On Fri, 2004-12-24 at 22:10, Bill Gradwohl wrote: > Ow Mun Heng wrote: > > > 1 Gig of RAM for web surfing!! wow.. Ram ain't that cheap. > > What else am I going to use that RAM for? Its special RAM for a > particular mainboard, so it goes along with the board. We learned long > ago that RAM for one board isn't necessarily suitable in another board. Hmm.. I didn't know that, then again, all I've been playing with are only "normal" boards and not server boards. I do note hoewever a tendency for "branded" boards from ppl like gateway/DEll has a Memory preference. > >Which One? Need to look them up. Does any have more than 2? Prefer to > >have 3. > > > > > We used the 4 in 1 boards from Adaptec and SMC a long time > ago. I see no need for them today as switches and routing solved the > problem the multiport boards were brought in for in the old days. Okay.. I'm confused. are those 4 in 1 boards really NICs or are they juts built in switches for routing? The shop did say that they had one of those and since it was basically a switch, I didn't want it. > I would caution you on using boards with too much "stuff" built in. > Their BIOS's will typically force you to use interrupts that are shared > simply because there's no other way to get all that stuff organized > given the measely interrupt structure on todays boards. Same holds true > for adding boards to slots to some extent, but usually you have more > leeway when the mainboard itself isn't choked with extraneous gear. > Shared interrupts are what we avoid at all cost. This is what i look for. 1. NIC 2. Sound card (don't really care for a server but most of it's built in anyway) 3. Graphics (usually runs headless anyway) 4. USB (they're built in anyway, but I'm sure there's a way to turn it off via the BIOS) 5. SATA. Now, this is a MUST. Most of the above will have a high chance to run via shared interrupts. So.. what choices am I left with?? > >Thanks. (Now if you can tell me which Asus board that is.) > > > > > Check out their latest comparison sheet on their US web site - > http://usa.asus.com/index.htm . I can't recall the model numbers of the > mainboards with 2 NICs. They were socketed for AMD chips and were real > cheap for firewall use. I've never used a AMD before but am willing to try since it's a _big_ difference in price. And for a normal Desktop/Server usage, I don't think it's such a big deal. > Anything can handle the traffic for a T1 or > less, so a board with 2 NICs of any kind, even 10mbps is sufficient. If > I were firewalling internally, say between departments on a high > bandwidth lan, then I'd use high end NICs to handle the load, That's the thing, at the shops I can find NICs going for USD5 for a Dlink or some other brand and I see 3com selling theirs for like USD25! I usually think, what's the deal.. a NIC's A NIC! Maybe my requirements aren't that excessive. > and they > wouldn't be built in as the built in kind are most often not the best in > thruput performance. You get what you pay for. Now, that I understand, from a previously unrelated to computer experience. > > The monster box we put together with all those drives used the ASUS > *NRL-LS533*. We've also used their *PR-DLS533*. All with Crucial RAM, > all bought at the same time - "matched". Will look at those boards specs. > > If you send me a few dozen of those 320Gig drives to keep, I'll test > them for you. :-) Heh.. I've not even had the chance to test them out yet! You'll just have to wait. -- Ow Mun Heng Gentoo/Linux on DELL D600 1.4Ghz 98% Microsoft(tm) Free!! Neuromancer 06:56:55 up 40 min, 3 users, load average: 0.29, 0.28,
