Re: x86_64 hardware recommendations/warnings?

[Ian Clark <mrrooster%gmail.com@localhost>]

On 13 March 2017 at 22:27, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Mar 2017, John D. Baker wrote:
>>
[snip]
>
>> At this stage Intel vs. AMD is not so important as knowing what is
>> supported and will work.
>
>
> I avoid motherboards with AMD chipsets. It's mostly just superstition,
> though. I had a helluva time with USB on those under NetBSD 6. They
> basically never worked well enough for everyday on my AMD hardware. After
> having the same experience on every other AMD mobo after that point, I
> basically gave up since the Intel boards would "just work".
>
Just to add a pro AMD experience. I use NetBSD as my home server (for
many years now) and my last two machines have both been deliberately
AMD, because they (at the time) were the best option for lots of SATA
(for little money too; home system after all :) ).

I don't use USB (apart from the very occasional USB stick or keyboard
when fiddling on the console) however I do use 5 of the 6 onboard SATA
ports and have never had any trouble with the AMD stuff.

I previously had a Phenom something or other, but my current board is
one of the early Bulldozer AMD boards which has been rock solid.

As for the GFX, other than it changes to the native resolution of the
monitor on boot (which I assume means the KMS drivers are loading
okay) I can't comment.

Audio/video bits of the dmesg if they're any use:

NetBSD 7.1_STABLE (salome) #0: Mon Mar 20 13:27:17 GMT 2017
        root%ohmyno.co.uk@localhost:/usr3/build/stable/obj/sys/arch/amd64/compile/salome
total memory = 16253 MB
avail memory = 15763 MB
kern.module.path=/stand/amd64/7.1/modules
timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
timecounter: Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-880GMA-USB3 ( )
[...]
radeon0 at pci1 dev 5 function 0: vendor 0x1002 product 0x9715 (rev. 0x00)
hdaudio0 at pci1 dev 5 function 1: HD Audio Controller
hdaudio0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 19
hdafg0 at hdaudio0: ATI RS690/780 HDMI
hdafg0: HDMI00 2ch: Digital Out [Jack]
hdafg0: 2ch/0ch 44100Hz 48000Hz PCM16 AC3
[...]
hdaudio1 at pci0 dev 20 function 2: HD Audio Controller
hdaudio1: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 16
hdafg1 at hdaudio1: Realtek ALC889
hdafg1: DAC00 8ch: Speaker [Jack]
hdafg1: DAC01 2ch: HP Out [Jack]
hdafg1: DIG02 2ch: SPDIF Out [Jack]
hdafg1: DIG03 2ch: SPDIF Out [Built-In]
hdafg1: ADC04 2ch: Line In [Jack], Mic In [Jack]
hdafg1: ADC05 2ch: Mic In [Jack]
hdafg1: 8ch/2ch 32000Hz 44100Hz 48000Hz 88200Hz 96000Hz 192000Hz PCM16
PCM20 PCM24 AC3
audio0 at hdafg1: full duplex, playback, capture, mmap, independent
[...]
pad0: outputs: 44100Hz, 16-bit, stereo
audio1 at pad0: half duplex, playback, capture
[...]
drm: initializing kernel modesetting (RS880 0x1002:0x9715 0x1458:0xD000).
drm: register mmio base: 0xfdfe0000
drm: register mmio size: 65536
drm kern info: ATOM BIOS: B43106_DVI
radeon0: info: VRAM: 128M 0x00000000C0000000 - 0x00000000C7FFFFFF (128M used)
radeon0: info: GTT: 512M 0x00000000A0000000 - 0x00000000BFFFFFFF
drm: Detected VRAM RAM=80M, BAR=128M
drm: RAM width 32bits DDR
Zone  kernel: Available graphics memory: 5734334 kiB
Zone   dma32: Available graphics memory: 2097152 kiB
drm: radeon: 128M of VRAM memory ready
drm: radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready.
drm: Loading RS780 Microcode
drm: GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072
drm: PCIE GART of 512M enabled (table at 0x00000000C0040000).
radeon0: info: WB enabled
radeon0: info: fence driver on ring 0 use gpu addr 0x00000000a0000c00
and cpu addr 0x0xffff80011dc15c00
drm: Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
drm: Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
radeon0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 18 (radeon)
drm: radeon: irq initialized.
drm: ring test on 0 succeeded in 1 usecs
drm: ib test on ring 0 succeeded in 0 usecs
drm: Radeon Display Connectors
drm: Connector 0:
drm:   VGA-1
drm:   DDC: 0x7e40 0x7e40 0x7e44 0x7e44 0x7e48 0x7e48 0x7e4c 0x7e4c
drm:   Encoders:
drm:     CRT1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_DAC1
drm: Connector 1:
drm:   DVI-D-1
drm:   HPD1
drm:   DDC: 0x7e50 0x7e50 0x7e54 0x7e54 0x7e58 0x7e58 0x7e5c 0x7e5c
drm:   Encoders:
drm:     DFP1: INTERNAL_KLDSCP_LVTMA
radeondrmkmsfb0 at radeon0
radeon0: info: registered panic notifier
radeondrmkmsfb0: framebuffer at 0xffff80011df40000, size 1920x1080,
depth 32, stride 7680
wsdisplay0 at radeondrmkmsfb0 kbdmux 1: console (default, vt100 emulation)

Cheers,

Ian