Topic: Ideal Motherboard for Intel Core 2 and SME7 ?

[christian]

After spending some time searching and googling the topic, I've become convinced that SME7 will work fine on an Intel Core 2 Duo. Though I believe you still require the bootline mods (correct?)

Now I'm trying to figure out the optimal Motherboard for SME7 to go with a Core 2.

From what I can see an ASUS board is probably the least interesting (though generally my favourites) as it uses the Jmicron HDD controllers which are not supported until at least CentOS 4.4.

I have seen that Synaptic runs SME7 on Intel 965 boards.

I also see from the traffic on this board that there are people running Intel Core 2s.

So I'm wondering what you have found to be the best Motherboard to bind SME7 to Intel Core 2? Anything you would stay away from?

[CharlieBrady]

After spending some time searching and googling the topic, I've become convinced that SME7 will work fine on an Intel Core 2 Duo. Though I believe you still require the bootline mods (correct?)

I don't know what your source is, but I know of no bootline mods to use a Core 2 Duo, and would be surprised if there were any. The *might* be some required for some motherboard and BIOS combinations - but that's true of any CPU.

So I'm wondering what you have found to be the best Motherboard to bind SME7 to Intel Core 2?

How do you define "best"?

[christian]

After spending some time searching and googling the topic, I've become convinced that SME7 will work fine on an Intel Core 2 Duo. Though I believe you still require the bootline mods (correct?)

I don't know what your source is, but I know of no bootline mods to use a Core 2 Duo, and would be surprised if there were any. The *might* be some required for some motherboard and BIOS combinations - but that's true of any CPU.

An example thread was http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=35121.msg153098#msg153098. eg. "pci=nommconf" Which is likely a chipset issue.

So I'm wondering what you have found to be the best Motherboard to bind SME7 to Intel Core 2?

How do you define "best"?

Good question! In my mind it may be more to do with what chipsets are good and which are bad. I assumed that people have had success with certain boards and problems with others. Which may be primarily chipset issues. Asus in their P5W series for example uses Jmicron for part of their IO control and from searches I see that at least CentOS 4.3 has issues with this.

What I was hoping to capture were boards that people have had success with especially for more modern HW so that others (including me) could say "ah good that one is proven and it is in line with what I need".

Personally I'm looking for something that takes Core 2 (Duo or Extreme); onboard audio/video (basic stuff for an SME server); two IDE/PATA connectors; and two SATA.

Alternatively is their an easy way to find out which chipsets are compatible with say CentOS 4.3? A list for example.  When I go to the redhat website for example, they have more in the way of pre-configured server solutions from say HP, Dell, etc. At the CentOS site I ended up trying to search the forums there; but that is really painful.

That's why I applaud what PicsOne started in http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=36643.0.

Make sense?

[bpivk]

two IDE/PATA connectors;

This shortens the list because SATA replaced the old disks. Check this motherboard http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA&s=n it has the old and new technolgy so you can use older and newer disk as well as AGP or PCIx cards.

[christian]

Thanks for the suggestion. Have you tried this? While I've had mixed results with ASRock reliability (I believe it is ASUS' experimental manufacturing process line). The first thing that jumped out was that it is using VIA chips.

A few other boards I have seen so far that might meet my needs and that may be safe include:
ASUS P5LD2-VM (Intel 945 chipset)
ASUS P5PE-VM (Intel 865 chipset but Intel doc says it can take a core 2 duo)
Intel BLKDG965 (Intel 965 chipset) (I think it is short one PATA though)
     ** this is what Synaptic seems to use

[william_syd]

(I believe it is ASUS' experimental manufacturing process line).

I always thought it was ASUS' value market line. ie Cheap 'n Nasty

[bpivk]

(I believe it is ASUS' experimental manufacturing process line).

I always thought it was ASUS' value market line. ie Cheap 'n Nasty

Well i used both ASUS and ASrock and found out that i have to update bios ASAP and (if used on microsoft platform) drivers and it works fine.  

[mort1504]

I have just built 5 servers using smeserver 7.1.3 with the following configuration and they have worked perfectly.

Antec NSK6500 case
MSI - G965-FIR motherboard
         1-ide/pata - 6 sata
         10/100/1000 ethernet port
         4 ddr2 slots
Intel - E6400 Core 2 dual cpu
2gb - kingston DDR2 PC4200 value ram
5 - Seagate 160gb Sata II jumper to 150mb
Lite-on 16X DVD-RW optical drive

I have had no problem installing smeserver, or any contribs so far.  

[Normando]

I have just built 5 servers using smeserver 7.1.3 with the following configuration and they have worked perfectly.

Antec NSK6500 case
MSI - G965-FIR motherboard
         1-ide/pata - 6 sata
         10/100/1000 ethernet port
         4 ddr2 slots
Intel - E6400 Core 2 dual cpu
2gb - kingston DDR2 PC4200 value ram
5 - Seagate 160gb Sata II jumper to 150mb
Lite-on 16X DVD-RW optical drive

I have had no problem installing smeserver, or any contribs so far.  

Please, add your succesful hadrware configuration in the wiki:
http://wiki.contribs.org/Various_Hardware_Configurations

Thanks

[christian]

I have had no problem installing smeserver, or any contribs so far.  

great to hear! I notice it is an Intel 965 chipset; did you need to set any boot line parameters such as "pci=npmmconf" ?

I also notice in the spec that the IDE is JMicron and it mentioned that the IDE port can't support an OS.

As for William's comment on ASUS, that's a new one!  

I've generally had good luck with ASUS and quite frankly I've taken my cue from local PC builders who tend to rely on ASUS as the product that doesn't end up having to be repaired. Mind you I had a recent incident with an ASUS board and their replacement & RMA policy is about as awkward as it can possibly be. So the warranty isn't very interesting.

[mort1504]

smeserver loaded and functioned without having to set any bootline parameters. I only use the IDE port for optical drives. My main reason  for using this motherboard was  that it would support several hardware raid structures, including raid 5 and raid 6, using sata drives, without having to buy a seperate raid card. The only modification I needed to make was to jumper the Sata II hard drives to 150mb.

[hackersoft]

I've successfully installed SME 7.1 on an ASUS P5B-VM mainboard e.g. i965 chipset, 2GB DDR2 Memory, and 320GB SATA2 HDD with some work arounds in the boot grub information.

You can follow the steps on this link:
http://synapticsolutions.com.au/?page_id=64

Should you have any problem and cannot find the /boot partition, just restart SME box and do the first step to load the SATA drivers then continue with editing the grub information. (/boot should be visible after rebooting and should enable you to edit the boot loader information)

[stian]

MSI - G965-FIR motherboard

Is it the same board as in the link under? Or do you have another link to the products page. Does the board have onboard-vga? Can you set all the sata-ports to jbod? So you can use six disk and smeservers software raid in Raid6? Is the board a miniatx?

http://www.netshop.no/aspx/produkt/prdinfovnet.aspx?plid=42612

or

http://www.netshop.no/aspx/produkt/prdinfovnet.aspx?plid=43546

Lot of questions But if this board works, I have finally found one that is perfect for my needs.

[mort1504]

stian - the motherboard i use is the g965m-fir, if you  want more on the specifications of this board you can go to msi's website and get all the details you need. the board does have onboard vga, and yes you can set the sata ports to jbod and use the raid6 in smeserver, but i use the raid6 built on the motherboard. i perfer using the motherboard raid for some reason, i really don't know why. it is just the way i have set things up for years.

here is another link that has specifications
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130090R

[mike_mattos]

just to add a bit more smoke, I've found that the SATA  BIOS options to use SME may be quite different that those for WINDOWS!

a recent machine with 2 sata drives refused to install XP except when using the board RAID option,  SME would only use the non-raid!

Also some of the IDE/SATA combinations ( Primary + SATA,  SATA+secondary, etc ) gave grief, but in the end, all worked with SME software mirroring.