I found a motherboard on Tigerdirect.com that I like very much. Enough headers on the motherboard (I think), lots of room for memory expansion. I said "wow," then wondered, "If this motherboard is so great, why does it cost only $100?" Does it have an obvious weakness?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...477&CatId=2320

1. Check out the chipsets carefully.
2. Check out the 'socket type' carefully - make sure it's a common socket for a contemporary CPU - you don't want an antiquated or hard-to-find socket. (like my AMD socket-900)
3. Use 'google' to search for Linux user's experience with that particular brand/model

It is not unusual for a decent MoBo to be cheap (unless you're going for something extraordinary) - the CPU and memory and other bits will quickly bite a hole in your pocket.

Some info here. Heh, I didn't realise that board had two IDE connectors.

Gigabyte is offering some high quality budget boards. If you are interested in a Intel dual or quad core this board is hard to beat at the price. Solid capacitors eliminate the leaking capacitor problems many boards develope. This board is highly overclockable if you are into that. Good reviews.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813128059R

At a glance, I would say it's a pretty decent board. It is comparable to my own MSI P6N-SLI in that it is nVidia based and the onboard hardware & ports are fairly similar (firewire, SATA, IDEs, RAM capacity, etc..)

That one has an nVidia 560 chipset vs my 650, but I haven't any idea what the significant difference(s) are. Also, yours is for AMD while mine is for Intel.

The C-Media Audio chipset should work fine under Linux, as my old board had that and ALSA ran it natively (drivers in-kernel). Audio quality was good.

You might want to find out exactly what it uses for a LAN chip; that can be a pesky issue at times, particularly with Broadcom devices. If it's a Realtek, have no fear, it should work fine.

All in all, as per my review of my own board in the HCL, the nVidia chipset(s) works flawlessly under Linux.

If you go for it, do some Googling about hidden BIOS options, especially if you experience random lockups under Linux. Not sure what Asus uses for BIOS (I think 'Award') but there may be hidden 'advanced halt state' option(s) that you can disable if they give you trouble. My AMI BIOS has a hidden option accessible from the CELL Menu page by using a Function key.
Also, that board may have some fancy stuff like dynamic overclocking, which in my case (MSI's "DOT-Cell" = Dynamic Overclocking Technology) is not super-reliable with Linux; the board itself is super-tunable and overclockable, but I do it manually rather than with the intelligent/automatic method.

Best of success' whatever you choose! And always shop around exhaustively before purchasing-- You may find a better board or a better deal elsewhere, and Newegg is among the best places to see user reviews.

Cheers!

Sasha

Well, I must have two IDE connectors, because I have a pre-SATA (PATA?) CD drive and DVD drive, and two PATA hard drives that I refuse to abandon because they're in good shape (the larger one being less than a year old). I will not be forced to unnecessarily buy new equipment.

Yes, I know what you mean, as I have the same issues. When I looked around at boards before, I found it quite difficult to find ones that had two IDE connectors!

Ditto here.. Refused to toss two perfectly good IDE optical drives for the sake of a new board, and was happy to find the board I have now, on sale online at pcvillage. I now have 2 IDE plugs plus 4 SATA ports.

Soon enough though, we will be limited to one, and eventually probably NONE, IDE/PATA plugs :/

Which board did you get, out of interest?

MSI P6N-SLI-FI

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...LI-FI&class=mb

SVA

The only weakness I see with that board is that it is an Asus hardware. All, absolutely all hardware I ever used from Asus was difficult to find replacement. For example, once I needed to replace the processor's fan in one of my machines. I simply could not find a fan that would fit for that specific board, so I had to replace the whole board.

A few months later, my old graphics card (Asus ATI X800 at the time) also needed a new fan. Guess what? No fan would fit on it, because Asus decided to make the connectors different than any other vendor.

I didn't need to replace that card though. I've manage to cut and sold the connectors with another card's fan.

I had other Asus issues too, but can't remember which right now.

So, there you go. Asus is on my blacklist of "Never buying again". Lexmark and ATI cards too. ATI actually makes good hardware. What kills it is the horrible drivers for both Linux and Windows and unnecessary crap like CCC.

My two cents

Thank you very much, Mega Man X. I will therefore keep looking, and try to avoid Asus. In this thread http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-sizes-645754/ , Salasi recommended that I avoid PC Chips, so I guess I will scratch off both of those.

I almost forgot to mention why I'm trying to get an AMD. There is a practical and an irrational personal reason. I've repeatedly heard that AMD is cheaper without being inferior. As for the irrational personal reason: Like Microsloth, Intel dominates the computer industry, and I have the impression it is Microsloth's ally; so I disdain it, and would rather not buy its products.

I could live with that, as long as I could buy and use the PATA-to-SATA adapter that someone told me about in another thread.

Your practical reasoning is certainly valid -- one should save money where possible, without sacrificing quality.

I also like your (ir)rational reason, as I think similarly. In this case though (purely my opinion, from experience) while I too dislike that corporate dominance thing, some companies dominate because they make good products; MSloth is not one of these companies, IMHO; they are merely a VERY crafty marketing firm that successfully markets shoddy software, and a crap-load of it.
I 'feel' that Intel makes a superior product when it comes to processors, and I prefer to believe they aren't in bed with M$, but I'm not naive either (maybe they are in bed, who knows..) but it's the right choice for me. I'll pay the extra cost, and feel tingly knowing I have what I want 'under the hood'. Whether one is actually "better" in some way, I have no idea-- I just know what's better for me.

You go with what's good for YOU

PS - as an aside, it *seemed* when I was shopping for a motherboard, the chipset combinations that I liked happened to be Intel-CPU'd boards, and those I didn't like were more often AMD-CPU'd boards. A specific chipset maker that comes to mind is VIA: I really dislike Via stuff for one reason or another, and it seemed that VIA chipsets went hand in hand with AMD... Maybe I was seeing things through biased eyes too..

Anyhow-- again it's a matter of opinion/personal preference for the most part.

Cheers and I hope you get a board you like, and that it works great for you!

Sasha