

My motherboard cost me $225 Canadian

I'm using the defualt CFLAGS.

I haven't tried to enable any of the nforce4 special features, I have no need for them

Also I use the sata drive for both Gentoo and XP, having GRUB on there aswell.

_asc_ · Post by **_asc_** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 5:58 pm

@SAngeli:

(1) CL 2.5 is better than CL3 and worse than CL2. I choose CL2.5 because of the rather good price/performance ratio. In general, the CL value does not impact performance a lot, see
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 834,00.asp

(2)
CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

(3) I do not know a lot about the VIA KT890, but the single chip solution does not seem to be disadvantage:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_single-chip.html

Plus, I have read somewhere on the net that VIA is planning single chip solutions for future chipsets. I decided to go for nvidia because their nforce chipsets have been faster than their VIA counterparts in the past (I do not know if this has changed with the KT890, though) and the nforce4 seems to have more features (e.g. hardware-firewall) than the KT890. If you decide to take an nvidia based board make sure to get an ultra or sli chipset, since the normal nforce4 is the low budget chipset that lacks some features. If you are unsure about the motherboard, check out the motherboard forum at Anandtech:
http://forums.anandtech.com/

You will find a lot of information on the boards that are currently available.

SAngeli · Post by **SAngeli** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:36 pm

Hello _asc_,

Thank you so much for your time and advices!

I will purchase, as you reccomended, an nVidia nForce4 Ultra if I find one. I do not need SLI, at least for the moment. (Thank you for your info) I now only have to choose between Asus and Gigabyte.

As for memory, I do have a question: I see you have 2 simms. How did you plug them in? Did you plug them into DIMM0 and DIMM2? Anything to say about channels? What should be the correct paring or purchasing for one of the two config below listed? Please advice...
- Total 512MB
- Total 1GB

Based on the article you reccomended me, here is the point to make:

it's safe to generally characterize the improvement by saying that, compared with CAS 3.0 RAM, CAS 2.5 will give you a 1% to 2% speed boost, and CAS 2.0 will give you 2% to 4%.
.....
If you're building a system with 1GB of RAM, you'll pay an additional $60 more for only one or two percentage points. You're much better off spending that money on a slightly better video card or buying a good sound card instead of relying on integrated audio.

Also:
I have highly been adviced that when you purchase memory just get all that you need at the moment you purchase it. Moreover, one Simm is better than two for memory access.

Can you please share your openion for a better understanding?

Thank you,
Spiro

shuiend · Post by **shuiend** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 12:57 am

SAngeli do you plan on overclokcing any? If you are not planning on overclocking you wont really gain any performance by having tighter timings. If you are an average gamer just get some decent memory with decent timings. 3-3-3-8 would be fine for a decent gaming rig I would think. The extra money spent on the video card would net you a better gain. For motherboard I would recomend the DFI NF4 Ultra-D. It is a bit costly right now simply because it just came out but it has the best performance out of all the motherboards. For that mother board you would use dimm slots 1&3 or 2&4 for dual channel.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 1:09 am

I agree with shuiend, the lan party board is much better; the ultra can be penciled into SLI mode ^_^.

As for the gigabyte, ram dimms 1 & 3 are channel 1, and 2 & 4 are channel 2; so for dual channel memory use just use dimms 1 and 2

_asc_ · Post by **_asc_** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:34 am

You need two DIMMS of equal size (equal timings and from the same manufacturer to be on the safe side) for the dual channel feature which will increase your memory performance. So, for a total of 512MB you need 2x256MB and for 1GB you will have to buy 2x512MB. The installation manual will tell you where to put them. The Asus board has two channels A and B with two slots per channel (A1, A2 and B1, B2). If you want to use dual channel, you have to put your DIMMS into slot A1 and B1 which are colored in blue.

Concerning ram latency, its like you said. You just have to compare prices for CL2, CL2.5 and CL3 and decide if a slightly increased performance is worth the money.

In general, it is reasonable to purchase the amount of memory you need at the moment but I would take dual channel feature into account if you plan to increase your amount of memory later.

Originally, I wanted to get the Abit A8N Ultra board. But since I needed a new system badly and the Asus and Gigabyte boards were available first, I decided to take one of these. I opted for Asus (altough I do not need SLI either) since I got it for 151 euro while the Gigabyte Ultra board was at 160 euro and I did not have any problems with Asus boards so far. The board is stable and I really like it but if I was in your position, I would take a look at Abit and DFI as well. If you google for these boards you should be able to find some reviews.

ahorn · Post by **ahorn** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:41 pm

oh, seems the reiser4 prob is gone.
http://www.mail-archive.com/reiserfs-li ... 16936.html

darkfolk · Post by **darkfolk** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 5:52 am

Poseidon wrote:
pantherace wrote:Composite also works well.

KDE CVS for probably the very few running it, has a new option Desktop -> Window Behavior -> Translucency Tab...

Have fun.

The implementations of Composite have much improved since they were first released. (Still have a way to go... BUT EYECANDY! )

I did have X crash a second ago. (Xorg.0.log.old isn't that helpful about it...) So it still seems to have the same issues that I've had of it crashing (though all my prior testcases that always succeeded have been fixed.)
XFCE4 4.2 has transparencies. I've been using xcompmgr for almost a year now with transset to set transparencies on this excellent desktop. Not too much like windows (KDE), without all the bloat. I highly recommend this to everyone out there.

I'm recompiling my 6.8.0r3 with the patches kip mentioned, we'll see how it goes. I'm liking this board so far, hopefully won't have all the problems you guys have been facing. FYI, there is a 6.8.0r4 out there, any takes? BTW, I am running the nitro4 2.6.10 kernel on an AMD64 3000+ with the XFX GeForce 6600GT.

Fluxbox has transparencies as well, in fluxbox menu->Configure->Transparency.

eu/NEKE · Post by **eu/NEKE** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:41 pm

I'm collecting fixes and hints for the nForce4 here, at the moment I've got solutions for

Network cards not being detected
USB ports not working
ALSA audio mixing (sorry, not hardware yet)

As soon as I get a PCI-e graphics card, expect posts about that too.

Hope this helps everyone!

Wishmaster · Post by **Wishmaster** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:54 am

I'm trying to get the digital coax output working, using the alsa-drivers.

Somebody out there who is able to use the digital output?

Any hints are very welcome.

bye,
Wishmaster

calvizia · Post by **calvizia** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:43 pm

Do You could post the xorg.conf ?

thanks!

I cant start my fluxbox, i cant see arrow and i cant see nvidia logo.....

Merlin8000 · Post by **Merlin8000** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:01 am

I've had much more luck since my last post on this thread.

here's my current status

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (of course)
AMD Athlon64 3000+
BFG Technologies 6800GT
Gentoo 2004.3
Kernel 2.6.11-r3
X.org 6.8.2-r1
nVidia drivers 7167-r1 (installed today)
ALSA 1.0.8
KDE 3.3.2

at this stage, everything is running nicely...I'm a transgaming subscriber and am able to play counterstrike: source and half-life 2 (albeit with a few issues).

my only real system issue is sound, hw mixing i'm guessing, but aoss and artsdsp give me errors like this:

Code: Select all

/bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: /emul/linux/x86/usr/lib/libaoss.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
merlin@optimus merlin $ ls -l /emul/linux/x86/usr/lib/libaoss.so
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 16 Feb 23 21:08 /emul/linux/x86/usr/lib/libaoss.so -> libaoss.so.0.0.0
merlin@optimus merlin $ ls -l /emul/linux/x86/usr/lib/libaoss.so.0.0.0
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 15000 Feb 23 21:08 /emul/linux/x86/usr/lib/libaoss.so.0.0.0

can't seem to find the cause on this one, any ideas?

trooper82 · Post by **trooper82** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:14 am

Merlin8000,

You say you are a Transgaming subscriber and have almost the same setup as I do. Curious to find out if BFV is playable with this configuration. If so, I can finally be M$ Free.

Thanks,

Trooper82

Asus A8N-SLI

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