HARDWARE compatability

[Jean-Paul Natola]

Hash: SHA256

Jean-Paul Natola wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm looking to retire my PIII freebsd box for something a little more of
age-
> being that I'm at a non-profit I do not have the largest of budgets-
> 
> On that note I have never used and AMD before for a server so I was looking
> at this box
>
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=17
> 40107&CatId=1206
> 
> it seems pretty good in terms of hardware-cpu speed/ram/raid etc..
> 
> and for approx 600 bucks I cant really complain- I'm womdnering if there if
> there are any compatibility issues I need to watch out for , here are the
> specs;
> 
>       Form Factor    2U Rackmounted 
>       Processor Class    Athlon64 
>       Processor Number    3500+ 
>       Processor Speed    2.20GHz 
>       Processor Interface    Socket AM2 
>       Processors Supported    1 
>       Additional Technologies    HyperTransport 
>       Memory Type    DDR2 
>       Total Memory    1 GB 
>       Memory Speed    DDR2 667 (PC2-5400) 
>       Compatible RAID Levels    0+1 0,1,5
>       Number Of Hard Drives    2 
>       Hard Drive Size    160 GB 
>       Hard Drive Interface    SATA-II 
>       Spindle Speed (RPM)    7200 
>       Buffer Memory    8 MB 
>       Optical Drive Type    52x CD-ROM 
>       Communications Description    Integrated LAN 
>       Data Transfer Rate    10 Mbps	100 Mbps 1000 Mbps

Hmmm... unfortunately that site doesn't tell you exactly what you
need to know.  For this class of machine, there are really two
fundamental parts of the system where you may run into trouble: the
on-board network interfaces and the SATA controller.   Server class
machines like this tend to have lowest common denominator graphics
which will just work in VESA mode, and who cares about sound if the
box is in a machine room...

In order to have a chance of predicting whether the system will support
FreeBSD you're going to need to know the Motherboard manufacturer and
model number -- or equivalently the chipsets used on the board.  Then
it's a case of hunting through documentation and mailing list archives
to see what other people's experience has been.  There's also this page
on the FreeBSD site:


Gigabyte GA-M61PM-S2 
MotherboardNVIDIA(r) GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 
Super I/O chip: ITE IT8716 
Integrated Peripherals 
T.I. IEEE1394 controller 
Realtek RTL8211 Gigabit Ethernet controller 
Realtek ALC883 Audio Codec
AMD Athlon(tm)64/ Sempron(tm) Socket AM2 platform 
Supports high performance Dual-Channel DDR2 800 memory 
Integrated NVIDIA(r) CineFX 3.0 Graphics Engine 
Features NVIDIA(r) SATA 3Gb/s with RAID function 
Optimized Gigabit LAN and IEEE1394 connection 
Enhances security with NVIDIA(r) TCP/IP Acceleration technology 
Features 8 channel High Definition Audio 
RoHS compliant motherboard for green computing