Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:49:26 -0700 From: Dieter BSD <dieterbsd@gmail.com> To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ECC support Message-ID: <CAA3ZYrAxWObNC=Jy6DmKibGRAeFJqvSRCuYVKZETdEnFZ9%2B8ng@mail.gmail.com>
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It appears that they are no longer selling the MSI 880GMA-E45. There used to be a web page with useful info about how well various boards worked with FreeBSD. My notes say it was http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/amd64/motherboards.html but that URL now gives: "Page not found. Oh no. :(" Don: > Supermicro has some Atom motherboards with ECC support. Thanks, but the company that designed the atom has a rather long history of design problems. The whole point of ECC is to avoid corrupting the right answer, not to avoid corrupting the wrong answer. They also steal technology from other companies, admit to it, and somehow usually get away with it. > Socket AM1 (Kabini) is supposed to support ECC, but motherboards with > this socket that support ECC is another story. Word is that Asus updated the AM1M-A manual to say that it supports ECC. http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/threads/421749-Geruecht-Zen-kommt-zuerst-als-Opteron?p=4988619&viewfull=1#post4988619 Google translation from pages 1 & 2: Onkel_Dithmeyer: I have Athlon 5350, Asus AM1M-A and ECC Ram drSeehas: Simply read the CPU registers D18F3xE8 and post the result here. I bet there comes 1F74F00h out. Onkel_Dithmeyer: The bet you've won! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_accelerated_processing_unit_microprocessors lists 5350 as "Kabini" So it sounds like Kabini doesn't support ECC after all? :-( Word is that old versions of memtest86 incorrectly assumed that ECC was available and can therefore give incorrect results. > Gigabyte GA_990FXA-UD5 > I actually like the BIOS. Will the firmware talk to a RS-232 console? The slot selection looks better than most: x16 x8 x8 x4 x4 x1 pci The x1 slot looks crowded, some of the newegg user reviews complained about that. Some of the x1 cards are small, if not, a riser should work. At least it *has* a 7th slot. More than 7 slots would be great, but such a board doesn't seem to exist. The hardware looks ok. Does FreeBSD have *good* support for all the hardware? (Other than the VIA VT6308P firewire which probably has the same problems as the 6307. If so, that uses up one slot for a firewire card. Looks like the firmware chips are soldered to the board, the Asus sabertooth has a socket. Newegg user review: "North and South will get hot." Word is that UD5 and UD7 have "vdroop issues due to lack of an LLC unit" Is that something to be concerned about if I'm not overclocking? Gigabyte's website is obscenely slow: 186 B/s :-( They know about it: "#1. Download speed may be varied in different region. If you have experienced lower download speed, please try other region download sites." At least I found the lists of approved CPUs and memory, and the firmware and manuals, unlike Asus. > The things that I don't like about this board are the SATA connector > placement Location looks okay, as long as they aren't too crowded or something. Sata cables can be reasonably long. 2 meters works for me, even with ports that don't claim to be e-sata. (e-sata is supposed to have slightly higher Voltages) Bad placement is putting a pata connector on the far left next to the i/o panel. Wimpy short cable barely reaches the drive. HVD SCSI was nice, the drives could be on the other side of the room, and often were. *grin* > I'd want to also switch from VGA to DVI Nothing against DVI, but isn't it in the process of going away? Displayport looks good, as long as you don't need analog. High resolution, Freesync, inexpensive adapters to DVI and HDMI. > combined keyboard/mouse PS/2 connector They get to save a bit of space on the i/o panel, and they get to sell you a Y cable. > the Y-adaptors don't seem to work I assume you've tried more than one adapter, and tried them without the KVM? As long as both the firmware and BSD will listen to USB, I guess I can go shopping for USB ones that I can stand. Presumably the USB ones are safe to hotplug, unlike ps/2. I have proper Unix style keyboards with control next to 'a' but both the firmware and FreeBSD think I have some brain-dead keyboard with control and cap-lock switched. Xmodmap fixes it in X, but I get a lot of typos in firmware and single user mode. :-( > Asus M5A97 R2.0 > It's got lots of whizzy graphics Firmware shouldn't have graphics at all. Firmware needs to be absolutely reliable. Graphics adds a lot of unneeded complexity. Graphics over RS-232 are rather slow. Word is that Asus firmware doesn't support an RS-232 console which is a major negative. YA Asus board with only 6 slots. Can't they count to at least 7? The best Asus board I've found is the Sabertooth 990FX R2.0. Again only 6 slots, but at least they have more lanes. And it has 4 extra sata ports. But again, Asus firmware is said to not talk RS-232. Sometimes things fly by too fast to read. With RS-232 you can scroll back, capture it in a disk file, etc. > If you are interested in something with low power consumption, I need a new firewall/gateway/proxy/uucp/mail/... machine, which shouldn't need massive cpu power, could be headless if RS-232 console works, and doesn't need massive amounts of i/o. A low power consumption machine should work great, if I can find one. Current machine is dying, so need a replacement asap. Same or similar machine with a good framebuffer (>= 4K, Freesync) and UVD could be X terminal / HTPC. Minimal GPU, if any, needed. But can't find a video card with a good framebuffer that doesn't also have some total overkill gpu that is expensive, lots of power&heat, uses up 2 slots and has a fan. Using up 2 slots is unacceptable when there are so few slots to start with. I'm sure it will be easy to find a replacement for the oddball board specific fan when it dies. Also need a faster box with more i/o. Take the i/o on the UD5, twice as many of everything would be about right. I don't see what IPMI can do that an RS-232 console can't, other than talk to the firmware with the machine mostly powered down, and powering the machine up and down. I don't need to do that. At least there is *some* feature I don't need! (besides a hyperthyroid gpu) Bob: > Then they did the next process shrink, and the effects disappeared > completely! [ ... ] Nobody understands why Sounds very bizzare. Figuring out why would make a good project for a phd student?
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