# (Solved): Intel Q6600+ASUS P5N-E SLI (or IntelDG965WH)

## benny1967

Hi,

I spent the last days checking hardware available at local retailers for GNU/Linux compatibility and found it's a real pain, especially when it comes to mainboards. However, as my system is going to be > ¤1000,- I really, really want to be sure everything will be fine with gentoo and there are no known issues.

What do you think of the following combination? Any positive/negative experiences in the community?

INTEL Core 2 Quad Q6600, 4 x 2,40GHz, S-775

ASUS P5N-E SLI, ATX or Intel DG965WH (edited just to add a few more options  :Very Happy:  )

SATA Western Digital Raptor, 74 GB, 16MB Cache

SATA II Seagate Barracuda, 7200.10, 320GB, 16MB Cache

4x DDR2-RAM 1024 MB, PC2-800 MHz, CL5, Samsung Original  (edited to reflect mudrii's suggestions below)

PCI-E EVGA e-GeForce 7300 GT, 512MB

I'd be willing to pay more for a good mainboard (like one that has WLAN on board or some other nifty features) as long as I could be sure that each and every chip is well supported. So if you know of a well-supported board that is compatible with Intel's Q6600, tell me  :Very Happy:  (I just don't want to pay for additional functionality on the mainboard only to find out later that, say, Kismet won't use the onboard WLAN-device properly.)

Oh, yes, you might as well give your thoughts about the overall hardware combination, of course. You might want to know what I use my computers for: I dont play games at all, never. I do intend to install some Windows Version at a later stage, and then it probably will have to be Vista. There is a working Plextor DVD burner that must move to the new PC, as well as a Hauppauge TV card. I do a lot of video conversion to get videos running on restricted portable devices, and most of these I keep on my hard disks so I can always put new content to those portables. "emerge -uD world" and "revdep-rebuild" hardly ever run unattended, so I want them not to interfere with my desktop activities when I run it once a week while surfing/chatting/watching TV. Other than that, I am probably a "normal" desktop user (Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice.org). I suppose the proposed setup, especially CPU and the amount of RAM, might both be too much for these typical use cases, but then I typically buy new hardware only every 6-7 years...Last edited by benny1967 on Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:28 am; edited 3 times in total

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## mudrii

the config sounds nice just as advice try to go for 2 hdd for raid 1 is safer and for mem go fo 2x1G and you will have slots for expansion in the future

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## benny1967

thx mudrii, I will have to go for 1GB modules anyway because I want to have 4GB RAM - the 512MB-modules given before were simply wrong. To leave slots for future expansion I'd have to take 2GB modules and Asus lists only one single 2GB module in its Memory Qualified Vendor List, which makes me wonder if the board takes them without troubles.

As for RAID - yes, I think about this every now and then. The thing that keeps me from actually using it is I'm a little afraid that it might add extra complexity I might not be able to handle.   :Embarassed: 

However, my main concern is with the mainboard. Once I feel sure that the P5N-E SLI  (or some other model people might come up with here) is the right thing to buy, I can still reconsider the hdd-setup.

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## gzunk

You may not get reliable operation with 4x1GB sticks @800MHz. I'm running 4x1GB sticks @667MHz, even though they're rated at 800MHz because the system was unstable at that speed.

If you absolutely have to get the speed and the ram, the 2 x 2GB sticks @800 would be the way to go, but I don't know if the Asus QVL has any of those on them. I'm quite happy to wait for a possible BIOS update to increase the memory compatibility.

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## Genewb

 *gzunk wrote:*   

> You may not get reliable operation with 4x1GB sticks @800MHz. I'm running 4x1GB sticks @667MHz, even though they're rated at 800MHz because the system was unstable at that speed.
> 
> If you absolutely have to get the speed and the ram, the 2 x 2GB sticks @800 would be the way to go, but I don't know if the Asus QVL has any of those on them. I'm quite happy to wait for a possible BIOS update to increase the memory compatibility.

 

Same here except with 2*2GB modules :/

On topic, I have the Striker Extreme, and as far as I've seen it's pretty much the same board except with LEDs, + heatpipes etc. (same northbridge and southbridge). Someone even lifted their sticker off and it said Striker Extreme underneath.  :Rolling Eyes:  Just beware of memory compatibility ... You might have to set the voltage manually (a case of rushing into the bios and setting it before it freezes  :Wink: )

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## benny1967

mhm... this memory issue seems to be annoying; although i do plan to have the thing assembled at the store, there might still be issues they wont find because they show only a while of operation...

the thing is: there are only a few Q6600-compatible mainboards around; i have to choose between those available at the store. those based on intel chipsets seem to have a lot of often mysterious compatibility issues even with recent kernels, while the asus p5n-e sli has a reputation of working just fine with gnu/linux. 

what to do?

are there other mainboards around that just work with the most recent stable kernel (which means: all hardware on the board is supported), are Q6600-compatible and maybe are less picky about RAM than the p5n-e sli? maybe all quadcore-users should simply post which board they use  :Wink: 

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## Genewb

 *benny1967 wrote:*   

> mhm... this memory issue seems to be annoying; although i do plan to have the thing assembled at the store, there might still be issues they wont find because they show only a while of operation...
> 
> the thing is: there are only a few Q6600-compatible mainboards around; i have to choose between those available at the store. those based on intel chipsets seem to have a lot of often mysterious compatibility issues even with recent kernels, while the asus p5n-e sli has a reputation of working just fine with gnu/linux. 
> 
> what to do?
> ...

 

Well, I have a Q6600 and the Striker works perfectly for me aside from the ram (everything's supported). Temperature sensors for the Core 2 aren't coming until the 2.6.22 kernel, but that's not really essential.

Edit: The side and rear channels are mixed up in 2.6.21 (i.e. they're the wrong way around), but that's resolved in 2.6.22 rc2. I presume the P5N-E SLI has the same Intel sound chip - ADI1988B.

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## benny1967

 *Genewb wrote:*   

> Well, I have a Q6600 and the Striker works perfectly for me aside from the ram (everything's supported). Temperature sensors for the Core 2 aren't coming until the 2.6.22 kernel, but that's not really essential.

 

Thank you; this is a good reassurance that probably the P5N-E SLI will work fine, too, apart from the memory issue. The sensors, indeed, are nothing I'd worry about either.

Meanwhile I did some additional research and found that, at least from what I understood, there where some positive experiences with a 2.6.20-kernel and the Intel DG965WH. I didn't have the time so far to compare the two in terms of overall quality/speed/reliability etc., but is there somebody who has gentoo running on a DG965WH and can confirm there are no more major issues in terms of hardware support? I never had an Intel board before, but wouldn't it be an interesting way to go now? (you know, open X3000 drivers and stuff)

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## pandaxiongmao

I'm using the same motherboard, and it works super fine.

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## longhorn49

Does anyone know of the P35 boards (ICH9) work?

I am building one today, so I guess I will find out.  :Very Happy: 

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## BigBaaadBob

 *longhorn49 wrote:*   

> Does anyone know of the P35 boards (ICH9) work?
> 
> I am building one today, so I guess I will find out. 

 

Did it work?

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## benny1967

For those you search the forum for it:

I went for a Intel DG965WH based system (with some changes concerning disks and memory type compared to my plans posted above) and am pretty content. You have to know, though, that the current (2007.0) install CD (install-x86-minimal-2007.0-r1) failed for me, I needed the Kernel of Truth which worked fantastic. 

Only drawback I see so far: The current Intel BIOS has a bug that makes the system incredibly slow when 4GB of RAM are inserted (4x1GB of Kingston RAM). This is OS independent, the web is full of reports from both Windows and GNU/Linux users. I simply took away 1GB; 3GB of RAM is far enough and I can put the 4th GB in when a BIOS fix becomes available.

Oh, yes, and the xorg driver for the graphics chipset is somewhat annoying in that it completely ignores custom modelines from xorg.conf. I'm one of those people who never use VESA standard modes but try to set resolution/refresh rate to very unusual values. No way doing so with the standard setup. I'm about to try the various workarounds I read about, but still it's a little annoying at the moment.

So I consider my initial question "solved". Thank you for your input.

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