misc/94945: Success report: FreeBSD 5.4 runs fine on AMD64, Asus K8S-LA motherboard

[Mike M]

>Number:         94945
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       Success report: FreeBSD 5.4 runs fine on AMD64, Asus K8S-LA motherboard
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          update
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Sun Mar 26 05:20:12 GMT 2006
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Mike M
>Release:        5.4-stable
>Organization:
>Environment:
>Description:
I was just trolling your AMD64 page, noticed you didn't have this one.

Motherboard: Asus K8S-LA (Salmon), chipsets Sis964/Sis760.  Everything on the motherboard works fine (IDE, SATA, ethernet, sound, etc - haven't checked firewire, though it's detected), EXCEPT that the on-board graphics is very twitchy: I had to detune it (and turn off all acceleration in X windows) in order to have a stable machine - once you do this, Xorg starts using a brutal percentage of the CPU (when simply dragging around windows).  Eventually, I solved this by installing a $20 video card.  System has been stable - albiet lightly loaded - since then (2 months).

BTW: Lots of these machines are available as refurbs from HP/Compaq (eg: Pavillion a1007w-b), because it's essentially impossible to get fast & stable graphics out of the onboard video (because the memory controller is on the AMD64, and the onboard video has no dedicated memory) - so people return them when they find they won't play the games they expected.  I can't say I'd recommend them, though - there appear to have been quality control problems with the motherboards (occasional hard-to-track-down random bit errors between CPU and north bridge on the first one I got), non-adjustable BIOS, etc.

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