[nzlug] Bugger! v 2.0

[cr]

On Sunday 14 January 2007 10:56, Cliff Pratt wrote:
> cr wrote:
> > A couple of nights ago my Linux box went 'pop!' when I switched it on.  
(snip)
> >
> > I'm not sure I need advice, I suspect I just need sympathy.   <g>
>
> This is not a disaster! This is an opportunity to research and purchase
> the latest and greatest CPU/MB/PSU you can find!

Well now, since my hastily-acquired second-hand CPU+mboard doesn't seem to 
want to play nice with my Promise UDMA card (it loses the interrupts) or any 
of my modems (it loses touch with the serial port) or my CD-writer (Xcdroast 
reports 'DAO mode not available on this unit' !) - all of which worked 
perfectly with my old ECS KT-600  (R.I.P.),  I decided to adopt Cliff's 
suggestion and go research a brand new board.   

It had to be -
Socket 754 (to suit my Sempron 2800 CPU)
Full ATX size   (I've got a nice big tower case, don't want no weeny MB 
feeling lonely in the middle of the wide open spaces   :)
Lotsa PCI slots  (tends to go with the ATX size)
Two serial ports if possible 
Don't care about on-board VGA (I've got lotsa spare graphics cards)
Affordable i.e. not too far into 3 figures (before the decimal point, that is)

So I fired up Pricespy to see what was on the market, spent ages Googling and 
crossing off the microATX boards (which was most of them), and decided on a 
Gigabyte K8NS (which even got five good user reports on LinuxQuestions.org's 
compatibility list as a bonus).    Saturday, I rang the store - "sorry, we 
just sold the last one, 754's are hard to find".    Tried the next two sites 
on Pricespy's list, 'out of stock' and 'on order'.
Took a deep breath, There's More Than One Way To Do It, more Googling and I've 
got a ECS K8T800-A on order....   now I just have to wait for the confirming 
email to say they actually have one....    :)
Or not, as the case may be.

cr