Thanks, Alan, that sounds like good advice. -mj- Alan Pratt wrote: > Mark, > > I picked up one to the cheapie ECS boards (RS482) along with an AMD > 3700+. Actually, it came with the chip. I had a broken ASUS A8N-SLI > being RMA'd, so I wasn't too concerned about the MB. I did gave the MB > a try while waiting for the replacement ASUS, though, and had a > similar experience to yours. I couldn't (easily) get any of my 'nix > distibutions to load or setup. I was able to get WinXP to run without > too much trouble. > > Once the ASUS board showed up, I pulled the ECS board and installed > the ASUS... every 'nix I had ran perfectly and setup fine. (FC4, > Suse10, Ubuntu 5.10, Debian 3.1). My opinion is that the ECS boards > are nice an cheap - and for motherboards, you get what you pay for. > The Sermpron's are OK, but plan on a few extra bucks for an Abit, > ASUS, or another one of the mid-tier boards. > > - Alan (Pratt - not THE Alan) > > > > On 3/6/06, Mark Jarvis wrote: > >>First, sad story: A month or so ago I bought one of those ECS Nforce3-A >>motherboard/Sempron 3100+ specials at Fry's. I was basically unable to >>get it to boot from my existing Linux & Windows installations. After >>fighting for a (hellish) week trying to find a way to force booting from >>the existing installations, I finally gave up and re-did all OS >>installations. Thank goodness most of my data was in a separate data >>partition and remained pretty much OK. (To add to my confusion, I could >>use a Windows multi-boot diskette to start the boot, using its boot.ini >>to transfer to an installation, then complete a windows boot as usual. I >>could then see all drives & windows usable partitions, so the disks were >>see-able, just not bootable!) It didn't help that a diskette drive and >>power supply died during that time and that half of a pair of 512MB 3200 >>memory sticks was DOA. !@#$%^&*! >> >>OK, I'm now up & running, >> >>When Linux kernels started to get too big to fit on a diskette, I was >>relieved to discover Smart Boot Manager and have used it extensively at >>home and at school to boot into any available Windows or Linux >>partition. BUT--SBM no longer works on my machine! It doesn't even >>display the partitions! Obviously, there is some sort of horrible >>mobo/HD interaction at work here. >> >>Has anyone else bought one of those ECS specials? What was your experience? >> >>I was hoping that my problems were due to my HDs. They're biggish--two >>120s and a 160, but not really all THAT big. Since Fry's has the same >>offer on again, I was thinking of upgrading my wife's box, hoping that >>her smaller, older disks--two Maxtor 80s--would not be a problem. That >>SBM thing, however, really bothers me. >> >>Any comments, hints, experiences, and/or suggestions gratefully received. >> >>-mj- >> >>--------------------------------------------------- >>PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us >>To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: >>http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss