# Looking to see if my build is supported by FreeBSD



## OzDev (Feb 23, 2015)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3Bn3vK

Above is a link to the build I hope to make after this semester of school, in hopes to install the latest FreeBSD on.

I know nothing about PCBuilds, and I'm wondering if:
a) It would work as a build; but mainly
b) If FreeBSD would run on it, and all would be supported.


----------



## wblock@ (Feb 23, 2015)

The video card and the wireless card are the big unknowns.  The Fire Pro cards are relatively rare and probably mostly untested on FreeBSD's version of X drivers.  The wireless, maybe, what chipset does it have?


----------



## OzDev (Feb 23, 2015)

Oh 


wblock@ said:


> The video card and the wireless card are the big unknowns.  The Fire Pro cards are relatively rare and probably mostly untested on FreeBSD's version of X drivers.  The wireless, maybe, what chipset does it have?


goodness I'm not sure. Would you be able to recommend some parts?


----------



## wblock@ (Feb 23, 2015)

For the video card, I currently have a Radeon 5750 which works fine.  For the wireless, something with an Atheros chipset, but I don't know of a PCIe card to recommend.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 23, 2015)

Uhm.... Apart from this being really unbalanced what do you want to do (game, workstation)?
Video support is poor for recent video cards irregardless of brand and your best bet would be Intel and you need at least 2 gens old CPUs for it to work somewhat decently.
//Danne


----------



## t1066 (Feb 24, 2015)

Tp-link wdn4800 is supported in FreeBSD current.


----------



## OzDev (Feb 24, 2015)

diizzy said:


> Uhm.... Apart from this being really unbalanced what do you want to do (game, workstation)?
> Video support is poor for recent video cards irregardless of brand and your best bet would be Intel and you need at least 2 gens old CPUs for it to work somewhat decently.
> //Danne


No gaming, just development purposes.


----------



## wblock@ (Feb 24, 2015)

diizzy said:


> Uhm.... Apart from this being really unbalanced what do you want to do (game, workstation)?
> Video support is poor for recent video cards irregardless of brand and your best bet would be Intel and you need at least 2 gens old CPUs for it to work somewhat decently.
> //Danne



Currently, Radeons up to the 6000 series and Intel up to third generation work.  Nvidia also, but I don't know the details of them.


----------



## tobik@ (Feb 24, 2015)

I have a GeForce GTX760 and have 0 problems with it under Linux, FreeBSD and Windows.

Gaming isn't important to you, but I was able to successfully play the Mass Effect series using emulators/i386-wine on FreeBSD. So 3D acceleration works, as does video acceleration using VDPAU.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 24, 2015)

Hmm...

ASUS H97M-PLUS
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H97MPLUS/specifications/
Good "value" board, provides all new bell n whistles and uses generic "stock" controllers including Intel LAN without being overly expensive.

Intel i5-4590
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9116991&cm_re=intel_i5-_-19-116-991-_-Product
http://ark.intel.com/products/80815/Intel-Core-i5-4590-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz
Very good performance, Intel really runs around AMD in circles these days by far (in almost any case)

Source:
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_athlon_860k_black_edition_cpu_review/1 - In short, it's slightly faster than A10-7850K
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-a10-7850k.html - A10-7850K is sadly way behind even Intel's i3 line up
..and the new 4590 is much faster than the ones tested
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-haswell-refresh.html

Plextor PX-256M6Pro 2.5" 256GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249049
As long as you go for Marvell or Intel controllers you're fine in general, Sandforce and others have "odd" issue and performance is questionable in some scenarios. This Plextor unit uses a Marvell controller, 256Gb drives performs much better than 128Gb and it comes with 5y warranty. Given its price it's a great deal (40$ discount).
Provides good performance given its price, http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/plextor_m6_pro_ssd_review,1.html

Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0&cm_re=fractal_design-_-11-352-020-_-Product
Fractal Design makes very nice cases, thoughtful design and acoustics are in general very good. Great price right now too... (40$ off)

Antec HCG-520M 520W Modular
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371058
Go with something made by Seasonic, Superflower or CWT and you have yourself a good PSU. 65$ and modular gives you a very good bang for the buck and if you want to add a beefy video card later on and/or add lots of HDDs you have a PSU that'll handle it just fine. Being modular is also nice even if its not a requirement.
http://www.legitreviews.com/antec-high-current-gamer-hcg-520m-520w-power-supply-review_2017 - Seasonic PSU, you wont need anything better.

2 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (preferable)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148661
Stick with memory that follow JEDEC specifications, good value RAM and low voltage helps keeping the temperature down which in the end lowers noise from fans. There's no point in going for 4Gb sticks nowdays as memory requirements gets higher and higher all the time.

As for optical drives... Do you honestly need one these days?

Wireless adapter, even though I think this is a bad idea if you can avoid it (do so at all costs) you're better off grabbing a miniPCIe to PCIe adapter off eBay along with an Atheros AR9380/AR9382 based card which should work reasonably well in FreeBSD (works great in Windows fwiw) and from what I've gathered from adrian@ latest gen of Atheros (QCA) usually has less bugs and this the latest 11n hardware available. If you want to upgrade to 11ac later on just swap the card as you much more WLAN cards using the miniPCIe form factor than PCIe.

While I think the keyboard is ridiculously overpriced we all do have our preferences I guess...

Regarding the headphones, I have no idea what happens if you try to plugin a pair of headphones with a remote into the computer but in general I'd highly advice you to have a look at Audio Technica as its a very well regarded audio equipment band and they do awesome headphones. If you want "cans" these might be of interest as they offer great price vs performance.
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technic...3633&sr=8-6&keywords=audio+technica+ath-a700x

The only downside for now is that you wont have any video support due to FreeBSDs aging video driver, it's in the works though. That said, CLI will work but I have no idea if X will work in some kind of compatible mode. Work is progressing so if you really need video working out of the box just grab an old video card for now. I'm pretty sure Linux works just fine and Windows works great (as usual in this regard).
Given the list https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics I'd say grab an nVidia card as ATi (AMD) have horrible drivers irregardless of platform in my experience.

As far as prices goes, the computer itself ends up being cheaper and having roughly twice the performance than the one listed above and being less noisy too.

//Danne


----------



## wblock@ (Feb 24, 2015)

H97 chipset, yes, but I'd go with Gigabyte rather than Asus.  Asus is, in my opinion, relatively overpriced and there have been more than a few problem reports here with recent Asus boards.

The vesa video driver will work on the Haswell processors, with limited resolution support and not much speed.  But low-spec Radeon boards are cheap enough to buy for temporary use and remove when Haswell video support is available.  Something reasonably fast, like the 5750, is about twice as fast as the HD 4600 graphics in that i5-4590.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 24, 2015)

Gigabyte is worse when it comes to compatibility (buggy bios releases) and controllers unfortunately (cheaper ones) not to mention what you get for the money.
I've seen this myself a few times too... http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1852285

The closest board you have (specs-wise) including Intel LAN is GA-H97M-D3HP which isn't available in at least the US and Europe.
Looking at Gigabyte overall you have the GA-H97-D3H but it has much skimpier power regulation than the Asus board so I don't see why you would go for that one.

If you're just looking for something else than Asus you have the MSI H97M Eco but it seems very similar to the Gigabyte board except for the form factor.

The 5750 isn't as fast as you think at least not in Windows, looking at a few benchmarks I'd say that it's about 10-15% faster than the HD 4600 which seems resonable on when I compare my 5770 vs HD 4000 (slightly larger performance gap). That said, I wouldn't for the world go back to ATi/AMD given their horrible drivers compared to Intel and Intel's video (encoding/decoding) acceleration blows AMDs away by far (Windows, Linux for now at least).
//Danne


----------



## roddierod (Feb 24, 2015)

Nothing to do with compatibility but if you're going to get 24" monitors you have to go with IPS with 1920x1200 res. Dell makes a nice one.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 24, 2015)

If you read the first post and looked it up you'd see that U2414H is indeed an IPS monitor.
//Danne


----------



## roddierod (Feb 24, 2015)

I see no mention of IPS in the link or on the dell spec page. 1920 x 1080 res. I did read and look at the link.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=860-BBCG


----------



## tobik@ (Feb 24, 2015)

roddierod said:


> I see no mention of IPS in the link or on the dell spec page. 1920 x 1080 res. I did read and look at the link.
> 
> http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=860-BBCG


It says:

```
Panel Type, Surface:
In-plane switching, anti glare with hard coat 3H
```
under Tech Specs.


----------



## wblock@ (Feb 25, 2015)

diizzy said:


> Gigabyte is worse when it comes to compatibility (buggy bios releases) and controllers unfortunately (cheaper ones) not to mention what you get for the money.
> I've seen this myself a few times too... http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1852285



All I can say is that I've seen numerous problems here with Asus.  I can't recall the last time we had someone complain about Gigabyte.  I've also seen more than one repair person complain about Asus hardware, and cite Gigabyte as more reliable.  The last MSI motherboard I bought was years ago, and the reason I don't buy them any more.



> The 5750 isn't as fast as you think at least not in Windows, looking at a few benchmarks I'd say that it's about 10-15% faster than the HD 4600 which seems resonable on when I compare my 5770 vs HD 4000 (slightly larger performance gap). That said, I wouldn't for the world go back to ATi/AMD given their horrible drivers compared to Intel and Intel's video (encoding/decoding) acceleration blows AMDs away by far (Windows, Linux for now at least).
> //Danne



But I don't run Windows or Linux, and can't upgrade the Intel video without a new processor (and motherboard, in my case).  Right now, my $40 video board is faster on FreeBSD and can be easily upgraded.  So it may not be the best, but it is good enough, and works now.


----------



## protocelt (Feb 25, 2015)

wblock@ said:


> H97 chipset, yes, but I'd go with Gigabyte rather than Asus.  Asus is, in my opinion, relatively overpriced and there have been more than a few problem reports here with recent Asus boards.


Up until recently I would have disagreed with this. I now have changed my opinion. Almost all of the hardware I have is from ASUS except for an older Intel Pentium D based Supermicro board (which is *still* humming away even now as I type this). The onboard Realtek sound card in my main box with an ASUS M5A990FX r2.0 motherboard just died a couple of days ago again for the second time in a year in a half. It is now out of warranty. When contacting ASUS and mentioning I run *FreeBSD* on it, part of the reply I got was: 





> I'm sorry, we don't support Linux at this time.


 I will not be buying anymore ASUS hardware. The next Desktop motherboard I buy will be from Supermicro. Not only do they seem to have good hardware, but even officially support FreeBSD for certain boards. The price is higher, but in the end I don't have to muck about with the damn hardware/drivers and have more time to do whatever I need to get done on the computer.

+1 for the Tp-link wdn4800 mentioned above. It has been working great for me.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 25, 2015)

wblock@
My point was, go nVidia ;-)

As for the Gigabyte vs Asus, I don't really favor a particular brand but in this case Gigabyte simply have a poorer counterpart(s) and I have yet to see a valid point rather than "I don't like X" in this case.
MSI makes great boards but as with Gigabyte they have a poorer lineup in this category compared to Asus. As for reliability I'm going to claim the famous "you get what you pay for", if you're going for a value board (extremely cheap sub 85-80) don't expect it to have all bells n whistles because something is skimped on usually so if you find a board that has everything I would be very suspicious. In my experience these are the ones that have various reliability issues in general not the ~100+ (there are some exceptions but...).

That said, MSI had very good boards using Intel *77-series but the new *97-series leaves some thing to desire especially controller-wise. In fact, I'm typing on a MSI Z77A-GD65 and couldn't be happier.

protocelt
AMD/ATi boards have been plagued with issues regardless of brand however I would suspect that you have some ESD/grounding issues if the sound card blows, possibly PSU related.
As for FreeBSD support it's fully understandable, this is a very small percentage and why would they bother (economically that is)? Supermicro only makes pretty much server related hardware, they are much more expensive and it's a different customer base. That said, I honestly think they're overpriced and in most cases I would buy a pre-built box from Fujitsu, HP, Dell just because warranty services are much better and it's cheaper than building it by yourself. That said even these vendors (at least Fujitsu) used to test FreeBSD compatibility but nowadays they don't and I don't really blame them. Do your research and it'll go well anyways, in my experience Fujitsu servers are very Linux/BSD-friendly.

//Danne


----------



## junovitch@ (Feb 25, 2015)

t1066 said:


> Tp-link wdn4800 is supported in FreeBSD current.



It was 10.0-CURRENT that it was first supported.  I have one (`dmesg` below) and as long as the manufacturer didn't change the chipset it would be good on a 10.x-RELEASE.


```
ath0: <Atheros AR938x> mem 0xa5000000-0xa501ffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci13
ar9300_set_stub_functions: setting stub functions
ar9300_set_stub_functions: setting stub functions
ar9300_attach: calling ar9300_hw_attach
ar9300_hw_attach: calling ar9300_eeprom_attach
ar9300_flash_map: unimplemented for now
Restoring Cal data from DRAM
Restoring Cal data from EEPROM
ar9300_hw_attach: ar9300_eeprom_attach returned 0
ath0: RX status length: 48
ath0: RX buffer size: 4096
ath0: TX descriptor length: 128
ath0: TX status length: 36
ath0: TX buffers per descriptor: 4
ar9300_freebsd_setup_x_tx_desc: called, 0x0/0, 0x0/0, 0x0/0
ath0: ath_edma_setup_rxfifo: type=0, FIFO depth = 16 entries
ath0: ath_edma_setup_rxfifo: type=1, FIFO depth = 128 entries
ath0: [HT] enabling HT modes
ath0: [HT] enabling short-GI in 20MHz mode
ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC receive enabled
ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC transmit enabled
ath0: [HT] 3 RX streams; 3 TX streams
ath0: AR9380 mac 448.3 RF5110 phy 0.0
ath0: 2GHz radio: 0x0000; 5GHz radio: 0x0000
```


----------



## t1066 (Feb 26, 2015)

junovitch said:


> It was 10.0-CURRENT that it was first supported.  I have one (`dmesg` below) and as long as the manufacturer didn't change the chipset it would be good on a 10.x-RELEASE.
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


I am using 11-current because of the following link
https://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org/msg02926.html
According to it, some major improvement to the ath() driver was added to current, but may not be merged back to 10-stable anytime soon.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 26, 2015)

The TP-Link card uses the AR9380 chipset which I suggested however why not go the miniPCIE-adapter route as its going to be cheaper in the end when you want to upgrade to 11ac and you'll have a lot more models to choose from?
//Danne


----------



## t1066 (Feb 26, 2015)

diizzy said:


> The TP-Link card uses the AR9380 chipset which I suggested however why not go the miniPCIE-adapter route as its going to be cheaper in the end when you want to upgrade to 11ac and you'll have a lot more models to choose from?
> //Danne


I have two reasons.
1. It is cheap here, costing less than $26.
2. I use it for its hostap function.


----------



## diizzy (Feb 26, 2015)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-PCI-E-...306?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d3de2862
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-AirPo...388?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d913a7b4 or alternatively http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATHEROS-AR9...890?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec1e6dbf2

Just pop in a 11ac compatible card afterwards if you want.
//Danne


----------

