# Best (ACPI) pentium4 mobo

## Saruman

Hi all, 

I'd like to know if there is any motherboard for pentium4 who support acpi correctly (or kernel 2.4 correctly supports; that is: no irq conflict, working usb devices and the ability to turn off the PC when halting).

Any suggestions?

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## CodeHacker84

After starting to read the ACPI 2.0 standard (502 pages of technical drivel), I have quickly come to realize that ACPI is quite a different fish, so to speak.  In answer to your question: I don't have an answer, but I do have some information.  Technically, any motherboard that complies with the ACPI standard should perform the same under any operating system, and it's not the hardware you need to worry about, but the level of functionality in the software (ACPI is kind of like a Virtual Machine with the OS taking care of everything).  Of course, this is like saying that technically, a building should stand up to an earthquake--it doesn't always work out that way.

[Edit: Well, the mobo should perform the same under any OS that supports ACPI anyway...]

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## barlad

I have a P4G8X Deluxe (I needed to fight hard and long to get that one). So far so good. USB works, ACPI seems to work, I can halt the system when shutdown command is issued.

Only drawback is the E7205 does not seem to be recognized by AGPGART yet. It works under 2.4 kernels and the AGP3.0 patch but it does not work with 2.5.64 kernels and the native AGP3.0 support... go figure.

As for performances, stability and overclocking... that mobo is the best out there in my opinion, especially if you have a PIV HT.

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## Saruman

My problem is that I'd like just having my pc powering off and get my usb scanner, printer, webcam and memory stick working under linux with acpi as it _does_ under windows 2k (I currently own an asus CUV4X-D dual p3 mobo@933, dual boot with /dev/hda linux & /dev/hdc win2k, and its primary IDE channel is firing any hard drive I connect to it in a whille ;(((.

After reinstalling gentoo for 2nd time (IBM failure and now Maxtor) after _emerging_ system, X, KDE, OpenOffice, etc etc, spending a few night builds in the meanwhile, I decided to change my mobo, going for a more simple and, hopely, supported single-cpu system.

Barlad: I was thinking about that mobo but it is pretty expensive here (around 250,00 euro in Italy to the final user), so before moving I'd like to know:

1) What usb devices have you connected?

2) the output of dmesg

3) the output of 'cat /proc/interrupts'

4) What kernel did you use and where you got the patch? (Ok here I'm pretty lazy to search on google/newsgroups archive, sorry  :Wink: )

5) What kind of peripherals you use (I'd like to save my nvidia geforce4 MX440/64 & sb-live).

Excuse me for the length of the requests but I need to be sure to have, if not certainity, at least good probabilities to get it working  :Smile: ,

regards

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## barlad

Yeah the P4G8X is quite expensive (same price in france) but if you have got the cash... that's worth it.

-My USB peripherics are mouse and CD-R. 

- dmesg recognizes everything properly under 2.4.20-ck4 patched kernel.

- Kernel is 2.4.20-ck4 (see above hehe) with the AGP 3.0 compliance patch. You can find it by typing something like" E7205 support in 2.4 kernels " in google but if you don't want to search, I can send it to you hehe.

- Peripherals : full scsi system : 

ultra 160 Adaptec card, SCSI CDROM, 3 scsi 160 disks

one CD-R usb

Sb!Live 5.1

Ti 4600

Everything works fine... Only thing is I cannot use AGPGART as my AGP driver, I have to use nvagp. Not sure why... but it does not matter much.

I will post the output of /proc/interrupts later when I get on the machine if you want.

Thing is, if you have a PIV HT, that motherboard is the best you can get - in my opinion. If you have something else, then you may aswell head for something cheaper (another asus card maybe) .

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## Saruman

Are you using acpi or apm? Is your system able to soft turn off?

Thanks, i belive that I will go for this mobo  :Smile: 

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## barlad

ACPI works fine, I cannot use APM because of the "logical" SMP system (PIV HT). 

As for the "soft turn off" I am not sure what you mean. If you are talking about the power down with the shutdown command, yeah it works. 

If you are talking about that new feature that was introduced in 2.5.64 kernel (the shutdown -z command), I didn't try it yet  :Smile: .

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## Saruman

No 2.5.x here, just 2.4.x for me (at least until 2.6 arrives  :Wink: ) 

For the power off: yes, I mean that  :Smile:  Hurrah!!

What kind of p4 are you using? 3 GHz (the only officially supporting hyperthreading as far as I know)? Or is there any way to enable HT on any northwood-core p4? Enough enabling smp in kernel configuration?

A will grab one of these mobos on thursday and put it at work for compiling gentoo as soon as I can  :Smile: 

Thanks for the answers, anyway   :Very Happy: 

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## barlad

Yeah I am using the PIV 3ghz HT. 

I did hear there were some ways to enable HT in some P4 not officialy supporting it but I don't really remember all the details.

I just had to enable SMP in kernel configuration and it worked like a charm  :Wink: 

Enjoy your soon-to-be new mobo!

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## Saruman

Can you point me where to find the e7205 patches? Or the ck-kernel already provided with them? Or send me directly by mail? (use mario@_NOSPAMME_gicomsrl.it).

Thanks.

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