[lug] hardware compatibility note, core2 duo

[D. Stimits]

Sean Reifschneider wrote:

>On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 04:10:40PM -0600, D. Stimits wrote:
>  
>
>>I've discovered that most of the newer core2 duo boards use a jmicron 
>>controller, which is listed as SATA2, but it also controls the IDE 
>>    
>>
>
>My understanding is that most of the current Core 2 Duo boards are P4
>boards, possibly without even a BIOS update required.  Because of that, I'm
>surprised that you're having problems...  Of course, I try to avoid boards
>with Realtek LAN and prefer boards with Intel SATA and Intel Ethernet,
>because I've had such good luck with them under Linux.
>
>  
>
I was actually told by a supplier that unless the board specifically 
claims Core 2 Duo, you should not use Core 2 Duo on it. There are boards 
which were originally introduced which got updated or otherwise tested 
and became Core 2 Duo.

I too prefer the Intel ethernet and SATA, but it seems that the low cost 
solutions are the first ones to hit the market (and those are not 
usually the Intel solutions, aside from chipset). Supermicro is a 
notable exception to this, but their Core 2 Duo boards are nearly 
impossible to find in stock (another supplier expects to have some by 
Friday). The low cost versions tend to have more features as well, in 
comparison to the Intel versions. By features, I currently am looking at 
number of SATA2 ports, I want at least 5 (I intend to create a backup 
machine which is also a file server plus has a hot swap bay for dropping 
in a portable drive).

>I found this sharing of motherboards to be annoying, because when I first
>looked at it I was having trouble finding boards, because they weren't
>listed specifically as C2D.  Going to newegg, I see that the only "Core 2"
>motherboards they list as "Core 2 Duo/Pentium 4/Celeron" or the like.
>
>Of course, what I really want is an ATX board for Core Duo without the big,
>taller-than-1U audo tower.  :-)
>
>  
>
Funny you should mention that...I was window shopping on the net (easy 
thing to do), and discovered some really nice boards, and wondered what 
the catch was. Turns out, they are some SSI/MEB form facter which 
exceeds extended ATX (i.e., same size as the quad sparc I work on...huge).

>Here's a board that has Intel Gigabit, and AFAICT Intel SATA:
>
>   http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121046
>
>  
>
This is one board I can't use for this particular purpose, although it'd 
make a nice home system. The boards I am interested in have dual 
gigabit, or at least gigabit.

>Lots of Intel boards in that list.  Most of the cheaper ones are using VIA
>chipsets, which I avoid.  Lots are using Realtek.
>
>Of course, nothing stops you from dropping an EEPro in there to do the
>install, and possibly more...  Whenever I run into a board with LAN that
>gives me any sorts of problems, I just drop in a spare Intel card and off I
>go.  I've also had fairly good luck with the Broadcom interfaces, as long
>as I'm not using VLANs.
>  
>

There is design trend that makes this more difficult...the newer boards 
are integrating most everything, and dropping the PCI slot count. The 
board above, for example, has 2 PCI slots, which is double what a large 
chunk of them have. I wanted to see more details on this, but their web 
site seems broken at the moment. What they often provide instead are 1 
to 3 PCI-E x1 slots, or 1 PCI-E x4 slot (try to find a sound card for 
one of those slots, a cheap IDE controller, or a cheap gigabit NIC).

In the case of gigabit, you certainly would not want to put a pair of 
them on a normal PCI slot. If you want good audio, you've already lost a 
PCI slot for sound (even good integrated audio can't compare to 
moderately priced add-on cards). I also happen to have a cheap scsi 
adaptor that  runs on PCI, which I am planning on using. The board I 
currently have for this has a single PCI slot, which is a problem. But 
imagine you could get all this into 1 or 2 pci slots...imagine a PCI 
card with dual gigabit (I want the ability to do bridging), an extra 
SATA2 port, a SCSI controller, and decent audio. Or even split that into 
two slots. Ouch. Or even imagine the cost of buying external components, 
when you could instead use a motherboard that has all that split 
properly onto PCI-E and another dedicated bus, for about $100 (last I 
checked, PCI-E slot controllers of any kind were absurdly priced rare 
beasts, even for x1 or x4).

I've also had good luck with Broadcom interfaces, but I'm discouraged by 
the number of boards that are low cost due to using jmicron and realtek 
components  :(   It might be that I just can't build anything for 
another year, unless I'm installing a purely windows machine 
(probability near zero).

D. Stimits, stimits AT comcast DOT net

PS: I was trying to estimate how a PCI-E x1 slot compares in bandwidth 
to a normal PCI slot, and they look "ballpark" similar...considering how 
small they are, I'd be happy to dump all my PCI slots if all of the 
cheap cards I'm interested in were available for the same price in PCI-E 
x1 (maybe in a couple of years).