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Dude, it's time to update the mascot. How about a new Treo 650 running Tcl/Tk, or if you really want to stick with Texas, a new Dell Axim X50? I'd recommend the 520 MHz ASUS MyPal A730 (apparently comes with "engineering calculator) running Tcl/Tk, for optimum number crunching and programing ability, but the Treo is doestic, which I imagine is important to Thomas Jefferson High. I think everyone in your metro area needs a break from Texas.

...but what I would really like is a raid-5 facility on-board.

I was looking for something similar and I stumbled upon this one: http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket754/k8n-e_d/ overview.htm

Apparently it comes with an onboard Silicon Image SATA controller with 4 ports and the ability to do Raid 5. I'm seriously tempted to give it a try...

Oops. Here is a link.

actually - booted up on win xp pro sp1 disc with my new athlon 64 system yesterday and recognized the SATA drive without issue....

for what it's worth i was using an asus k8n-e deluxe mobo and this isn't the norm...when i installed the SATA on my abit ic7-g max, the mobo actually came with the SATA drivers on a dedicated floppy...but it does look like mobo manufacturers are starting to get the hint...

- bliSS

Dare?

Following my own instructions, I struck out on ASUS's web page and asked Google. I found that it's exactly the same board as the P3B-1394, but minus FSB dipswitches and with a different model number.

Download the manual.

My instructions are thus provably clear.

I have an Asus P4S533, and I have no problems with my onboard netword card. It's a SIS900 on my board.

Also try checking the downloads for the motherboard at http://www.asus.com/

PCI Express is not PCI. The bandwidth is completely different. PCI is 133MB/s. PCI Express is 200MB/s per x1. PCI Express graphics cards can be x16. Check the ASUS P5AD4 Premium motherboard for a look at some of the new connectors. Thunder

I've tried it and it's pretty cool. It's great so see the expression on your opponents face when you roll your army of tanks into his left flank when he's least expecting it.

Correction.

Asus WL-330.

Asus gave me one of these back at CES in February. They have a G version now. You can buy it for $60.

I've used it as a bridge, AP, and adapter. I'm currently using it as an adapter for my Vonage VOIP box. I could just as easily be using it to make my printer networkable, or my Xbox, or anything with a USB or Ethernet port. It also has dual antennas. I think I would take two of these to one Airport. Plus Asus makes much better products than Apple does. They actual design them and manufacture them, and they always make sure you can upgrade. They put out more bios updates than anyone. If you don't believe me check their German ftp. ftp.asuscom.de I've been an Asus believe since the Socket 7 based P5A motherboard, and I'm happy to see them become one of the leaders in computer products. They outshine everyone, including Dull and Apple. Those two companies are a bore in comparison.

In fact, uninvent Flash and I'll be even happier!

I agree. From the looks of some of the Flash widgets out there, you'd think people didn't realize that the word "Flash" was just a name and not an entire style guide.

Correction. That would be 800Mhz.

Sorry for the typo.

Think of the power savings for those who like to leave their PC's on for filesharing or whatnot.
Would also make for a better nights sleep, if the ATX case is in your bedroom.

Always found the Sony Clie to be very readable. Good high-res (for PalmOS units, 320x240) displays and nice bright backlights. Won't do Microsoft Reader, but etexts and stuff should be fine. There's a lot of good PalmOS software (including specific eBook readers and whatnot), and relatively good Palm support for Linux in general. New ones are relatively expensive but you should be able to get older ones (like my PEG-SJ30) online for around $150 or less. Bad things include their reliance on Memory Stick.

If you don't like Sony, or you'd rather have a Windows-based one or whatnot, the Dell Axims are very nice. The X3 is very small and includes nifties like built-in WiFi. Plus, they're damned cheap - the 300MHz Axim X3 (doesn't have wifi) runs $199 retail. Hard to beat, pricewise. ASUS also makes some neat-looking ones too.

As I'm sure we all know, upgradability is a big issue with computer hardware. My MythTV box is using a Cooler Master case (but in black), with this motherboard.

I've already added a DVB-T (HDTV in the US) card, which you can't do with this box (i.e. you will never get digital TV with this box).

My box is a bit bigger, but looks like a stereo component (brushed steel). I'm also planning on adding an extra analogue capture card (bringing my capture sources up to three). This will fill the PCI slots on the Micro-ATX board, so I'm damn glad I didn't buy a smaller box!

I've got a DVD-ROM drive, DVD burner and currently one 160GB hard disk. Planning on adding another much bigger hard drive (waiting, waiting, I want 1TB)

If you are thinking of building a PVR (it's a fun project), you really should think about expandability and upgradability.

Also check Jarod's PVR Hardware Database, and his excellent Install Guides page.

Also, don't forget MythTV is a very nice client/server architecture, so you can run your "backend" on some beefy ugly PC in a cupboard, and us anything (including an XBox) as a frontend.

--
"Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
-- Henry Mencken

My blog: http://yi.org/blog, Latest entry : Muscle powered microrobot's

HTPC motherboard
P4R800

HTPC motherboard
P4R800

I also run MythTV on my PVR... It is an Asus Pundit with 2 ATi TV-Wonder cards. I can be recording two different TV programs and watching a pre-recorded program all at the same time. Plus, I can run MythTV on my workstation in my office and watch TV as if my workstation had a TV adapter, all over the network. Same goes for the TV recordings. Excellent software, always getting better.

If you are comfortable mucking around Linux, then MythTV is definitely the way to go.

If only there were some way to have a digital output from the computer

Uh... the computer I'm typing this on, with an Asus P4P800 motherboard has a built-in digital coaxial S/PDIF audio output (yes, the motherboard's built-in sound chip - and it does also have analog outputs). I can plug it into my Sony receiver which finds and decodes the digital signal just fine. I've not tried to get surround sound going because I don't have any surround sources, unfortunately.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the shovelware manufacturers (Dell, HP) are going to have digital outputs any time soon - but the moral is "build it yourself" to get the good stuff.

Forgive me, I just started doing a little research when I read your story. Of course I started with 'open notebook' and related searches, but I didn't find anything. Anyone know of any industry group trying to create and open standard there?

Anyhow, I'm interested in your problem for selfish reasons, family and friends have been asking me about building/upgrading existing/fixing their notebooks for years. I've dodged them this whole time because I couldn't afford one myself, but this is finally starting to change.

So, anyhow, if I where going to buy a computer today I'd look seriously at building a 'barebones' notebooks. A few familiar companies seem to be building barebones notebooks, which is basically a motherboard and graphics card wrapped up with a keyboard, LCD screen and a case. ASUS, ECS, AOpen, Arima (??) and FIC seem to sell them. I couldn't guarantee it, but I bet you'd have much better luck getting a replacement part from someone like ECS or ASUS, plus you get to pick out or upgrade things like your CPU, hard/cd/dvd drive and memory.

Here are a couple of quick links to product pages for a few of the manufacturers:

Aopen
ECS
ASUS
Arima
FIC

Most of these links came from this site, which seems to specialize in mobile computing bare bone systems and hardware. Man, is it lunch time yet?

Asus' Digimatrix is pretty hot these days here in Belgium. A famous cash and carry sells it for 800 EUR furnished with a Celeron 2 Ghz, 256 MB ram and a Seagate 160 GB hard drive

- A.

It may seem a bit unusual to ask about fast AGP 2x cards, (especially since we're up to 8x now) but I have an older motherboard and that's the most it'll take :-/. It's an Asus K7M -- one of the first Slot A boards -- and it only supports the AGP 1.0 spec (AGP 1x/2x).

You'd think that AGP would be backwards compatible, but that's doesn't appear to be the case. Due to voltage changes as the spec evolved, my motherboard will only supply 3.3v (as opposed to 1.5v or even 0.8v of some of the other AGP versions). And, while there is a "Universal AGP 3.0" spec which supports all three voltages, I'm not sure which cards fit into that category or even if those cards may still be keyed in favor of more recent motherboards.

For what it's worth, the processor in there is an Athlon 700. And I only have a TNT2 in there now but I figure that if I can get a more recent card (relatively speaking), perhaps I can perhaps enjoy some Quake III on there from time to time :).

my P4B533 (always off, as it's an expensive space heater) has a feature called ASUS EZ Flash. it does exactly what you're looking for, it flashes the BIOS before any OS loads.

'course i've been too timid to try it out :P

my P4B533 (always off, as it's an expensive space heater) has a feature called ASUS EZ Flash. it does exactly what you're looking for, it flashes the BIOS before any OS loads.

'course i've been too timid to try it out :P

My Asus (A7V333) board has an BIOS update program built into the BIOS.

Press Alt-F2 during the POST and insert a floppy with the BIOS image file. Updated my BIOS a few weeks a go.

Asus has some documentation on their website

Don't know if will work without a normal floppy drive.

ATi has recently turned to this practice as well. You can get ATi-based cards ("Powered by ATi") from Asus, Tyan, and a variety of others.

What about the DigiMatrix from ASUS?

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4p800-d /overview.htm

This little beauty has an AMI BIOS. The machine I'm using right now has one, and it's a very, very nice motherboard.

I have an ICH5 motherboard (ASUS P4C800-E) & I am using a SATA drive (not using RAID however). I had some issues getting it to work properly until I compiled & used 2.4.22. Since then, everything has been working great. I haven't tried it on 2.6 yet -- was waiting for final release.

Google is your friend. ASUS has plans to release a video card based on the R360, the chip used on the Radeon 9800XT. Link.

You can also get a product listing straight from ASUS, here. This page lists Dual DVI as an option for the R360-based card, but if you look around you should be able to find info for other cards.

That's on the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe board (which I'm planning on picking up this weekend, actually) and possibly others, but not necessarily all nForce boards, even other ASUS boards.

In my case even if I don't get one with the dual ethernet, I've still got my PCI card that I can use to get the drivers, but is still not as good a solution as full open-source drivers in the distro.

That's on the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe board (which I'm planning on picking up this weekend, actually) and possibly others, but not necessarily all nForce boards, even other ASUS boards.

In my case even if I don't get one with the dual ethernet, I've still got my PCI card that I can use to get the drivers, but is still not as good a solution as full open-source drivers in the distro.

That's on the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe board (which I'm planning on picking up this weekend, actually) and possibly others, but not necessarily all nForce boards, even other ASUS boards.

In my case even if I don't get one with the dual ethernet, I've still got my PCI card that I can use to get the drivers, but is still not as good a solution as full open-source drivers in the distro.

That's on the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe board (which I'm planning on picking up this weekend, actually) and possibly others, but not necessarily all nForce boards, even other ASUS boards.

In my case even if I don't get one with the dual ethernet, I've still got my PCI card that I can use to get the drivers, but is still not as good a solution as full open-source drivers in the distro.

I remember around 1995 I went to a Melbourne Computer Expo. Every stall I went to had a pair of these JUSTer Active 75 80W speakers. They sounded awesome, and at just AU$80, I got myself a pair.

Nowdays, my system consists of:
Gentoo GNU/Linux 1.4
AMD Athlon XP 2100+
CoolerMaster Aero 7+ HSF
ASUS A7N8XDeluxe (nVidia nForce 2 based)
Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2x256MB & 1x512MB DDR-333 dual-channeled)
PowerColor Evil Master II Multi-Display Edition (ATi Radeon 8500)
Maxtor 60GB 2MB 7400RPM IDE
Seagate 120GB 8MB 7400RPM SATA (x2 in RAID)
Hitachi CML175SXW B 17" Multimedia TFT LCD
Pioneer 12X DVD
ASUS 52x24x52x
Enermax expensive as all hell PSU
Enermax FS-710 Aluminum case
Netgear WG311 802.11g network card
Logitech Cordless iTouch keyboard
Logitech TrackMan Marble Wheel
JUSTer Active 75 80W

As you can see, my speakers and mouse are the odd ones out - both aren't made anymore but I'll never give them up (unless I get a bigger apartment which allows for a 5.1 speaker setup).

I remember around 1995 I went to a Melbourne Computer Expo. Every stall I went to had a pair of these JUSTer Active 75 80W speakers. They sounded awesome, and at just AU$80, I got myself a pair.

Nowdays, my system consists of:
Gentoo GNU/Linux 1.4
AMD Athlon XP 2100+
CoolerMaster Aero 7+ HSF
ASUS A7N8XDeluxe (nVidia nForce 2 based)
Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2x256MB & 1x512MB DDR-333 dual-channeled)
PowerColor Evil Master II Multi-Display Edition (ATi Radeon 8500)
Maxtor 60GB 2MB 7400RPM IDE
Seagate 120GB 8MB 7400RPM SATA (x2 in RAID)
Hitachi CML175SXW B 17" Multimedia TFT LCD
Pioneer 12X DVD
ASUS 52x24x52x
Enermax expensive as all hell PSU
Enermax FS-710 Aluminum case
Netgear WG311 802.11g network card
Logitech Cordless iTouch keyboard
Logitech TrackMan Marble Wheel
JUSTer Active 75 80W

As you can see, my speakers and mouse are the odd ones out - both aren't made anymore but I'll never give them up (unless I get a bigger apartment which allows for a 5.1 speaker setup).

Asus Instant Music

I assume you meant DVI when you said DGI.

With that assumption in mind, I have an Asus V9560 Video Suite. It uses an nVidia GFX 5600, and has dual DVI out (and comes with two DVI->VGA adapters) as well as NTSC in and out.

If you want to use XFree86 with it, you will need to install the driver from the nVidia website (the driver that comes with X doesn't work). Also, I haven't yet tried two monitors under X yet.

If you get one of these, make sure you DON'T get the V9560 TD. It only has one DVI (the other is VGA) and lacks TV in.

Here is the motherboard that HotHarware used. Note that it has 4 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8GB RAM. It's only a matter of time before RAM manufacturers (perhaps with DDR2) allow for more than 2GB per stick. Before there wasn't much point when no system could handle more than 4GB, but now....the sky's the limit (where sky := 1 TB)

behold the NForce 3 pro. It was the first(?) chipset supporting the Opteron, has many of the features you mention. As for having support for legacy, etc; that's the choice of the motherboard manufacturers. As an example, the Asus A7N8X only has 3 dimm slots, whereas the Gigabyte GA-7N400-l1 has 4.

BTW, for if you really want a legacy free mb, you'll want to check out abit's offering, the AT7. It may not be the latest greatest, and it may not fit your vision of 'legacy-free', nor is it the ideal board you describe.However, its as close as we'll get for now.

A question for you. With all of those onboard components, why do you need 6 pci's(also getting to be legacy at this point)?

-D

I have booted off my USB2.0/Firewire Asus (SCB-1608-D) DVD-ROM/CDr/CD-RW drive though. It's a very nice drive and I recommend it highly and often. The Asus drive I've even gotten to mount under PS2 Linux and it comes with a handy little carry bag.

I suspect you're either a troll or Just Plain Dumb. I'll assume the latter and get all didactic on your ass.

Google is a research tool: it isn't google's fault that it can't read your mind, you need to learn how to use the tool appropriately. So if you Just search on "Asus A7N8X-X" you might get mostly shopping links (although as a previous poster pointed out, you get this potentially helpful link from Asus as number two on your list), however if you search on "Asus A7N8X-X specs", "Asus A7N8X-X review", or similar, you might get information closer to what you are looking for.

Asus has this offering which is intriguing although it is a 13.3". What makes it so intriguing is that it is dirt cheap in comparison the Dell/IBM/Mac/Sony...It's priced at $699 and has nice specs:
-4.8 hours
-1.9 Kg in weight, 22mm in thickness (if i were smart i would translate that to inches/lbs for your lazy ass)
-4X USB2.0
-Centrino
-It's not ugly like most HP's/Toshibas
If anyone has experience with this laptop, do tell. Sounds too good to be true.

Not necessarily the most well known brand, but definitely high quality and an excellent price/performance ratio. Have been using one for about a month now and really have no complaints.

Besides, Where else can you get a brand new centrino for a base price of 1300usd? And did I mention that it does 1400x1050..

Try their website here. I think that at least www.rjtech.com sells them in usa and you can configure it to be pretty much what you want.

It may be a little larger, but the Pundit case from ASUS is a heck of a lot more stylish and is still smaller than most of the other small form factor cases.

... doesn't inspire confidence in me with their past track record of problems. Given my past experience with the Asus AV7266, I steer clear of all products using their chips.

wow you should have bought an asus the first time. my a7v333 is inexpensive and has everything i want. i am just waiting for the 2600 chip to drop to around $100 to upgrade from my 1700

An excellent point, but if I may correct, you must mean the A7N8X range, the A7V8X is based on the Via KT-400 chipset.

The featureset is rather sweet I have to agree :)

The A7N8X is a motherboard made by ASUS. You can find more help at nForceHQ

The A7N8X is a motherboard made by ASUS. You can find more help at nForceHQ

ASUS would definitely be more like it. At least they make quality products. Best motherboard you can buy. That's probably a nice laptop that probably also would be a decent Linux laptop. They have a few new ones on their site: http://usa.asus.com/. However, I'd wait until their Centrino/Banias model comes out...Centrino is going to kick ass nine ways to Sunday. All the advantages of both the PIII and the P4 wrapped up in one chip. Smokes the P4 clock rate for clock rate.

Actually it's been possible for some time to get an Asus notebook similar to this, with just the case, motherboard, and LCD on it. I'm not sure Asus really wants you to be able to get them this way and they come in a "white box".

One of the guys at work got one of these, went to Intel's channel partner site, got a PIII mobile CPU for next to nothing, snagged a decent 2.5" HD from one of our retailers, and threw in some SODIMMs that we had in stock and he got a really nice notebook for hardly anything (this was a year or two ago).

He was even able to call up Asus and tell them the stickers wore off his notebook, and they sent him out some new ones for free, so you can't even tell it's not the real deal.

On the other side of things, I do believe from opening up quite a few notebooks for repairs that the vast majority of notebook components are somewhat standardized. The batteries tend to be the most varried components inside the notebooks. Consider that there are only a very few manufacturers of notebook computers that are outsourced by the major computer vendors, and that makes for some pretty standard stuff. It's even possible to get the "white box" version of most of Dell's notebooks direct from the company that manufactures them for Dell, last I checked anyways.