LinuxHardware.org Has Linux DDR Shootout

Goatbert writes: "More Athlon news, seems to be a lot of that going around. This time, LinuxHardware.org has a DDR Athlon motherboard comparison to find out which of the three featured chipsets performs the best with Linux."

Comments

Sometimes it's the settings

[sjbe]

I used to have problems with my most recent MoBo until I managed to get my BIOS settings right. My machine is an ASUS board with a 1Ghz Athlon Thunderbird PC133 RAM and an nVidia GeForce 2 GTS and an Adaptec SCSI controller. (I built it up myself because vendors won't assemble the machine I want without charging me up the wazoo for it)

Anyway I had a lot of flakeyness when I first got it. Turns out a lot of the problems were with getting the BIOS settings right. I had to slow the AGP port down to 2X, disable the onboard IDE controller (not in use), disable some of the power conservation features, and tweaked a half dozen other settings. Now the system is solid as a rock, even when I boot into Windows. (Win2000Pro, not ME/98) Haven't crashed anything in probably 6 months.

I've been building my own machines for about 10 years now. It's always the same, getting the right combination of BIOS settings, system settings, and stable software is an iterative process that just takes time. My machines are usually unstable for the first 2-4 months after I get them until I can stomp out all the bugs. Once in a while you run into a real dud piece of hardware and have to bite the bullet on it, but usually some persistance pays off. It does take time though.

I do take certain precautions now though to ensure a stable and easy to maintain system, not all of which are cheap but all help a lot. Some of these include

• I always use SCSI. Yeah IDE is cheaper and it works just fine, but if you can afford it, SCSI is better in pretty much every aspect except price. Easier to set up, easier to expand, the drivers are usually better, it's faster (at the high end anyway), etc. If price isn't a huge issue, get SCSI.
  
• I purchase a UPS. (I like APC personally.) They are cheap insurance. They will protect your machine from brief power dips which are often more damaging than spikes, they carry an insurance policy on them if you equipment is damaged, and they unless you want auto shutdowns, they don't have any compatibility issues.
  
• I get a good power supply. PC Power and Cooling is my brand of choice. This is slightly paranoid but I've had two machine have power supplies go south on them. When the power supply goes, it usually fries things. So I get one that is very unlikely to go.
  
• Don't get no name components if you can avoid it, and preferably get something you've worked with before. I use Adaptec controllers because I worked with them for many years, they work and I know what to expect. Not to say others don't work great but I know what I'm getting and that makes the inevitable debugging easier. It's also more likely that drivers will be available if more than 3 people have that piece of equipment.
  
• I avoid equipment with unusual interfaces. If you have SCSI, get as much SCSI equipment as is practical. Don't mix and match interfaces if you can avoid it.
  
• I generally avoid integrated controllers or disable them if I get one. Onboard SCSI and ATAPI can work fine but are usually harder to work with and troubleshoot. Driver availability tends to be not as good as a rule though this is not always true.
  
• I don't overclock. Not that there is anything wrong with doing it, but don't expect a stable system if you overclock. You might get it but chances are fairly high you won't too.
  

There are a lot more to it obviously but these rules of thumb have helped me a lot. None are hard and fast rules obviously but they have minimized problems for me. It takes time and a systematic approach to get a stable system, particularly if you build it yourself.