Re: Question: Status of VIA chipsets and 2.2 kernels

[Robert Cohen <robert@coorong.anu.edu.au>]

Gerhard Mack wrote:
> 
> Ugh why VIA? They have been a constant source of trouble for me on both
> linux and windows.  I have my doubts about their ability to get a chipset
> right in the first place.
> 
> Some other possible Athlon boards:
>   Asus A7M266 (AMD chipset)
>   Asus A7A266 (ALI chipset)
> 
> On Wed, 9 May 2001, Robert Cohen wrote:
> 
> > What with all the various problem reports flying around for via
> > chipsets, Ive lost track of the state of play as regards via
> > northbridges and south bridges.
> > I am thinking of buying a machine with a via chipset and I wan't to know
> 

I'm wary of using an Ali chipset. They are even less common than the VIA
so just havent had the
exposure to root out problems.

Also the main feature I'm looking for is a machine with 768 Meg or 1G
ram at a reasonable price.
Hence I want to use 256 Meg dimms. I can't use an i815 chipset as this
tops out at 512 Meg.
The apollo pro board is one of the few that has 4 dimm slots allowing 1
Gig of memory.
The athlons boards only have 3 dimm slots so top out at 768 Meg.

I'm wary of using DDR dram. The chipsets havent been round long enough
to have much of a track record.
And the ram is too expensive. Also the A7M266 is using a VIA 686b
southbridge anyway which I thought was the source of the problems.
Anyway these boards only tend to have 2 DDR dimm slots and the biggest
DDR dimm that crucial sells is 256 Meg. So I would be limited to 512
Meg.

Maybe I have to bite the bullet and go with 512 Meg dimms. They only
appear to be available in
registered with ECC which makes them cost about twice as much per meg
and which I wasnt sure that all boards support.
What motherboards/chipsets to people recommend for machines with 1Gig+
ram.

--
Robert Cohen
Unix Support
TLTSU
Australian National University
Ph: 612 58389