[PLUG] dual DVI video card

RParr RParr at TemporalArts.COM
Tue Apr 4 17:54:57 UTC 2006


John Jordan wrote:

>On 1 Apr 2006, at 18:18, RParr wrote:
>
>  
>
>>>Have you personally run a 7800?
>>>      
>>>
>
>  
>
>>I have a Dell 30" 2560x1600 attached to an eVGA 7800GT
>>(one dual-link DVI, one single-link DVI) and it is a joy to behold.
>>    
>>
>
>Dude!! I love you!!
>
>Wait ... maybe not.
>
>OK, what you have is what I am dreaming of. 
>
>Imagine, I have asked all over the net trying to find someone using 
>this setup with Linux and got no replies. And now I find someone 
>right here in PLUG-land. 
>
>So tell me more about the dual Opteron motherboard and stuff. I 
>was thinking of going with a single dual-core AMD-64, probably a 
>couple steps below cutting edge, as CPU speed is probably not 
>that big a deal to me. At the same time, I want a pretty fast hard 
>disk. Plus I want the rest of the goodies -- a couple DVD+_RW 
>drives, and maybe even a TV tuner. Standard 10/100 ethernet is all 
>I need and otherrwise nothing special. Do you recommend the 
>Suptermicro motherboard, and if so, which one?
>
>Also, which distro are you using, and is it the 64-bit version?
>
>And do you have any other words of advice?
>  
>
System under discussion:

Supermicro AW4020C composed of Supermicro H8DCE dual Opteron motherboard 
and
Supermicro 645 rack/tower case with temp controlled case/mb/PS fans and 
8-SATA hot-swap bays.
Areca 1220 PCIe 8-port SATA HW RAID controller
eVGA 7800 GT KO video card
Pioneer 110D DVD DL/RW
Hauppgauge PVR550 dual TV tuner
Creative Audigy 2Z (includes firewire port "missing" from MB)

Getting this system up and running has been a real PITA.  Mostly due to 
bad vendor experience exacerbated by bad or misleading 
compatibility/driver information.

I purchased the Supermicro AW4020C barebones system (which contains 
Supermicro H8DCE motherboard), (2) 246 Opterons, and (4) 1G OCZ ECC 
PC3200 RAM  from Monarch Computers.  I purchased as "parts" because 
Monarch could not build the system with the parts I wanted.  I purchased 
the rest of the components from TigerDirect, Newegg, Directron, and 
QuietPC.  I prefer to keep the vendor count down but, in this case, no 
one could provide all the components.  For example, I wanted the eVGA 
7800 GT (to get dual-link DVI) but only TigerDirect had them in stock.  
I purchased my fanless CPU coolers from QuietPC because they were, and 
always have been, very helpful in determining what would or would not 
work in the system.

I now, personally, consider Monarch Computer my "vendor of last 
resort".  There service and support was so bad I would only purchase 
something from them if I could not get it ANY PLACE else.  They are 
supposedly OEM for the Supermicro products but were totally unable to 
provide support.  I had a problem which turned out to be a bad 
motherboard; I sent the system back; after waiting the alloted time for 
it's return it took me days just to get someone to answer the phone 
where upon they just shipped the system back without fixing it (not sure 
they even looked at it).

Once I contacted Supermicro and pleaded for direct support (which they 
readily granted) things were diagnosed and fixed very quickly.  They 
cross-shipped a new motherboard FedEx and things were moving on.

Which got things working enough to discover the (5) Samsung 2504C 250G 
SATA drives I purchased have a bug in their implementation of SATA-II 
features and can not be detected by the Areca RAID.  This is a 
known/fixed problem but requires drives with newer/upgraded firmware.  
It took me weeks, and several calls to the Samsung national sales 
manager to receive firware upgrade software which immediately rendered 
the drive dead.  More calls to the national sales manager and I received 
(5) new drives ALL with the outdated firware.  I gave up on the Samsung 
drives.

The Seagate 7200.9 500G drives now in the machine work just great.

Unfortunately, they only work attached directly to the mother board 
nForce SATA ports.  I could install onto the Areca based RAID array 
using SuSE 10.0 or Ubuntu 5.10 BUT both exhibited such instability (I 
think related to, then current, AMD64/nvidia problems) that I could not 
use the system.  I switched to Debian (which I use on a couple other 
systems) and now have a very stable system.  Unfortunately, the Areca 
driver is not included in the Debian kernels (not even the newest 
ones).  There are sarge install variants available which include the 
Areca driver but as soon as you upgrade your kernel you loose the 
Areca.  Bottom line -- Areca and Debian only work if you are into 
building you own kernel/drivers.

TigerDirect, Newegg, Directron, Dell, and especially QuietPC were all 
very, very good to deal with.

Now, having listened to my home movie, let me say my plans for the next 
system.

1) I will not buy another RAID card unless I KNOW it is supported in the 
standard kernel.  It is just too much ongoing pain and hassle if you're 
just trying to maintain/use the machine.  Every time I have been swayed 
to buy the newer/better/shinier SCSI, RAID, whatever it has not been 
cost-effective to get the thing working and maintain it. The safest is 
3ware which is well supported in most distributions and has been for 
some time. 

2) I will probably buy the Tyan motherboard next time (eg. 2895).  The 
Supermicro people have been very good when I have a bad component but 
there are very few forums or other resources available to get help.  
Supermicro's Opteron products are kind of their quiet secret and just 
not nearly as widely/publically supported as the Tyan boards are.

3) I would highly recommend the Hauppgauge PVR 150/250/350/550 cards.  
Not only are they good products but they seem to be the best supported 
(eg. in MythTV project, etc.).

4) For desktop/workstation system I would probably, at this point, go 
with a AMD64 X2 solution using a DFI, MSI, or Tyan motherboard.  The 
system above needed to include a large disk array and will eventually 
migrate into primarily server role so I went with the more expensive 
"server" hardware.  Probably overkill the desktop/workstation use.

5) Get the Apple or Dell 30"; it is "sell a body part" worth it (at 
least for the development / graphics work I do).  At least make sure you 
get a dual-link DVI card so you can support a 30" (2560x1600) or 24" 
(1920x1200) when you finally get paid for all those blood donations :)

6) If you install AMD64 version (esp of Debian) you will need to set up 
a 32-bit chroot environment;  it turned out to be a lot simpler to set 
up than it appeared at first blush and works quite well.

Hope that is not too longwinded...

R.Parr, RHCE, Temporal Arts
Portland, OR  U.S.A.





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