Somewhat technical questions regarding Intel motherboards

[mrbios]

Ok, this question is to help me here at work. I got a customer who absolutely has to have an Intel branded motherboard for a pretty simple server. However, he wasn't particularily impressed with the first one we provided him (an Intel D915GVWB) because he says there's a problem with the PCI slots. I'll quote you what he said the problem was to me:

The motherboard that ended up being used (D915GVWB) has a serious problem with the PCI slots -- there is no way in the BIOS to configure the IRQ lines used by each slot and the system cascades all the PCI boards on the same IRQ as is used by several on-board controllers. This will cause severe problems with the special I/O controllers we need to install in these systems.

Now, I haven't used an Intel-branded motherboard in a long time, so I'm not too sure if there's any current Intel boards that actually allow you to do this. From what I remember in my previous experience with Intel boards, you really couldn't do anything in the BIOS. So, is he just SOL in getting an Intel-branded motherboard that will meet his above requirement?

 

[tcsenter]

Probably do better with an older model with conventional PCI bus (Intel 865/875) or industrial board. If mATX with on-board video is his thing, check out one of Intel's 865Gxx boards. If anything, you'll get far more mature BIOS support. Intel is phenomenal about BIOS refinement, but it might take them three years and two dozen releases.