Jon wrote: > > "Stephen F. Bosch" wrote: > > > > *laughs* > > > > What motherboard do you have again? You're running an AMD K6/2 -- I'm > > already suspicious (speaking from experience). > > > > Something is *definitely* wrong with your hardware if Linux is wobbly > > and Win98 is stable. > > > > -Stephen- > > I love my amd k6-2 450 ... :( Don't get me wrong -- I'm not criticizing the AMD K6/2 - I think it was an undersold processor. The problem was that a number of motherboard manufacturers were apparently unwilling to throw real support behind it and pushed boards onto the market that had not been adequately designed and tested. The Asus P5A motherboards, for example, were quite disastrous (I have one, and it occasionally causes Win 98, Win NT (most recent service pack) and on rare occasions, Linux (though so far only during install - if I turn off UDMA support it works fine) to barf). I was never able to get my RIVA TNT2 board to work with it, and Asus support was stinky, stinky bad (to be fair, other motherboards built with the Acer Labs Aladdin V chipset were equally awful). I'm a reseller, and the tech people at my distributor told me that they were being flooded with complaints about this board. They did a valiant job trying to support their customers, but Asus... As it turned out, the board was beyond rescue. Asus simply ignored e-mail requests for support; when I finally called their technical support number (at my expense) the response was anemic. They told me what I already knew, then blamed my video card for my troubles. In the end I had to return the RIVA cards I was trying to get working with the P5A. Asus screwed up, and they knew it. How do I know? I recently installed an Asus RIVA TNT2 board in a customer's machine. On the box was a big orange *sticker* featuring the text "WARNING: Not recommended for use with ALi chipset motherboards!" -- like, for instance, Asus' own P5A. =) This is a BIG reason why AMD developed its own supporting chipset for the Athlon - after the problems with the ALi Aladdin V, they knew they could not rely on third party manufacturers to reliably support the new flagship processor. Incredibly, Asus hasn't learned from experience. The K7M has a mixed PCI bridge - AMD North, VIA South -- and they're unstable in ANY OS you try and run on them. I called my distributor after problems with my last K7M system, and they told me to send it back and get a Gigabyte (all AMD bridge) instead. Hardware *does* matter. -Stephen-
