Building a PC Isn't Hard

[kwall at kurtwerks.com]

On Mon, Feb 04, 2008 at 10:54:27AM +0800, Chong Yu Meng wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-02-03 at 18:18 -0800, kwall at kurtwerks.com wrote:
> > ...or expensive.
> > Next time I need a new computer, I'll build it.
> 
> I've had the opposite experience recently, when I decided to try a
> Gigabyte motherboard, instead of the usual MSI motherboards that I
> almost always buy. This particular motherboard has just two problems:
> the built-in network interface causes IOMMU errors on Linux, and the
> built-in ATI Radeon causes reboots in Windows. After quite a lot of hair
> pulling and more than a week troubleshooting in between my projects, I
> finally got the network interface (RealTek 8110SC/8169SC -- don't buy
> any motherboard that uses this!) to play nice. But the reboots in
> Windows still continue, despite updating/downgrading the ATI drivers.
> Thankfully, no such problems for Linux. 

I've got a similar GigE NIC:

Driver: r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.2LK loaded
NIC: RTL8168b/8111b

Perversely, it loads at eth0, but gets configured at eth2. No, there
are no other NICs in the machine. Not sure if it's a driver problem
or a configuration problem in the OS.

> The problem in my part of the world is that there is no return policy,
> so if you get a motherboard that doesn't quite work like you want it to,
> or a casing that is the wrong size, you can't just return it and get
> another one. 

Sucks.

> I'm sticking with Nvidia and MSI or Asus from now on...

Heard that. Of course, I work for NVIDIA.

Kurt
-- 
Remember:  Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
		-- Dave Butler