# Please Suggest FreeBSD Compatible  AMD 64 MotherBoard



## susanth (Nov 24, 2008)

Dear Friends,

We are planning to assemble a new PC for Multi purpose FreeBSD Server.

Major Specification:
* AMD 64bit/AM2 Based Multi Core Processor
* 4 GB RAM
* 500 GB SATA HDD

Looking for a FreeBSD compatible MotherBoard with:
* Preferred  from ASUS, Gigabyte or MSI [These are the most available in our local market ].
* Max RAM support required :  >= 8GB.
* Priority of Performance : Processing, Disk Activity (RAID also, if built in to Mother board), Network.
* Regarding Graphics: an X window compatible, Average Performance is enough (3D or Gaming features are not required) but required.
* We are not bothered about Sound, HDMI, Dual Display or other Multimedia Features of Mother board.

Response with exact ModelName and CompanyName will be a big help .

NOTE:
@ Already went through http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/amd64/motherboards.html
@ Looking for real user's experience and suggestions; to avoid hunting for drivers 

Many Thanks in Advance


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## tbyte (Nov 25, 2008)

I'm using ASUS M3A78-T with Phenom 9950BE and 4GB RAM. It has built in RAID but I never use those anyway . Has a built in ATI HD 3300 but I'm using an external XFX 8800GTS (so 32 bit mode ... and only 3.2GB usable). Pretty stable no problems at all except for the marvel if_msk which is unusable and You should download a driver from Marvell's site and disable hardware checksums (-rxcsum). I'm playing 3D games on it, and even Windows games under WINE, so X performance is good . The CPU is even overclocked to 3Ghz and the systems is stable after repeated buildworlds with -J5. And wherever  I see this CPU tested it was on that board (about the time I bought it), so other people value the board too . 

Regards


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## zeiz (Nov 26, 2008)

I have Asus M3N78-VM, cheap, everything onboard. AMD/AMD2 socket (I use AMD AthlonX2 2.3GHz no overclocking yet), 8GB-DDR2 (up to 1066, I use 4GBx800), GeForce8200 (runs Crysis but not really fast), Nvidia chipset with nic, modem, via HD sound chip, , 5xsata, 1xpata, some other features like raid, pci-e, hybrid-sli(if +discret.v/card), hdmi, 8 channel sound etc but I don't use them.
FreeBSD7.1-Beta2 runs in both i386 and 86_64 very nice though i386 nicer because I install 177.82 nvidia driver (very easy) otherwise 177.80 is installable from port (all kernel source required anyway). No problems with installation or drivers (snd_hda_load="YES" in /boot/loader.conf) the rest works from the box except nvidia. I heard ATI doesn't have FreeBSD drivers at all so I went for nvidia. My monitor is 22" SyncMaster2253bw (1680x1050).
This board is of microATX design and I plan to give it away to my kids in 2 years by putting in nice microcase


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## Andrius (Nov 26, 2008)

Running amd64 7-STABLE (about a month old) on Asus M2A-VM, integrated NIC uses if_re driver. Integrated graphics works fine with both xf86-video-ati and xf86-video-radeonhd drivers (devel version of radeonhd has 3d acceleration and so far I had no problems with this driver). Afaik this card has integrated raid or something like that but I never tried using it so can't really tell anything useful. Sound uses snd_hda driver, I failed to get recording working properly, but it doesn't look like you need it.


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## susanth (Nov 26, 2008)

Thank you Tbyte, Zeiz, and Andrius for valuable information.


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## susanth (Nov 26, 2008)

Andrius said:
			
		

> ...Integrated graphics works fine with both xf86-video-ati and xf86-video-radeonhd drivers (devel ...



Hope these two are AMD-64bit compatible Graphic drivers and come with Install Disk itself. Or Do we have to download drivers separately ?

Thanks


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## Andrius (Nov 26, 2008)

They're in ports

x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati
x11-drivers/xf86-video-radeonhd
x11-drivers/xf86-video-radeonhd-devel

And yes, they run on 64bit, I mentioned that my system is amd64 in the previous post.


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## hydra (Nov 28, 2008)

I'm running FreeBSD 7.1 on Asus P5Q, works nice. (2*500GB WD disk, 4GB RAM, Nvidia graphics, Core 2 Duo...)


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## tomh009 (Nov 30, 2008)

Most of our servers are using Tyan's lovely industrial-quality mobos (typically with eight memory slots), but we also have several ASUS ones -- unfortunately I think the latest one is an M8N-E, which is now out of production.

If you do want to do RAID, I strongly encourage you to buy a proper RAID controller.  3ware's SATA RAID controllers are excellent, and well supported by FreeBSD.  And there are other choices out there, too.  For high availability, I would not do anything less than RAID 5 with a hot spare (or preferably two).


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## none (Dec 1, 2008)

just boards with integraded graphics ?

Gigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R, onboard intel matrix raid.
I run 7-STABLE amd64 and no problem, nVidia VGA. it wasn't way too tested though, but it was stable. I did some compiling and quick and great 

none


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## nakal (Dec 1, 2008)

none said:
			
		

> Gigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R, onboard intel matrix raid.



I have this one, too. It runs ok. One thing to mention is that USB devices can disable themselves spontaneously. I have a mouse (Logitech G5) and sometimes (once in 2 months perhaps), it happens that I have to switch a USB controller (e.a. plug the mouse into some other USB port), because it does not work anymore. Suddenly it does not get power and you cannot enable it anymore. The whole controller is down until you reboot (ok, you have 3 of them).

I have the same problem on my notebook (Thinkpad T60p), but there you can fortunately use the same USB port again and again by plugging the mouse out and in (here I have a cheap Logitech mouse). It happens more often there, though. Sometimes multiple times in a session.

The newer Gigabyte EP45-DS3R has some other USB problems. You cannot use BIOS USB mouse support, because FreeBSD won't be able to enable the USB controller (workaround: the plug out and in technique works here, too, but who wants to reach behind the desk again and again?). Simply disable the BIOS support for mouse and keyboard. You won't have any possibility to use the FreeBSD boot manager and loader, but at least USB works automatically after USB controllers have been recognized.


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## none (Dec 2, 2008)

nakal said:
			
		

> I have this one, too. It runs ok. One thing to mention is that USB devices can disable themselves spontaneously. I have a mouse (Logitech G5) and sometimes (once in 2 months perhaps), it happens that I have to switch a USB controller (e.a. plug the mouse into some other USB port), because it does not work anymore. Suddenly it does not get power and you cannot enable it anymore. The whole controller is down until you reboot (ok, you have 3 of them).



hmm, I have this on windows xp also. this box has three OSes.

reading made me remember. but as he won't use as desktop, a ps2 keyboard should make it 

as it uses the not-so-old ich9r, this should be fixed sometime soon (I think). if its now hardware fault.

none


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## desto (Dec 2, 2008)

If you think about using entry level servers, i can suggest you Sun x2100 M2 Server. (Tyan mainboard with AMD opteron)
Here is my experience with x2100 M2:
I run x2100 M2 server as the gateway/firewall of about 600 users. The WAN speed is 20mbit metro ethernet. System is FreeBSD 7.0. I use pf+squid and have no hardware/hardware compability problem.


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