songbird composed on 2021-03-07 13:06 (UTC-0500):
> apparently Gigabyte has/had some strange ideas about UEFI.
No such here. Gigabyte made the first motherboard I ever acquired with UEFI
that I
used with UEFI, so it's where I learned how UEFI works. For multibooting I
highly
recommend UEFI if available. Once understood, UEFI is easy, and much less
trouble
from one installation usurping boot control from another. The only downside is
the
system won't be free of anachronistic M$ filesystem formatting.
Another recommendation: If using IGP, and you anticipate ever wanting to use
more
than one display at a time, be sure the motherboard provides enough ports. I've
yet to see one with any one type duplicated, but it need not be an issue if at
least one is a DisplayPort. Inexpensive DisplayPort to HDMI converters are
available, but not so for HDMI to DisplayPort. My oldest only has three video
ports, lacking DisplayPort, but each of the other four have four: DisplayPort,
HDMI, DVI and VGA. My two newest are Intel IGP supporting up to three displays
at
once. Two older AMD support only two at once.
Regarding bays: 2.5" SSDs don't really need bays in a desktop or floor standing
case that never gets moved except for repairs, upgrades or cleaning. They are
very
lightweight, held in place well enough by the cables connected to them to stick
anywhere there is some space.
Don't settle for a motherboard that lacks any M.2 ports that support NVME 2280
form factor storage. Prefer more than one on any board bigger than ITX. I've see
reports of <3 second cold boot to multi-user times using NVME. Best I've seen
here
is <6 seconds with a cheap 120GB NVME and a two core 3.0GHz Pentium G3220 CPU.
All my cases are more than 10 years old. Among my collection my favorites are 6
great 17" tall 21+ year old Antec towers that were given to me, several AOpen
16.5" towers equally old, and an Antec 21" of unknown age also given to me.
Be wary of any case made of aluminum where screws are needed. The cheap stamped
screws provided with them will readily strip the threads if great care is not
used. You don't want barely visible metal shards falling in the wrong spot on a
motherboard or expansion card.
Also be very wary of any power supply included with a case. IME, these
lightweight
and cheaply made power supplies invariably provide the worst reliability of any
type of electronic product I've ever encountered. The best power supplies are
heavy. If its weight isn't provided in its specs, look elsewhere, for as much
above 3lbs as you can find, preferably more than 4lbs, and if the cabling is
much
more than minimal, more than 5lbs. If not using a power hungry two-slot
multi-fan
powered-directly-by-power supply graphics card, lots of 3.5" drives, or multiple
discrete CPUs, odds are anything more than a 400W power supply is overkill.
Significant excess capacity wastes power needlessly.
--
Evolution as taught in public schools, like religion,
is based on faith, not on science.
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
