In article <13976715.1091103014094.JavaMail.ngmail@webmail08.arcor-online.net>,
	Christian Hattemer <c.hattemer@arcor.de> writes:
> I intend to buy an Asus P4P800 SE board. I saw in the archives that
> there were some problems.

I would recomment the P4C800-SE Deluxe because of the onboard Intel i82547GI
gigabit ethernet chip.

> Are the problems with running NetBSD in general now resolved?

The only problem with this board is the onboard Marvell gigabit ethernet
which isn't supported properly by our sk(4) driver.

I've have an Intel D865PERLK motherboard which is also based on the
i865PE chipset and works rock solid for me.

> Is it possible to run this board only with APM and without ACPI?

I guess but it doesn't make much sense. I'm running both of my two
P4 systems with ACPI kernels without any problems.

> I feel a little uncomfortable to run with ACPI for reasons I can't
> fully describe.

Unless you need power saving or suspend ACPI is your friend.

> What about the onboard Ethernet? There were also problems reported.

See above.

> However I have a fully supported PCI card which I could use until
> this is fixed if everything else is working stable.

The i82547GI has a direct 266MB/Sec link to the northbridge and therefore
outperforms *any* 33MHz/32Bit PCI gigabit solution.

> Also, can I run 1.6.2 (not using the HT feature then) or does it
> have to be 2.0?

Yes. Support for the ICH5 IDE hostadapter is available, other onboard
components (audio, gigabit ethernet, USB 2.0) might be a problem.

> On a general consideration, do you think that dual channel RAM
> boards are appropriate for desktop usage where about the only
> CPU intensive task are builds?

Modern CPUs waste a lot of their time waiting for the memory. And a
P4 on a dual channel motherboard simply wastes less time.

> Any other recommendations for different boards?

See above.

	Kind regards

-- 
Matthias Scheler                                  http://scheler.de/~matthias/