# Motherboard advice

## kernelcowboy

I have a AMD64 4800+ chip and 4 GB RAM (4 x 1gb Kingston PC3200)

and a Gigabyte GeForce FX 5200 video card

currently installed in a GA-K8NS Ultra-939 nForce3 Ultra chipset motherboard.  

Running gentoo amd64.

When it comes to hardware, I know only enough to get into trouble.  I want to buy

a new motherboard to use with this chip (long story), but I'm not sure what

to get.  AMD's site shows 10's if not 100's of boards.    :Confused: 

This is just a development workstation.  No fancy graphics or overclocking is necessary.

Lot's of compiling!  And vmware.

Can anyone recommend a good socket 939 motherboard upgrade?  I want to continue running Gentoo 

on it, (however I'm might go 32 bit.)

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## bob_111

I'd reccomend anything using the NForce3 Chipset. My old S939 system had a K8N Neo2 which worked flawlessly and is still running today.

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## kernelcowboy

Thanks for the reply.  Out of curiosity, why not nForce4?

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## mudrii

I use 2X Asus A8N-SLI Premium with 2G RAM and AMD dual core 4400 for both for 2 years now and works very well and stable only one thing if you go for more that 4 DIMM as in your case the MEM timing should be set for 2T

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## kernelcowboy

Considering this Soltek board.  SL-K890PRO-939

Any issues getting it going with Gentoo?  LAN, SATA, etc.

Also,  *Quote:*   

> only one thing if you go for more that 4 DIMM as in your case the MEM timing should be set for 2T

 

I'm not going for more then 4, just 4.  And setting MEM timings is clearly outside of my knowledge sphere.

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## kernelcowboy

```

Soltek SL-K890Pro-939 Motherboard, Socket 939, 4xDIMM, DDR, 0xDIMM, DDR2, PCIe-16, 2xPCI, 3xPCIe-1, 8xUSB2, Firewire, Audio, ATA, SATA, RAID, ATX

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS Hard Disk Drive, 320GB, 7200rpm, 16384KB Cache, SATA-2

LiteOn SHM-165P6S DVD Writer, DVD 16R/16W/8RW, CD 48R/48W/24RW, Internal, IDE, Black, Retail, Nero, half height

Asus EN6200LE TC256/TD Video Card, GeForce 6200 TC, 256MB, DDR, PCIe-16, TV out, DVI (normally $79.26 incl GST)

```

See anything wrong with this set of gear.  I'm trying to go somewhat cheap, but I want it all to work.  I know the board

doesn't do SATA-2, but I think that drive will still work.

I'm just worried, I'll buy it all, and run into trouble getting Gentoo installed on it.

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## mfyahya

How about getting a board supported by linuxbios

I not sure what that would mean but the lkml guys seem to think it's a good idea http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/2/21/490

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## kernelcowboy

Thanks for that.

Looks like the ASUS A8N-E would be the board, only one that's 939,

but I can't find it in stock anywhere here in New Zealand, and I have 

no idea if it's any good, anyway.

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## kernelcowboy

If anyone is following this, I'll just point out that this

is probably a good place to look for compatible boards, and that Soltek I was considering

doesn't support the 4800+ chip.

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## depontius

 *kernelcowboy wrote:*   

> Thanks for that.
> 
> Looks like the ASUS A8N-E would be the board, only one that's 939,
> 
> but I can't find it in stock anywhere here in New Zealand, and I have 
> ...

 

I'm just a tad bitter about my A8N-E - not the board, but Socket 939. 

I bought the machine about 1.5 years ago, under the impression that Socket 939 was going to have some longevity. I got a low-end (3000) AMD64 cpu, with the thought that by end-of-life for the socket, I'd pick up a dual-core for cheap. Socket 939 had no lifetime to speak of, and the dual-core CPUs never came down in price significantly before becoming generally unavailable.

Other than that, the board has been pretty decent, serving as my main machine and Mythbox. There does appear to be some sort of compatibility problem with my Pioneer DVD writer, either that or Pioneer took back my bad purchased unit and sent me another bad one. It may not be the motherboard at all, but I haven't had time to diagnose further. By the time I pay shipping costs to get the drive back, it would be about the same cost to return it again as to just buy something else.

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## kernelcowboy

 *Quote:*   

> I'm just a tad bitter about my A8N-E - not the board, but Socket 939.

 

Same story.  I bought a 4800+ a few months back on newegg (and had shipped to me 

here in NZ.)  It made quite a difference!

And, I too started with a 3000+, so I now that have sitting around.  My goal here is to 

beef up my workstation by adding higher quality stuff arounnd the 4800+ chip.  And 

build up a LAN server, or workstation with the leftover gear.

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## Mad Merlin

I'm using the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe with 2G of RAM and an X2 4200+, which is similar to the A8N-SLI Premium mentioned above, but has 32 PCIe lanes instead of 16 (both have 2 PCIe slots, afaik). My system has been rock solid since I got it about a year and a half ago.

The other advantage with both the A8N32-SLI Deluxe and the A8N-SLI Premium is that they use passive cooling (= no noisy fans that end up dying quickly) on the motherboard itself, the rest of the 939 ASUS boards use active cooling on the motherboard.

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## kernelcowboy

The ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe looks execellent. 

I'd take one if I could find one!  (In other words, I'm still looking.)

Can anyone comment on the Jetway 939GT-SLI-G  it's here

for $69.99US

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## kernelcowboy

 *depontius wrote:*   

> I got a low-end (3000) AMD64 cpu

 

Here's a breadown of all boards that work with the 3000+ and 4800+ according to AMD.

Others work too, I'm sure.  But this is what AMD says works.    :Wink:   Because my 

GA-K8NS Ultra-939 nForce3  is running my 4800+ right now, and there doesn't seem

to be any trouble.  (Perhaps it will run better with an "approved" board.)

```

Vendor   Model    

Abit   AN8 32X  

Abit   AN8 Ultra  

Abit   FATALITY AN8 SLI  

Abit   KN8  

Abit   KN8 SLI  

Abit   KN8 Ultra  

Asus     A8N-SLI Deluxe  

Asus     A8V  

Asus     A8V-E SE  

Asus     A8V-X  

Asus     A8V-XE  

Biostar     N4SLI-A9  

Biostar     NF4UL-A9  

ECS     KN1  

ECS     KN1 SLI Extreme  

EPoX     EP-9NPAJ  

Gigabyte     GA-K8N Ultra-SLI  

Gigabyte     GA-K8NXP-9  

Gigabyte     GA-K8NXP-SLI  

Gigabyte     K8N SLI  

Gigabyte     K8NSC-939  

Jetway     939GT-SLI-G  

MSI     K8N Diamond (MS-7100)  

MSI     K8N Neo4 Platinum (MS-7125)  

PC Partner     DH7  

Tyan     Tomcat K8E(S2865)  

WinFast     NF4K8AC  

WinFast     NF4SK8AA  

```

Note:

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## gsoe

I'm afraid i don't really see what it is you expect from your new motherboard:  *Quote:*   

> Here's a breadown of all boards that work with the 3000+ and 4800+ according to AMD.
> 
> Others work too, I'm sure. But this is what AMD says works.  Because my
> 
> GA-K8NS Ultra-939 nForce3 is running my 4800+ right now, and there doesn't seem
> ...

 

What exactly do you expect to "run better", when you have no trouble? You say that you don't need fancy graphics or overclocking. Well, as far as compiling and that sort of things go, i wouldn't expect a noticeable difference from any other board. In your situation, i would go for a cheap integrated graphics board for a server with the 3000+ and keep the 4800+ system as it is.

As for Linux compatibility, i never had any trouble with nForce based boards, so i would expect any nForce3, nForce4 or nForce6100 (integrated graphics)  based board to run well with any Linux distro. Only if you go for AMD chips, you should be prepared to use at least 2.6.20 kernel to have SATA working properly, and lm-sensors support is not quite all right yet on some boards. Other than that they are cooler chips than the nForces and they run well.

If you are not sure a particular board will run with the 4800+ chip, check the manufacturers BIOS update site/ CPU compatibility site. I think all 939 boards should support the 4800+ with a BIOS upgrade.

Good luck!

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## xmit

ASUS A8N does not work with some PCI cards, i.e. technotrend dvb cards.

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## bubbl07

There's also the Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS (or the other one in the same family if you don't want an integrated video), which I bought for ~$60 from Newegg.

I'm using that as the motherboard in my server right now. It has S939, nForce4 chipset, integrated GeForce 6150, 4 SATA, 2x IDE ports, etc.  I've been using it for almost 2 years now, overclocking my Athlon 64 and only having to restart 3-4 times (for hardware changes).  Even if you don't use this, I still highly recommend an nForce4 chipset.

Also, because it's nForce4 and not nForce3, it uses a PCI Express video bus instead of AGP.  I'm assuming the GeForce FX 5200 you have is AGP, so you won't be able to use it in an nForce board, but if it's just going to be used as a workstation then the integrated video may even be an upgrade.  At the very worst you won't be stepping down in terms of video.

```
# lspci

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)

00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)

00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)

00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)

00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)

00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)

00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)

00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)

00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:03.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51PV [GeForce 6150] (rev a2)

00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)

00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a2)

00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a2)

00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)

00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)

00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)

00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev a1)

00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)

00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)

00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)

00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control

04:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
```

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## pdr

I had both my workstation and server running on the A8N-SLI Deluxe. The worstation has since switched over to core 2 duo, but the server was upgraded from an amd64 3000+ to an X2 3800+ dual core (was, and is still, using x86_64; changeover was very painless). For socket 939 I love the board, although for the server I certainly don't need SLI in it. However I did replace the chipset fan with a big passive Noctua (I think) heat sink - it was a tough fit in the workstation with a 7900GT video card, and impossible when I upgraded to an 8800GTX, which is why it is now a core 2 duo board   :Cool:  - but the server has a little nvidia 7200-help-i've-fallen-and-i-can't-get-up passively cooled video card and the chipset heatsink fits no problem. I've got 4 sata drives on running off the nvidia chip (the "primary" sata ports) in raid-5, and it has been flawless for, I guess, 2 years now. I will fairly often do TV show transcoding on the server, and for that the X2 3800+ in 64-bit is reasonably competitive to the 32-bit E6300 I run on the workstation (no overclocking on either one).

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