I am about to buy a new motherboard (preferably Intel) for a desktop computer and would like to check NetBSD compatibility before buying. I am about to ask the same question. I think the best bet is to see reports from others who are happy. 1) Since spring/summer/fall 2010, I have had a whole lab full (growing to 20) of: cpu0 at mainbus0 apid 0: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz, id 0x1067a cpu1 at mainbus0 apid 1: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz, id 0x1067a cpu2 at mainbus0 apid 2: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz, id 0x1067a cpu3 at mainbus0 apid 3: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz, id 0x1067a acpi0 at mainbus0: Intel ACPICA 20110623 acpi0: X/RSDT: OemId <INTEL ,DQ45CB ,00000077>, AslId <MSFT,00010013> running netbsd-5 and now netbsd-6, amd64, which have been pesky wtih X and have radeon cards because of it. There have been occasional hardware issues. But generally they have been fine. 2) For about a year and a bit (I think) I have a DH67CL with a quad-core i5: mainbus0 (root) cpu0 at mainbus0 apid 0: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU @ 2.90GHz, id 0x206a7 cpu1 at mainbus0 apid 2: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU @ 2.90GHz, id 0x206a7 cpu2 at mainbus0 apid 4: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU @ 2.90GHz, id 0x206a7 cpu3 at mainbus0 apid 6: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 CPU @ 2.90GHz, id 0x206a7 ioapic0 at mainbus0 apid 0: pa 0xfec00000, version 20, 24 pins acpi0 at mainbus0: Intel ACPICA 20110623 acpi0: X/RSDT: OemId <INTEL ,DH67CL ,01072009>, AslId <AMI ,00010013> with 16G RAM (memconf): Intel Corporation DH67CL (Quad-Core Intel Corporation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2310 @ 2.90GHz) Memory Error Correction: None Maximum Memory: 32768MB (32GB) DIMM1 CHANNEL A DIMM1: 8192MB 1333MHz Synchronous DDR3 DIMM, Undefined CT102464BA1339.M16 DIMM2 CHANNEL B DIMM1: 8192MB 1333MHz Synchronous DDR3 DIMM, Undefined CT102464BA1339.M16 empty memory sockets: DIMM3 CHANNEL A DIMM0, DIMM4 CHANNEL B DIMM0 total memory = 16384MB (16GB) on which I am running netbsd-6/i386 (because I upgraded hardware with dump/restore and haven't gotten around to switching to amd64). I have run X, but it's a little funny. I've had enough trouble with X on various systems lately that I don't remember exacctly; it might be that after the X server exits I can't restart it. But I have radeon card plugged in, probably because I had trouble with the built-in graphics earlier. Things are mostly ok, and worked with netbsd-5. I am having some stability problems, but I don't think it's the mobo design. I was having lockups under heavy load, with some apparently misaddressed writes after rebooting. I replaced a disk which helped a lot - zeo crashes since. It has since failed memtestplus when run with all 4 cores, and I'm going to swap out the memory, and if that doesn't work just get an entirely new system (this is at work) and diagnose the old one in the background. I use the included wm0: wm0 at pci0 dev 25 function 0: PCH2 LAN (82579V) Controller (rev. 0x05) wm0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 20 wm0: PCI-Express bus wm0: FLASH ihphy0 at wm0 phy 2: i82579 10/100/1000 media interface, rev. 3 and it works fine. I also send 8-bit mulaw audio via /dev/audio to speakers and that works fine. I am looking forward to DRM/KMS. Perhaps Taylor could explain what chipsets are likely to be ok, but I have the impression that "modern Intel" is the first target. I would be interested in a motherboard with at least 4, maybe 8 cores and 32G of RAM, that works with the brave new world of DRM/KMS. And I'd like a few PCI (really PCI) slots still, although I realize that's getting somewhat rarer. 3) The D915GEV is rock solid. I have two of them, and one has been up for over a year. But it's from 2006, too slow/etc., and surely you can't buy one.
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