A Quality Budget Board for a Linux Fileserver - Semperon 754 ???

[kristof]

I need help choosing a board. I just had to return a second PC CHIPS M-811LU back to newegg. The first one ran for 2 minutes. The second ran for less than 21 hours before dying.

Even the best manufacturers sometimes turn out lemons so I would prefer recommendation for exact boards (and revisions if applicable.)

This board will end up in a headless machine in my basement. It will run linux (Debian stable) and serve files over ethernet. It will be on 24/7 with little downtime.

My #1 top priority is a RELIABLE board. I don't want to deal with any more RMAs and I don't want this thing to die on me after six months of use.

My second priority is price. I'll be buying a new retail processor to go with the board. The processor and motherboard need to be around the $100 range. More than $150 is too much.

I'm open to any AMD processor but it seems that the socket A stuff is drying up. Also, it looks like I can get a 754 Semperon for not much more than I'd pay for a Duron 900 setup. Am I wrong in assuming that 754 is the way to go?

Would it be dumb to buy a budget 754 today with the Geforce 6100/6150 and nForce 430 boards on their way?

How is the Linux support for the Athlon 64 chipsets? I'm happy to compile a recent 2.6 kernel but I will not run closed source binary drivers for anything other than graphics. Are there any chipsets that I should avoid? Does any chipset have outstanding Linux support? I know there were issues with Linux support for the socket A nforce chipsets early on... Do the newest nforce chipsets (3 & 4) work on a stock Linux 2.6 kernel?

Ok, now on to the specifics...

These are the things I absolutely need:

• low DOA rate
• stability over the long term with the machine running 24/7
• solid linux support for the chipset (and if applicable the nic & sata controller) NO CLOSED SOURCE BINARY DRIVERS!
• availability from a reputable retailer like newegg
• no chipset fan
• two ide ports (do all boards still have them these days?)
• must be from a company who will actually replace/fix my board if it dies under warranty

These are things that would be nice to have:

• onboard nic (gigabit is a big plus)
• >1 year warranty [**1]
• sata ports - the controller should be compatible with Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS drives [**2]
• onboard video with stable linux support

**1 Someone mentioned that Epox is offering a 3 year warranty on at least one of their boards.

**2 I read that some SATA chipsets had problems with some Segate sata drives. Dunno much more than that...


I couldn't care less about this stuff:

• overclocking
• sound
• firewire
• onboard raid

I have an older ATX power supply and stick of DDR that I'd really like to use in this box but I'm unsure if either is up to snuff for a recent 754 board.

The ram is a noname stick of DDR 2100 with chips on both sides. Will all of the 754 chipsets function properly with PC2100? For instance, the ECS NFORCE4-A754 with theNForce 4-4X chipset lists support for PC3200. Will it run and be stable with PC2100 in it? I understand and accept that performance will be sacrificed.

My power supply is a Sparkle FSP300-60ATV with specs as follows:

• Complies with ATX and ATX12V standards.
• 20 pin atx power cable
• 4 pin atx 12V power cable
• 3V supplies 28A
• 5V supplies 30A
• 12V supplies 15A
• 5VSB supplies 2A
• 5V and 3.3V total output not to exceed 200W
• 3.3V, 5V, 12V total output not to exceed 280W.
• When 3.3V is loaded to 28A, 5V can only supply 21.5A.
• When 3.3V is loaded to 15A, 5V supplies the full 30A.

Does this thing have the juice to power a low end Semperon 754 with five 7200 rpm drives? If not I'll need a recommendation for a solid but economical psu as well.

Are the ATX power connections up to suff for modern boards? It has 20 pin ATX and 4 pin ATX 12V connectors. For instance, the ECS NFORCE4-A754 has a 24 ATX and a 4 pin ATX 12V connector. Will my power supply work with this board? Does the 20 pin ATX cable plug into the 24 pin ATX connector? If so, then does the ATX 12V connector supply the juice that would have been coming in on those other four pins of the ATX 24 connector?

If you've read this far, THANKS so much! The forums are my only hope...

 

[Visual]

Wow thats a long post for something as simple...
Dunno what your problem was with the two poor mobos you killed... but considering their KT266A chipset is 5 years old and long out of production i'm amased you even found a place to offer them. Were they refurbished or something?

Asus K8N for $66
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131512
This is a mobo I've had personal experience with, and it even turned out a good overclocker. Pata, Sata, gigabit LAN and whatnot. No integrated video, AGP instead of the new pciexpress. The brand itself should speak for its quality/reliability (though frankly im still not sure what to think about all the fuss with nVidia's ide controller and drivers - i've seen no horror stories personally, only read about it)

For AMD mobo with integrated video there are several choices now, but they generally lack other features while trying to be cheap i.e. only 100Mbit lan, plus they take from your system ram.
Ati's rs480, which are more common on s939 for some reason. MSI has a 754 board here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130513
It has some problems with USB2 performance according reviews i've seen. No cverclocking.

The new chipsets with integrated video from nVidia might be better, the biostar solution is here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138266
Not a brand I'd trust personally, but waiting for the likes of Asus might not be worth it either.

For really cheap solution there's the VIA K8M800 chipset in an ECS (aka PCCHIPS) mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...&ATT=Motherboards+AMD&CMP=OTC-d3alt1me
but its video performance is hardly stellar

Next time you can have a look at the options for yourself - labs.anandtech.com is quite well organised by chipsets, and if you read the reviews you'd know which chipsets you're looking for already.

 

[kristof]

Wow thats a long post for something as simple...

I know! : ) I used to be able to browse Newegg, find something without negative reviews, buy, build, and have a solid machine. These days, practically every midpriced motherboard has a bunch of negative reviews, DOAs, and horror stories.

Dunno what your problem was with the two poor mobos you killed...

They suck. I found numerous DOA stories on the net after the second replacement died. One builder bought eight and four were DOA!

but considering their KT266A chipset is 5 years old and long out of production i'm amased you even found a place to offer them. Were they refurbished or something?

They were brand new from Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813185055

Asus K8N for $66
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131512
This is a mobo I've had personal experience with, and it even turned out a good overclocker. Pata, Sata, gigabit LAN and whatnot. No integrated video, AGP instead of the new pciexpress. The brand itself should speak for its quality/reliability (though frankly im still not sure what to think about all the fuss with nVidia's ide controller and drivers - i've seen no horror stories personally, only read about it)

Hmm... The first two reviews on Newegg are negative...guys who got unstable boards...and there are a few others later on too. The product page at Newegg says "This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only." That's usually a sign that they've had way too many returns on the board.

This is why I'm in such a quandry over somthing as simple as a board for a home fileserver. There was a time when you could buy any Asus board and be happy. Are those days long past?

For AMD mobo with integrated video there are several choices now, but they generally lack other features while trying to be cheap i.e. only 100Mbit lan, plus they take from your system ram.
Ati's rs480, which are more common on s939 for some reason. MSI has a 754 board here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130513
It has some problems with USB2 performance according reviews i've seen. No cverclocking.

ATI is out. Their Linux support sucks. I would have mentioned that in the original post but I didn't know they were back in the chipset/integrated graphics game.

The new chipsets with integrated video from nVidia might be better, the biostar solution is here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138266
Not a brand I'd trust personally, but waiting for the likes of Asus might not be worth it either.

I was eyeing that one but the Biostar name put me off, and by the time I put a gigbit ethernet card and four port SATA card in all my PCI slots would be full. Also don't know about Linux support for the GeForce 6100/NForce 410 chips. Googling for "nforce 410" and "linux support" turns up six pages and nothing in the newsgroups.

For really cheap solution there's the VIA K8M800 chipset in an ECS (aka PCCHIPS) mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...&ATT=Motherboards+AMD&CMP=OTC-d3alt1me
but its video performance is hardly stellar

After two RMAs I'll never buy another PC CHIPS/ECS ever.

Next time you can have a look at the options for yourself - labs.anandtech.com is quite well organised by chipsets, and if you read the reviews you'd know which chipsets you're looking for already

Yep, I did that before posting. Doesn't help me with two of my top concerns: board quality and Linux support.

Thanks for the comments and recommendations!

 

[Visual]

Dude you've gone massive crittical
Don't you have a pc-shop down the street or close by? Just go pick up WHATEVER (I recommended that asus just cos i had tried it myself, but i bet anything nf3/4 will do... even going via for cheaper should be ok) and even if it ends up bad you can have it replaced in no time.
You make buying a computer sound like an extremely hard thing heh.

 

[kristof]

Don't you have a pc-shop down the street or close by?

Nope. I have to mail order everything. If you see my first post I had to RMA the same mail-ordered motherboard board twice. Now I've spent $30 to ship back two bad boards and wasted two weeks waiting on orders and RMAs.

 

[o1die]

I just switched back to an athlon 64 2800 with ecs km800 board. It works ok, with onboard everything, including raid and video. It was almost free with the cpu as a Fry's combo deal. Ecs isn't great for warranty or overclocking, just a good internet board.

 

[Zap]

How about trying a different vendor? I haven't needed anything from them (limited motherboard selection) but I've heard good things about Monarch Computer. They have a 90 day CPU/mobo warranty with options for longer warranty at additional cost. If you order a mobo/CPU combo from them, they will install the CPU on the motherboard and test it to make sure you don't have a DOA - supposedly they also load latest BIOS. They have combos starting at $147 plus shipping (MSI board, 2800+ CPU, fan/heatsink).

My thought is that this might at least get you over the "near-DOA" hump.

 

[kristof]

Originally posted by: Zap
How about trying a different vendor? I haven't needed anything from them (limited motherboard selection) but I've heard good things about Monarch Computer. They have a 90 day CPU/mobo warranty with options for longer warranty at additional cost. If you order a mobo/CPU combo from them, they will install the CPU on the motherboard and test it to make sure you don't have a DOA - supposedly they also load latest BIOS. They have combos starting at $147 plus shipping (MSI board, 2800+ CPU, fan/heatsink).

My thought is that this might at least get you over the "near-DOA" hump.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely check them out.

 

[tcsenter]

They suck. I found numerous DOA stories on the net after the second replacement died. One builder bought eight and four were DOA!

There were real problems with these boards, including but not limited to, piss-poor IDE circuit design that results in excessive noise, transfer errors (uncorrectable), or IDE time-outs with transfer rate modes above Ultra ATA/66. The system automatically downgrades the transfer mode of ATA/100 and ATA/133 hard drives to ATA/66.

I've purchased about 4 PC Chips M811LU V3.1 and 10 Syntax SV266AD V3.1 boards (identical), and so far I've had 6 duds, either DOA or failed within days. But then, I don't know how much one could rightly expect in a motherboard that costs less than $25. I paid about $22 each for the ones I purchased. I also have two Shuttle AK32VN V3.1 boards (identical), but both appear good (except for the IDE thing).

I stopped returning them as they die, I'm holding onto the rest until about two months before the warranty expires so I can return them all at the same time. :disgust:

I purchased them to offer as 1.8 Duron combos with memory. They moved pretty well, but with the added expense of return shipping to both the buyer and my distributor, plus the headache, it wasn't worth it.

 

[bratwurst]

First of all, kristof, I'm so impressed by your maturity; you got kinda "nailed" by a poster ("Visual," who seems to have no real "vision"), and you responded so responsibly that... I'm impressed.

Second. What I learned was that ECS is a PCCHips reseller. The "standard rule" is to never buy a PCChips product. There's low-quality, and then there's PCCHips...

Last, on newegg. They used to be a good company, but today, they're not. They sell cheap, they ship fast, but as far as "support" goes, they've given up on that -- the "eBay" of online buying. Pay a few bucks more from other vendors and get some support and general "caring" about their customers (And I'm a tad depressed about that -- I used to buy only from them -- but they shaved a few dollars off of each product and subsequently shaved ALL of their support as a result). Try to find an email or phone number for them. Like I said, the "eBay" of online. Sad...

 

[filterxg]

The best linux support is with Nvidia. But for a fileserver it really doesn't matter. ATI and VIA will be fine. Thats important bc there is nothing from nvidia that meets all your requirements. VIA fits best, and really are fine for this application. I'd look at the GIGABYTE GA-K8VM800M, bc I like gigabyte for these purposes (rarely do they put chipset fans, and rock solid stable and reliable). It available from ewiz which is a good vendor (though I haven't ordered from them in years).

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: bratwurst
Last, on newegg. They used to be a good company, but today, they're not. They sell cheap, they ship fast, but as far as "support" goes, they've given up on that -- the "eBay" of online buying.

They're also giving up on warranty. Many items such as monitors and motherboards are sold specifying "manufacturers warranty only." It varys depending on brand. The problem is that some manufacturers (for example, ECS) don't want to deal with end users and will charge you money to fix something under warranty. Those "manufacturers warranty only" items can't be RMA'd online at Newegg - at least in my experience - go to RMA and invoice is listed, but "return for repair" and "return for refund" are not listed as options.