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Date:      Wed, 21 Jul 1999 09:36:02 -0700
From:      Josef Grosch <jgrosch@ontario.mooseriver.com>
To:        David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com>
Cc:        freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: First time for my own PC hardware
Message-ID:  <19990721093602.A26255@ontario.mooseriver.com>
In-Reply-To: <199907211544.IAA55522@pau-amma.whistle.com>; from David Wolfskill on Wed, Jul 21, 1999 at 08:44:34AM -0700
References:  <199907211544.IAA55522@pau-amma.whistle.com>

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On Wed, Jul 21, 1999 at 08:44:34AM -0700, David Wolfskill wrote:

[ Deleted interesting story about installing FreeBSD ]

> Happened across a decent-seeming shop that had PC hardware during a
> freelance consulting gig, so I bought an ASUS P5A motherboard & some
> hardware to stuff in it.  (And a monitor, since the monitors I have are
> Sun monitors.)

ASUS motherboards are some of the best on the market. I've buildt dozens of
FreeBSD boxes using these and never had a problem.

> 
> Got everything home, and found that "ATX" apparently doesn't mean that
> an "ATX" motherboard will necessarily fit in an "ATX" chassis.  :-(  And
> the motherboard seemed to be shy one jumper (for setting the voltage to
> the CPU core).  And neither the motherboard nor the chassis had any
> screws for attaching one to the other.
> 
> So I guess I get to take the chassis back, go to the place where I got
> the motherboard, get a chassis that fits, and get an extra jumper &
> some screws....

Sounds like you got a bad chassis. It seems like most of the low end cases
are coming out of China these days. The quality control on these units
seem to really variable. I recently got one that had all the holes that
hold the motherboard mounting post were offset by a good inch and a half. I
guess there are name brands among cases, I just haven't looked into it.

> 
> If I'm able to get the box put together, and if everything works, I
> think the result should be a dramatic improvement over the 3/60.  :-}
> (Since she's currently using tvtwm, I know I can support that under
> FreeBSD, 'cause that's what I'm using as I type this.  Maybe I'll try
> one of the fancier desktops... if I also get some additional memory for
> the box.  I'm currently using 32 MB on this desktop at work, so I
> thought that 64 MB for her machine should be reasonable.)
> 
> I keep getting the impression that PC hardware is ... quirky (to put it
> nicely).

<RANT>
There is not a lot of love in my heart for PC hardware manufactures. Some,
like ASUS, Tyan, Adaptec, and Seagate, work very hard to produce a quality
product at a competitive price. And then there are those manufactures that
just throw the product together any old way. The result is piece `o shit
hardware that wastes your time & money and taxes your good nature.
</RANT>


Josef

-- 
Josef Grosch           | Another day closer to a |    FreeBSD 3.2
jgrosch@MooseRiver.com |   Micro$oft free world  | UNIX for the masses



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