[ale] Asus motherboards

[Michael B Golden]

	I am planning to buy one of two motherboards currently. The two
in question are the Asus P5A and the Asus P5A-B. I am wondering if anyone
uses either of these boards, and how well they work with linux. I am not
trying to get a recommendation on another board unless I find that these
boards will not work with Linux. I've got some stats on them from the
Asus website (Some formatting replaced with strange characters, not
enough time to filter them out) that I will put at the bottom of this
message. And if it matters, I plan to put an AMD K6-2 350MHz processor in
it.

Asus P5A ATX Socket 7 Motherboard

Processor
100/83.3/75/66 MHz F.S.B
Intel Pentium Processor: P55C/P54C/P54CS 90MHz~233MHz
Cyrix M II: 300MHz ~ 333MHz ,
6x86MX: PR166+ ~ PR266+MHz
AMD-K6®-2, AMD-K6® 233MHz ~ 400MHz

Chipset
ALi® M1541 Aladdin V AGPset supports up to 100MHz F.S.B.
ALi® M1543 Super I/O Controller

Bus Architecture
32-bit AGP Bus, 32-bit PCI Bus and 16-bit ISA Bus Compatible

Expansion Slots
1 x 32-bit AGP Slot
5 x 32-bit PCI Slots
2 x 16-bit ISA Slots

Cache
On Board Pipelined Burst SRAM 512KB (-5ns)

System Memory
3 x 168-pin DIMM Sockets Support 8-384MB SDRAM/EDO
Features ECC/Parity Support (66MHz Only)
PC100 (100MHz)Compliant SDRAM Interface

AGP Connector
AGP 1.0 Compliance Interface Supports both 1x and 2x Speed Mode with
Sidehand Address Capability

Onboard I/O
2 x USB Ports onboard
1 x Floppy Port (Up to 2.88MB, 3 Mode)
2 x Serial Ports
1 x Parallel Port (EPP, ECP Port)
FIR TX/RX Header

Onboard PCI IDE
2 x PCI Bus Master IDE ports (Support up to 4 IDE devices)
Support:
PIO Mode 3 & 4 : 17MB/Sec. DMD Mode 2 : 17MB/Sec. (Max.; The Actual
Transfer Speed Depends On HD)
ATAPI IDE CD-ROM and LS-120 Supported
Ultra DMA/33 : 33MB/Sec.(Synchronous DMA Mode)

Onboard PCI Audio (Optional)
High Performance ESS Solo-1™ PCI Audio Controller
Sound Blaster 16 and Microsoft Sound System Compatible
Up to 16-bit Stereo 44KHz Sampling Rate, Full Duplex
Microsoft® PC97/PC98 Compliant
Software WaveTable Bundled
3D Audio Effects and ESFMTM Music Synthesizer

OS Certification
Microsoft PC97 Logo (Design for Windows95, Windows98 and WindowsNT)
Novell Yes Test Approved
Solaris H/W x86 Certified
NSTL Year 2000 Test Approved

CD-ROM Content
Auto Run Software Install Utility
ALi® Bus Master IDE Driver
Intel® LDCM Hardware Monitoring, DMI Browser and Remote Access Utility
ESS® Audio Driver with S/W Wave Table Utility
ASUS PC Probe Hardware Monitoring Utility for Single Desktop User

BIOS
2M-bit Flash EEPROM
Award® AGP BIOS with ACPI, DMI, Green, Plug and Play Features
Enhanced ACPI Features for PC98/Win98

Other Features
PC Health Monitoring ASIC Supports CPU Voltage, Fan Status, and System
Temperature Detection
Intel® LANDesk Client Manager S/W and ASUS PC Probe Utility Bundled

Dimensions
ATX Form Factor (8.3" x 12")
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Asus P5A-B Motherboard

Processor
100/83.3/75/66 MHz F.S.B
Intel Pentium Processor: P55C/P54C/P54CS 90MHz~233MHz
Cryix M II: 300MHz ~ 333MHz ,
6x86MX: PR166+ ~ PR266+MHz
AMD-K6®-2, AMD-K6® 233MHz ~ 400MHz

Chipset
ALi® M1541 Aladdin V AGPset supports up to 100MHz F.S.B.
ALi® M1543 Super I/O Controller

Bus Architecture
32-bit AGP Bus, 32-bit PCI Bus and 16-bit ISA Bus Compatible

Expansion Slots
1 x 32-bit AGP Slot
3 x 32-bit PCI Slots
2 x 16-bit ISA Slots

L2 Cache
On Board Pipelined Burst SRAM 512KB (-5ns)

System Memory
3 x 168-pin DIMM Sockets Support 8-384MB 3.3V SDRAM/EDO
Features ECC/Parity Support (66MHz Only)
PC100 (100MHz)Compliant SDRAM Interface

AGP Connector
AGP 1.0 Compliance Interface Supports both 1x and 2x Speed Mode with
Sidehand Address Capability

Onboard I/O
1 x Floppy Port (Up to 2.88MB, 3 Mode)
2 x Serial Ports
1 x Parallel Port (EPP, ECP Port)
FIR TX/RX Header

Onboard PCI IDE
2 x PCI Bus Master IDE ports (Support up to 4 IDE devices)
Support:
PIO Mode 3 & 4 : 17MB/Sec. DMD Mode 2 : 17MB/Sec. (Max.; The Actual
Transfer Speed Depends On HD)
ATAPI IDE CD-ROM and LS-120 Supported
Ultra DMA/33 : 33MB/Sec.(Synchronous DMA Mode)

Onboard Audio (Optional)
High Performance CMI8330 16-bit Audio Controller
Sound Blaster 16 and Microsoft Sound System Compatible
Up to 16-bit Stereo 44KHz Sampling Rate, Full Duplex
OPL3 FM Synthesizer with Built-in Surround Sound
Supports DirectX 5.0, Direct Sound 3D or A3D
Device Support : WSS, MPU401, Game Port, SB16

Dual Power Connector
3V, 5V, 12V 20-Pin ATX Power Connector, Soft Power Supported
12-Pin Baby AT Power Connector

OS Certification
Microsoft PC97 Logo (Design for Windows95, Windows98 and WindowsNT)
Novell Yes Test Approved
Solaris H/W x86 Certified
NSTL Year 2000 Test Approved

CD-ROM Content
Auto Run Software Install Utility
ALi® Bus Master IDE Driver
Intel® LDCM Hardware Monitoring, DMI Browser and Remote Access Utility
CMI Audio Driver with S/W Wave Table Utility
ASUS PC Probe Hardware Monitoring Utility for Single Desktop User

BIOS
1M-bit Flash EEPROM
Award® AGP BIOS with ACPI, DMI, Green, Plug and Play Features

Other Features
PC Health Monitoring ASIC Supports CPU Voltage, Fan Status, and System
Temperature Detection
Intel® LANDesk Client Manager S/W and ASUS PC Probe Utility Bundled

Dimensions
Baby AT Form Factor (8.7" x 8.5")

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Golden
Naugrim at Juno.com (Normal, no attachments)
MGolden at Airapps.com (Only for messages with attachments.)
RedHat 5.2 (2.2.5) Linux user -- Linux Advocate

___________________________________________________________________
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.