New Hardware

English Hardware
#1

It’s been a long time since I’ve built a new computer. 12 years to be exact. The time has come!

However, there are things and ports and connections I haven’t even heard about! So, I’m asking the experts.

I’m not a gamer but I do want the graphics to “sizzle”, that is I don’t like watching the screen redraw in regular applications. I might watch a movie on the DVD player.

I will not be installing a copy of Windows, only openSuse.

I’m looking at an ASUS M5A99FX system board. with an AMD FX-8320 8 core 3.5 G processor.

I’m looking at a XFX FX-795A TDFC video card which uses the Radeon 7950 chip, has 3G memory and so on.

All drives will be SATA

Two 16 G memory sticks.

The rest will be the usual except for a Blu-Ray player beside a regular DVD Lightscribe player/burner.

I will be updating the power supply.

Has anyone here had experience with these products? Should I expect any difficulties or problems?

I didn’t see anything about that secure boot stuff on this system board. Don’t understand it. Can someone direct me to an explanation?

Anything I should know about that I didn’t ask? I really don’t want to order stuff and have to exchange it, or think I have everything only to find out I’m missing some cable or small part.

Bart

#2

On 2013-04-11 20:16, montana suse user wrote:

> I’m not a gamer but I do want the graphics to “sizzle”, that is I don’t
> like watching the screen redraw in regular applications. I might watch
> a movie on the DVD player.

Displaying a video is not normally a problem even with lowly video cards
nowdays.

If you mean things like 3D shadowing in real time… then you need good
hardware with proprietary drivers, normally.

I personally use Nvidia hardware, and I don’t like Asus.

> Has anyone here had experience with these products?

Not me, sorry.

> Anything I should know about that I didn’t ask? I really don’t want to
> order stuff and have to exchange it, or think I have everything only to
> find out I’m missing some cable or small part.

Google for the “model an linux”, perhaps.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#3

I personally use Nvidia hardware,

I remember seeing a video clip from Linus himself, sending a message to Nvidia. He didn’t seem to agree with you. lol!

I’ve never owned a Nvidia card so I can’t say. I stayed loyal to ATI because of their enthusiastic support of OS/2. I guess that’s a little outdated now.

and I don’t like Asus.

I haven’t had a problem with Asus, but as I said, I haven’t built a machine in years and things change. Any particular reason you dislike them?

Thanks for your response.

Bart

#4

On 2013-04-12 04:16, montana suse user wrote:
>
>>
>> I personally use Nvidia hardware,
>
> I remember seeing a video clip from Linus himself, sending a message to
> Nvidia. He didn’t seem to agree with you. lol!

I remember that. :slight_smile:

The problem at that time was, still is the double graphic machines
(laptops): they have both Nvidia and Intel graphics. On battery it uses
the Intel hardware, and switches to Nvidia when you plug in the cable,
automatically and transparently… in Windows. There is no support from
Nvidia for this setup in Linux, or it is very limited. Open source
support is also limited (work in progress).

(there is something in the news forum about this setup today).

And of course, besides that, Linus has reasons for disliking Nvidia and
its proprietary drivers, and probably similarly for ATI proprietary
drivers. Stallman I suppose would have even stronger feelings :slight_smile:

The only hardware with Linux open support from manufacturer are Intel
graphics, I believe. Not as fast, tough.

> I’ve never owned a Nvidia card so I can’t say. I stayed loyal to ATI
> because of their enthusiastic support of OS/2. I guess that’s a little
> outdated now.

I used the Ati VGA Wonder + card at the time… it was wonderful.

However, my fuzzy statistics memory count say I have seen more problems
reported in the forums with Ati graphics than with Nvidia.

On the other hand, someone I know claims that Ati collaborates with FOSS
and has opened up some sources. I don’t really know the extent of this.

>> and I don’t like Asus.
>
> I haven’t had a problem with Asus, but as I said, I haven’t built a
> machine in years and things change. Any particular reason you dislike
> them?

Same reason as above, number of problems reported here :slight_smile:

Things like people having problems with Linux, asking Asus support, them
saying they don’t support Linux at all.

This may have changed, dunno. Some or many people are happily using Asus
MBs…

Also, I have a preference to not using very recent hardware. It must be
a year old so that kernel devs have a chance to support new
features/bugs in hardware. I would not like to be the one having to
report that my new computer does not work with Linux… :wink:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#5

It would be nice if (re: the mobo) they made them
without EFI

If I were looking, then that would probably feature high on my list (or make sure it can managed OK)

Funny: I only use nvidia :smiley:

Whatever floats your boat I guess

#6

Well said! Point taken.

I guess I’m just a gambler at heart. I’ve ordered the parts, Asus claims their new board is military grade. It should stand up for a while. And I guess I just can’t get over my fondness for ATI /AMD products. It does have that UEFI bios stuff that I’ll have to figure out. Good thing is that I’ll not have to worry about Windows on this machine. Strictly openSuse!

So… I’ll post to this thread the results of my experience. If I have problems, you guys can say “I told you so!” If I don’t, be sure I’ll gloat just a little! :slight_smile:

Thanks for the replies,
Bart

#7

I told you I’d gloat a little if my system worked! Well, Here I am gloating! Just a little you’ll notice! :slight_smile:
I had some problems with the UEFI BIOS, Asus had it set up pretty much for Windows (Surprise!) but, when I finally found the settings, everything worked surprisingly well! It’s the first time I’ve seen this BIOS so just everything was new to me.

The folks at openSuse did a spectacular job (as usual). I just now need to copy over all my files and program settings.

Thanks to all here, and I’m sure I’ll need to ask more questions. This was an experience!

Bart

#8

On 2013-04-12 07:06, montana suse user wrote:

> Well said! Point taken.
>
> I guess I’m just a gambler at heart. I’ve ordered the parts, Asus
> claims their new board is military grade.

I never had the chance to look at a military grade PC board. Got a link
with photos?

On 2013-04-18 10:06, montana suse user wrote:>
>
> I told you I’d gloat a little if my system worked! Well, Here I am
> gloating! Just a little you’ll notice! :slight_smile:

Nice to hear it worked well :slight_smile:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#9

The board is an ASUS Sabertooth 990 FX 2.0 You can find pictures at their web site or from TigerDirect.com - Electronics, Tablets, Phones, Office Supplies & Video Games, where I purchased it. Actually holding it in my hand, it looks quite nice. Big heatsinks, neat soldering, clear silkscreening, good heat transfer coating on the bottom, connectors well placed, connections for two CPU fans and four case fans, all temp controlled. Down sides, only 4 memory slots and is very fussy about brand/model if you’re going to use 32G. The FX board is specific to AMD processor but they make it for Intel. Don’t know the model.

I installed a XFX Radeon HD 7950 video card. It seems to get along quite well with the Asus monitor and openSuse 12.3 Screen is bright, clear and, being that it’s a 27 inch monitor, almost too big.

My only problems are with the new EUFI bios. And, I’m sure it’s my lack of understanding.

Nice to hear it worked well :slight_smile:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

Thanks!

Bart

#10

My only problems are with the new EUFI bios. And, I’m sure it’s my lack of understanding.
I know you mean UEFI
I get it mixed up too

#11

lol! Well, right now it’s F-UEFI. I did something and now it won’t boot! I’ll have to start a thread in the boot section and see if someone knows where I should look. Grrrrr!

Bart

#12

On 2013-04-20 07:06, montana suse user wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2548733 Wrote:
>> On 2013-04-12 07:06,
>> I never had the chance to look at a military grade PC board. Got a link
>> with photos?
>
> The board is an ASUS Sabertooth 990 FX 2.0

Found the page at the Asus site. Not close ups, though.

Interesting features… I like the thermal control one, for instance.
Dunno if all of them are accessible in Linux, though.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#13

Even the Users Guide doesn’t have close up photos! Of course, if you have the guide, you also have the board. I guess. The most noticeable thing is the heat sinks over the chip sets. This thing is aimed at the gamers, so it has some pretty emblems on various places and comes with overclocking provisions. Even the boot logo is kind of ahmmm cute. All this stuff is easily turned off though. And, it hurts nothing.

By thermal control, I assume you mean the fan controls. Yes, they’re working just fine. My case has 4 fans in addition to the power supply fan and the CPU fan and they are just idling. Very quiet. The BIOS shows temps and speed for all fans except the power supply. The desktop wiget in KDE shows two of the temps. Don’t run Gnome.

Bart

#14

Carlos,

I found this picture on Asus site. It’s about as good as I could find.

http://susepaste.org/57759403

#15

Well, that worked well. :sarcastic:

Let’s try this: SUSE Paste

#16

On 2013-04-21 04:16, montana suse user wrote:
>
> Well, that worked well. :sarcastic:
>
> Let’s try this: ‘SUSE Paste’ (http://susepaste.org/57759403)

Thanks, don’t bother :slight_smile:

What I wanted to see was how connectors were soldered. Long ago, a
teacher that had worked for the military told us how to solder resistors
to military specifications, in a manner that the printed board would
stand bending after a crash.

The wires had to be bent like in a spring, so that the solder would not
break when the board suffered stress.

That board has none of that. I wonder what they do to classify it as
“military grade”. To me it would mean that it should withstand the
vibrations of a vehicle (tank) running over rough terrains, while they
shoot and are shoot at.

>:-)

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#17

On 2013-04-20 21:36, montana suse user wrote:
> By thermal control, I assume you mean the fan controls.

I mean the “TUF Thermal Radar”.


<https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FX_R20/>

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#18

QUOTE
The wires had to be bent like in a spring, so that the solder would not
break when the board suffered stress.
UNQUOTE

More than that, all wires must be more flexible and longer than the joint, like a rope tying a ship to a dock. Also all laid down wires must be laid down with the base board in fully flexed condition.
This is 1940s radio connection stuff for backpack radio baseboards, but still works.

#19

Can you detail what you did to overcome the “I had some problems with the UEFI BIOS,”

Then Others can consider this build.
Thanks in advance.

#20

That board has none of that. I wonder what they do to classify it as
“military grade”. To me it would mean that it should withstand the
vibrations of a vehicle (tank) running over rough terrains, while they
shoot and are shoot at.

(Chuckle) Can you say Advertizing Quote? I would guess that they were referring to the capacitors and chokes.
I don’t know, I just hope I don’t have to use this thing in a tank running over rough terrains! lol! I do understand your questions though. Besides, if it were really military grade, I’ll bet I couldn’t have purchased it for anywhere near what I paid!

I stopped doing any computer work 10 years ago but when I was building computers, I nearly always used Asus boards. They just worked, and kept working. That’s all I ask.