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Does anyone think for a minute they will update the BIOS on a board when they can sell you a new one?

Yes, for example...

After spending about a week searching for a decent netbook I came across this little beasty:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Notebook/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=3191

10.1" screen and a decent amount of grunt behind it. The reviews I've read on it so far seem to be positive and I've ordered one for myself since the only other option was the T91, which you mentioned. The difference in features between the two was more than enough to justify the higher price on the T1028X, although the clincher for me was the screen.

Since I got mine for under AU$900 it would seem to fit the bill quite nicely for you :)

you can buy motherboards with 10 SATA ports nowadays. GigaByte sells this model with 10 SATA. That mobo combined with one of those gamers 800+ PSU (the ones used for quad SLI) will easily handle 10 SATA drive for cheap.

I think by then i-RAM will have more capacity.

Don't suppose I can interest you in some S3 Virge and Matrox PCI cards?

Heh, you might be saying that as a joke, but the old PCI-based video cards do have a very real use these days: if one's building a GNU/Linux or BSD server box and uses a motherboard with no built-in GPU (for example, this one, based on the AMD 790FX chipset), any old PCI video card with as little as 1 MB of memory will fit the bill perfectly. There is no point in buying a new PCI-Express GPU if all it will ever do, is sit around in text mode, 100% of the time. An old PCI card will be several times cheaper, will never get hot, and of course will consume less electricity too.

The motherboard is probably very similar to this one: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/Image/server_productimage_ga-9ivdt_big.gif The SATA connectors are in the bottom right of the gigabyte photo and the upper left of the google photo, under the left disk. The SATA cable from the right disk heads straight for the motherboard connector. The SATA cable from the left disk makes a U-turn before going to the motherboard connector.

It hosts 2GB of swap space, TMP and TEMP.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2678&ProductName=i-RAM%20BOX

Just get an I-Ram and there you go. True, you'll only have a 4GB partition for your boot drive, but it's the real deal if you have to boot in 4 seconds. Yes, it's closer to 10-12 given the typical POST process, but since that varies from board to board, it is about 4 seconds total from the time Windows itself starts until it gets to the desktop.

When the 2.0 version someday comes out, it'll do 16GB, DDR2, and Sata 3.0. And I'll certainly buy one at that time.

My Gigabyte board supports up to 16 gigs. It's pretty old and I paid barely $100 for it a year ago. 12 gigs isn't much these days...

So the general complaint with people who do not like swap files is that they are slow. Instead of eliminating the need for a swap, why not just bring your swap up to speed with a ramdisk?

There are two out that I know of. One by Aspacia, and one by Gigabyte. Both of which require external power sources, but connect directly via SATA, or through the PCI bus! You end up with a 'disk' the size of the modules you placed on the ramdisk card, and viola! Stick your swap file or partition on that disk and you now have a swap operating at the saturation point of whatever bus it is connected to.

Aspacia Rocketdrive: http://www.aspacia.com/Products/Hardware/SSD/rocketdrive.htm
Gigabyte iRAM: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2180

Headache solved.

"What I would really like is if someone would make up an IDE interface to RAM modules and build a large amount of such RAM into the form factor of a hard disk drive."

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2180

Yeah that would be a great idea.

And yes, those bad boys do raid together and they max out SATA transfer rates.

I have 64 GB of RAM and my swap partition is the same size at 64 GB. I thought 128 GB is a little excessive. What I would really like is if someone would make up an IDE interface to RAM modules and build a large amount of such RAM into the form factor of a hard disk drive. Then, you could populate this RAM-based "hard drive" with the necessary data during startup, and use it for swap and for all of your system's various "temp" folders. This would make swapping (and temp stuff) extremely fast to access, and more importantly, it would eliminate the need to encrypt your swap and/or temp partitions, as the data would simply disappear when power is removed. So when the agents (including Agent Smith) come to bust down your door, all you do is pull the plug and voila! Your secrets are safe. :-)

Or you could simply add more RAM to the system, use no swap and put the temporary folders in RAM(using tmpfs). Such a product exists, by the way.

Am I a Gigabyte fanboi? You bet I am. Good riddance to Abit and their leaky caps.

I rather have more driver hardware support from vendors in Linux first. Apps will follow soon after.

I rather have more driver hardware support from vendors in Linux first. Apps will follow soon after.

Do you write to them and tell them that? Here are some addresses, write to one or two:

Creative (Webcams) http://asia.creative.com/contactus/presales/

Logitech (Webcams) http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_amr.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Lexmark (Printers) http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/sequentialem/home/0,6959,204816596_689444666_0_en,00.html

Nokia (PIM sync software with OpenSync) http://www.nokia.com/A4126575

Epson (Printers) http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/AboutContactUs.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

Gigabyte (New motherboards should ship with Linux drivers) http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Company/ContactUs.aspx?CompanyWebPageID=6

Linksys (Networking equipment) http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Content_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1114037291276&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

SIS http://www.sis.com/support/support_tech.htm

ASUS http://usa.asus.com/aboutasus.aspx?show=3

Write to the hardware vendors and let them know that we want to buy and use their products on Linux. Here are the addresses of some other hardware vendors. Copy the list and write to one every week:

Creative (Webcams) http://asia.creative.com/contactus/presales/

Logitech (Webcams) http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_amr.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

Nokia (PIM sync software with OpenSync) http://www.nokia.com/A4126575

Epson (Printers) http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/AboutContactUs.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

Gigabyte (New motherboards should ship with Linux drivers) http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Company/ContactUs.aspx?CompanyWebPageID=6

Linksys (Networking equipment) http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Content_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1114037291276&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

I was just looking at Gigabyte consumer motherboards for Intel, and they seem to mostly max out at 8GB memory. e.g. http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=2736

Why wait? The Gigabyte 3D1 has been available for years. I'm still using mine.

Er, that's exactly why I stick with Intel CPUs on quality motherboards (Gigabyte/ASUS) that use Intel chipsets and Crucial memory, despite the taunting of my AMD fanboy friends. Also, pay attention to your cooling and PSU (i.e. fit as many fans as you physically can fit in the case, and don't use the cheapest case/PSU combination you can find), as cutting corners here will severely impact your reliability. I'm not interested in overclocking, either. My oldest self-built Intel machine is 9 years old this summer and being used as a desktop by my dad. I also have a 5 year old Celeron machine that's on 24/7 as my MythTV box and firewall.

I know it's possible to build reliable AMD-based systems, but it seems to be harder work, and probably involves going with an Opteron on a Tyan or Supermicro board in order to be able to use an AMD chipset, rather than one of the third-party (e.g. VIA, SiS, ALI) chipsets.

Electrolytic capacitor reliability has been a problem throughout the electronics industry for the last 10 years or so, but even that should be less of a problem shortly. Gigabyte, for one, are introducing all-solid capacitor boards to eliminate this weak link in the chain.

Well, what I mean is, a QWERTY KEYboard, and not a THUMBboard.

Gigabyte's news release:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/News/Notebook/News_List .aspx?NewsID=1323

Unfortunately, looks like no built-in cell connectivity, though it does have Bluetooth ...

Also unfortunately: $920 USD.

Gigabyte iRAM
It's technically a ramdisk because it's storing data in RAM sticks, yet the RAM is seen by the system as a SATA drive.

There is one possibility, but its not cheap, and tops out at 4GB (you have to slot in DDR DIMM Modules)
If you really wanted to and could afford it, you could pick up a few and RAID them.

Gigabyte's I-Ram

I am sure there are others, but this would be the coolest.

They all run at similar temperatures.

The Cenatek RocketDrive you link to is a very dated product...it's not even bootable. Here is a more practical option:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Produc ts_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2180

It's $115 at Newegg and holds up to 4 x 1G of 184 pin DDR.

4 gigs isn't much, but for certain situations, like holding a small database with heavy use, they work great. For random I/O, they are obscenely fast for the price...about twice the speed of two striped Raptors with a good controller.

Yeah, you know, because that's *the* biggest complaint you see on enthusiast/overclocker message boards.

I guess the common complaint about this article is that... I've already got a Gigabyte motherboard with solid state capacitors!

Link, note point 7.

What would happen if you took NVIDIA's multi-GPU teaming capability, SLI, and stuck it onto a single graphics card?

What would happen if you took NVIDIA's multi-GPU teaming capability, SLI, and stuck it onto a single graphics card?

What would happen if you took NVIDIA's multi-GPU teaming capability, SLI, and stuck it onto a single graphics card?

So here is a link to their Other Peripherals page, where they list all three (!) versions of the board. But you still can't order directly from them anyhow.

Old news

I think we're assuming that it is inferior because it is made in Taiwan

Yes, because no good technology is produced in Taiwan. Next time you go to a computer store, look at the motherboards section...

Nowadays most motherboard companies have alternative homepages, but I remember 5-6 years ago if you needed bios updates or driver patches, the pages were always at www.motherboardbrand.com.tw

It still seems to be the case:
http://www.abit.com.tw
http://www.asus.com.tw
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw
http://www.msi.com.tw
http://www.epox.com.tw
http://www.tyan.com.tw

I really reject the idea of mac elitism and it being the pioneer of technology like this.
we've been seeing small form factor computers for very long:
gigabyte.com.tw
these things have been around LONG before the mini.

so the question isn't who's going to jump on board following Apple's pioneering into the field. It's who's going to jump on board following Apple's successful marketing campaign.

but again, i dislike the notion that comes along with apple products/advertisements that gives the feeling of "ohh... latest in technology!... this is the new best thing!!..."

because its old stuff. just promoted better.

Not true. You might think that 40 years is the standard, but I just killed my workstation by running prime95 on it as a background job. My guess is that it was a fluke, but the manufacturer testing of components doesn't necessarily mena that the OEM or vendor will design thier systems within the same margins as the chipmakers do. Incidentally, the CPU survived the meltdown, but the Motherborad was what died. The CPU is a genuine AMD, the mobo was a gigabyte. The computer never overheated, but nonetheless it still ceased to function. Moral of the story: If you're going to use a pc don't buy bob's garage-a-tronic components if you want them to last. There's no reason to skip on important systems, the long term cost will bite you in the ass. -James (Anonymous because I can't find my logon)

ASUS A7M266-D
Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW and GA-7DPXDW-C
MSI K7D Master

The problem with these boards is that they aren't really any cheaper than the Tyan boards (last I checked.) I think the reasons for the high cost are the AMD 760MP/760MPX chipset and the fact that AMD processors suck a lot more juice than the P3s and Celerons that worked on the cheapie Intel dual boards.

Ian

ASUS A7M266-D
Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW and GA-7DPXDW-C
MSI K7D Master

The problem with these boards is that they aren't really any cheaper than the Tyan boards (last I checked.) I think the reasons for the high cost are the AMD 760MP/760MPX chipset and the fact that AMD processors suck a lot more juice than the P3s and Celerons that worked on the cheapie Intel dual boards.

Ian

If you're looking for a very small motherboard, try looking at flex ATX motherboards. They are alot smaller. Also here and here.

To quote Tom's hardware on the koolance:

"As far as the noise level is concerned, the new Koolance system is not quite as inconspicuous as the old one. At medium heat levels in the processor core, the three fans can produce quite a racket."

Also, It's a mid tower not a micro atx as pictured here (This is the propper link)

In my experience, the performance on the VIA is a bit less than the BX, but similar to the 815. The Serverworks chipsets are good, but pricey (with high memory bandwidth), and I've had problems with the onboard USB on the Serverworks LE under Linux in the past. I've got one of these Gigabyte boards on order at the mo' for work. 66MHz/64bit PCI, for the SysKonnect Gigabit NIC, and 3ware 7810 8way IDE RAID card. Mmmmm, new toy ;-)...

You could built a 'similar' system from standard off the shelf PC parts which would be cheaper and faster, grab a MicroATX case for $25, uATX m'board for $110, a Celeron $60 (?), Hard Drive (~$100), and some RAM which is ridiculously cheap right now $30 (one benefit on an economy balancing on the edge). It adds up to about $300 if you need to buy everything, but any self-respecting techie has a box they can salvage components from.

The board has audio, video, Ethernet integrated, granted integrated components are often lacking, but this wont affect anything if you use it as a small server or NAT/Firewall box.

This is obviously different to the actual Cube, that being a true embedded system.

There's smaller FlexATX and NLX kit about too. The parts and thermal solutions are scarce though.

My PC already has instant on (or "OnNow"), all ATX power supplies produce an ancillary current even when the PC is off (soft-off). I have a Gigabyte motherboard, they use this current to keep the DIMM banks powered when the box is off, and therefore the data is retained (this is different from 'standby' btw, the machine is 'off'). When I power back on, it takes about 2-3 seconds then I'm right back into the OS. (This is all in the ACPI spec)

Instant on PC's is not the purpose of MRAM, basically because it's too costly to use as system memory and unnecessary especially when ATX can just keep cheap SDRAM powered. It's great for handheld computers though and devices that have low power constraints and need fast data access, writing to flash memory is relatively low (compared to SDRAM) and it requires a decent amount of power, it's also expensive to produce, MRAM hopes to solve these problems.

Gigabyte have a mobo here that has onboard sound, vdo & nic and you can get nlx cases from ic-direct.com, here's one.