Franki; I just attended the AMD conference here in Montreal on Tuesday. 
Depending on what your server is intended for now, and what it will be used 
for in the future, the chipset can be a critical choice. There are many boards
that can run both types of RAM (SDRam and DDRam). For now, it seems to be the 
Ali chipset that can run both. I personally prefer the Via chipset, but it 
doesn't support dual RAM yet. Obviously you wouldn't be able to run them at 
the same time, but when the price of DDRam drops, you'd be in a position to 
switch. Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com) is saying a lot of good things 
about the MSI boards, and there's a new player called DFI  (www.dfi.com) that 
had some interesting stuff, as well as that tried and true board maker ASUS. 
I think that the significant point here is that these are all AMD 
reccommended boards. Just play close attention to the installation of the CPU 
as AMD has been getting enormous amounts of CPU's coming back because of 
faulty installation procedures, and these are not covered by warranty. A 
little FYI here, never push down on the CPU when installing the fan! OEM 
CPU's are fine, but make sure that you use "Thermal Grease" when installing. 
The retail CPU's come with a small tube of the stuff, and many of the cooling 
fans have a small square wafer of it on them. BUT, make sure that you pull 
off the sticker that covers the grease! I know that sounds stupid, but that 
was the biggest problem AMD was having with their warranty calls!
Good Luck
On Friday 11 May 2001  6:11, you wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have just been offered a free upgrade to my server,
>
> I am going from a celeron 300 running at 450 to a Duron 900 running at well
> at 900....
>
> So I now have to chose a motherboard for it... and after hearing all the
> things said with regard to this,
>
> I wonder if anyone could tell me the best chipset to aim for???
>
> I have a 20 gig ata100 7200 rpm in my current server and I'd love to make
> use of the extra speed if possible.....
>
>
> So, ,my questions is just what is the motherboard least likely to cause
> troubles or problems???
>
> any suggestions would be most appreciated.
>
>
> kindest regards
>
>
> Frank

-- 
Dan LaBine      
Maximum L.A.N.'s Ltd.   
Registered Linux User # 190712

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