Thanks, Tom Brinkman. Yes there are Chipsets and there are cheapsets, and the VIA seems to have its share of icompatibilities, though not as many as the PCChips clones of the cheapsets. The i810/820/840 are junky and do require certified memory to have a chance at working right. lspci on the FIC PAG 2130 I promised hours ago but a defective INTEL network card help up progress while I fumed and gnashed my teeth. VIA Technologies|VT8501 (unknown unknown) VIA Technologies|VT8501 (unknown unknown) Intel Corporation|82557 [Ethernet Pro 100] (NETWORK_ETHERNET eepro100) VIA Technologies|VT82C686 (Apollo Super) (unknown unknown) VIA Technologies|VT82C586 [Apollo] (STORAGE_IDE ignore) VIA Technologies|VT82C586B USB (SERIAL_USB usb-uhci) VIA Technologies|VT82C586B USB (SERIAL_USB usb-uhci) VIA Technologies|VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (unknown unknown) VIA Technologies|VT82C686 [Apollo Super AC97/Audio] (MULTIMEDIA_AUDIO via82cxxx) Trident Microsystems|CyberBlade/i7 (DISPLAY_VGA Card:Trident CyberBlade (generic)) This is yet another flaky mobo that is an attractive buy (YAFLAMAB)... Memory timing is a nightmare and merely running the board at its rated speed is a tuners art. Still, once the timing is set in the BIOS, the performance is reasonable though "lost interrupt" errors will appear with Seagate drives on UDMA/66 and 586 code. Fortunately 686 code is not an option because we'd most likely be frying data. The audio 82cxx loads but fails on "device or resource busy" Now to other matters.... Of chips and sealant wax, of babbages and induction rings,,, The only recent Mobo I am absolutely unable to break thus far is the Shuttle HOT-599 with an SiS-530 Chipset. Video sets up just fine ever since Venus and sound is impossible, AFAIK. I will be retesting a couple for sound when I convert to 7.1 final to gain the benefits of Reiserfs, but right now they are running Helios. No lspcidrake output available because I am unable to test any of my 599's--they are in running servers. They crank right along, even boosted 12% in a hot closet for a week--nary a hiccup. If the sound works, fine. If not, well, if I had some in workstations, it would be time to try to code a driver, I think. Shuttle has not been noted for high performance boards, but this time they lucked out and produced something stable though still no speed demon. Anyway, 7.1 is looking good. Took 4 different EEPro cards to find one that would work, but that is the truly terrible story of Intel's advertising budget outstripping their continuous improvement budget by probably a thousand to one. (And if I used Windows, I'd probably be blaming the Op System.) Civileme
