[mythtv-users] OT: nForce2 -- the real scoop

David Zanetti dave2 at wetstring.net
Tue Dec 23 19:58:21 EST 2003


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On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:

> Okay, so it seems that half the folks on this list have had no problems 
> with nForce2, and half have had a bear of a time getting things up & 
> running.  I'm in the market for a new mobo, and I'd really like 
> integrated GF4MX, so what's the bottom line?  Should I or shouldn't I?  

I can only relay my experiences with the board in the Shuttle SN41G2, but:

- - APIC and Local APIC enabled will result in massive filesystem
corruption. It's not good enough to pass "noapic" to the kernel, you have
to compile it all out on 2.4.x. (Other people I know also had to disable
APIC to get stablity as well, but seems to be a per-board issue..)

- - Can't convince the Line-In/Surround-Out jack on the back panel to be
anything other than Surround-Out. Could be the way Shuttle wired the chip
up, as using ALSA didn't help (even with tweaking the control labeled as
switching it). 

- - Onboard NVIDIA NIC is binary-only drivers, with a thin wrapper, and
module only. PITA. It works, sure, but you're stuck with modules and
therefore initrd hacks if you want to go diskless. I guess it's not too
much of an issue unless you want a really quiet machine. It's just a pain
to recompile them for major kernel recompiliations..

- - Onboard GF4MX just won't overscan, regardless of driver version
used. Unsure what's wrong with it, but dropping in a seperate GF3 Ti 200
immediately overscanned without problem on the same drivers. I know people
report it overscans, but I could never get it honor that.

> Is there a 'best distro' for getting nForce2 playing nice?

I can't comment on best distro, I was using Debian Testing. 

> I'm tempted to chalk the bad nForce2 reports up to varying degrees of
> Linux experience, but I just want to make sure I won't be buying
> hardware that will give me nothing but headaches.

I think that's an assumption which probably isn't always true, tho it may
be true for many people tacking MythTV as their first Linux box..

Certainly I've had 8+ years of Linux under my belt (professionally) and
installed it more times I can recall. Few pieces of hardware have been as
frustrating to get stable as this board, and I'd seriously consider not
buying an nForce2 board again. 

I have run into nForce2 boards which were less trouble to get functional,
so it could very well be either a duff board I've got or a Shuttle
issue. Not free of trouble, but certainly less.

- -- 
David Zanetti           |  (__)             
#include <geek/unix.h>  |  ( oo    Mooooooo 
http://hairy.geek.nz/   |  /(_O ./         
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