Ah snap, did I just shoot myself in the foot here? A75 chipset help needed.
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So I've searched and searched, and so far come up empty.
I just pulled the trigger on an A75 chpset based motherboard (socket FM2) with an A8-5800K as a CPU. Nics are a pair intel server nics with 2 ports each (for 4 ports total). The onboard NIC is a realtek 8111E, which I know to be compatible as my ATOM based board has one and it works (although I don't use it).
I was not at all concerned with compatibility until I did some more thinking. The supported hardware list over at freebsd.org is confusing to understand at best. I don't see any supported SATA controllers from AMD for release 8.1 and the newest supported controller from Intel appears to be the ICH9. Weirdly enough the ICH10 is supported on the audio side of things, but not listed on the hard disk side of things.
Do I have a monumental turd on my hands now?
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Do I have a monumental turd on my hands now?
Poke it and see. I suggest you try a pfSense 2.1 snapshot build. The newer drivers are more likely to work with a "newer" motherboard than the older device drivers in the 2.0.x builds.
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Do I have a monumental turd on my hands now?
Poke it and see. I suggest you try a pfSense 2.1 snapshot build. The newer drivers are more likely to work with a "newer" motherboard than the older device drivers in the 2.0.x builds.
Poking it requires I open the components and then pay a 15 percent restocking fee. Not poking it might require that too come to think of it.
The thing is I really wanted to go AMD on this one as they need the business right now, and they don't make you bend over backwards for AES instructions. To get those on an Intel platform you have to go I5.
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Not directly comparable - not even the same family - but…
My SATA-only motherboard was happy with 2.1, 2.0.2 was not happy with it.
I was less happy with 2.1, or perhaps I was doing something I have yet to figure out wrong with 2.1 - in any case, the box kept stopping traffic for no obvious reason, so I decided I really needed to try make it work with a release version.
Based on help from here, I looked in the BIOS and found a setting to put the SATA disks into IDE emulation mode, and 2.0.2 was happy to install, and has run happily since.
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You haven't actually specified what the problem is here, or even that there is a problem. Just because you think it might not work doesn't mean it won't. ;)
Steve
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Not directly comparable - not even the same family - but…
My SATA-only motherboard was happy with 2.1, 2.0.2 was not happy with it.
I was less happy with 2.1, or perhaps I was doing something I have yet to figure out wrong with 2.1 - in any case, the box kept stopping traffic for no obvious reason, so I decided I really needed to try make it work with a release version.
Based on help from here, I looked in the BIOS and found a setting to put the SATA disks into IDE emulation mode, and 2.0.2 was happy to install, and has run happily since.
Yeah I thought about going 2.1, but this is a production environment and I don't want to risk it.
The IDE only mode as another thought, but that tends to be slower (and the thing has a 150GB raptor that is going in it).
You haven't actually specified what the problem is here, or even that there is a problem. Just because you think it might not work doesn't mean it won't. ;)
Steve
This is true. My main problem is I made a fatal mistake, one that one should never do when dealing with a non windows based OS (especially BSD IMO). I didn't check the approved hardware list. I cannot confirm there is a problem or not without opening the hardware I just bought and playing with it, and I don't need it if I can't use it for it's intended purpose. If there is a problem, I pay a 15 percent restocking fee.
The problem I see is that there are no confirmed drivers for the A55/A75/A85 chipsets in Freebsd8.1-release-p13. I see the SB600 southbridge from the 8x and 9x series AM3+ chipsets listed on the audio side of things (which I'm sure means that the disk controller also works, as FWIW, the intel ICH10 isn't listed in disk controllers but in the audio section, and I've read of people using Z77 etc boards with PF). The APU chipsets are somewhat radically different from the AM3+ stuff though so I wouldn't trust that just because the AM3+ stuff works the FM1/FM2 stuff will.
The "oldest" version of FreeBSD I can find any documentation at all on regarding the A75/A85 chipsets is 9.0, and is in this post at the freebsd forums. For the record, I'd be perfectly fine with only the AMD supplied SATA ports working (the poster in that post was frustrated his/her Asmedia SATA controller wasn't supported). I do need them to work though, and I can't guarantee that on 8.1 as there is nothing mentioned about it.
I wanted the APU because power wise they do quite well against the i3's (actually a watt or two lower at idle), except under full load, and with the system configured to use a com port, the GPU is never going to rev up either. Additionally, the AMD APU's have AES instructions at a much nicer price point. You have to go with an i5 on the intel side to get that feature.
Ultimately, rather than risk having to return something that doesn't work, I just called and got the order cancelled (I do pay return shipping but no restocking fee if I don't open any thing) and bought a Z77 motherboard and an i5. I guess an added plus is 4 floating point units instead of 2 (same 4 integer units though), and more IPC. I just didn't want to spend that and also really wanted to support the underdog for producing such an affordale and capable chip. I do get PCIE 3.0 out of this, as well as an extra PCIE 2.0x16 slot (admittedly running at x1) vs the board I'd originally picked.
I suppose the other side benefit is the AMD AES instructions aren't identical to the Intel ones, and I don't know whether they are planned to be rolled into PF any time soon (I have read that the Intel ones will be there at some point). This machine will be pushed moderately hard as well as I've got a 50 megabit pipe, 5 Vlans, lots of ACLS, and I need to route between vlans for a pair of boxes that both have twin Intel Gigabit Server nics in LACP.
So, while I love being a guinea pig, I don't when it means I might pay a restocking fee. Yes, I paid more money up front now, but not that much more if I ended up neding to pay a restocking fee. Although then again it was a bit more yet as just in case this box gets repurposed later I went for a 3570K instead of a base model I5 (I mean shoot, the extra 40 bucks is worth it, I can take this one to a nice even 4ghz or more on stock volts most likely).
