On Tue, November 20, 2007 3:32 pm, Joshua Penix wrote: > On Nov 20, 2007, at 3:08 PM, Lan Barnes wrote: > >> OK. But what chipsets do I want or want to avoid? Or can anyone make a >> recommendation? I don't need a barn burner. 1.5 GHz or so, working >> DMA, >> 1/2 to 1 G RAM, maybe an AGP for the old GForce MX 4000, at least 2 >> PCI >> slots for the pvr-150s, preferrably a local vendor. > > > My general rule for desktop stability is to use Intel chipsets, and if > possible Intel motherboards. They're not enthusiast or overclocking > friendly, but then overclocking is not necessarily friendly to > stability. > > The problem you're going to run into is the constant pace of change. > We had Pentium processors go from 478 pin FPGA to 775 pin LGA. We had > RAM go from standard 133MHz to DDR to DDR2 (with a brief but crappy > stop in Rambus town). We had video cards go from AGP to PCI-Express. > > As a result, a motherboard upgrade done more than 6 months after > system purchase invariably requires some amount of new components, or > searching through vendors' new-old-stock or Craigslist posts to find > something that matches your requirements... as you are now finding. > > I may have an answer for you... I have at home a fully built and known- > stable-under-MythTV system that I'm looking to get off my floor. It's > 2-3 years old, but has a Pentium 4 2.4GHz and Intel-chipset > motherboard with a good amount of RAM and some hard drive space. It's > in an AV-center friendly sized Antec case (Overture). It's been > unused on my floor for a few months, so when I get home I'll boot it > up and check that everything is intact and send you a private email > with further details. I'm not looking to sell it for any sort of > fortune, so I suspect we may be able to work something out that fits > your budget and lets you move past this headache. I'll also throw in > a very old ~500Mhz Celeron system I have sitting in my office... the > internals may not be worth much, but the ATX case is in good shape and > might make a good home for your old MythTV components. >
I am your unworthy slave. -- Lan Barnes SCM Analyst Linux Guy Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
