> * At BSDi, I spent a couple of calendar months (figure a total of 4+ working
>   days, solid) trying to debug a customer's problem with serial ports that
>   would, every so often, just stop delivering interrupts.  The problem?  VIA
>   chipset; he replaced the board with an Intel chipset-based board, and it
>   got better.

VIA chipsets have ISA (no matter onboard or with slots) handling
completely broken. 1/2 of sound cards, 3/4 of multiserial cards doesn't
work.


> * I have one motherboard that will, every couple of months, lose the ability
>   to see hard drives after a boot, until it's been powered down for at least
>   two hours.  VIA chipset.
> * I had (I returned it) a motherboard where NetBSD would, 100% reliably,
>   see the first key you pressed after boot as held down indefinitely until
>   you unplugged the keyboard and plugged it back in.  VIA chipset.
> * The Abit VP6 says it supports ECC, but it doesn't.  VIA chipset.

VIA doesn't say. it's Abit's lie

> * One of the motherboards I have used to start doing the "I have no valid
>   video card" thing after about three boots, until you removed the video
>   card and replaced it.  This did only happen with one specific model of
>   video card - but it also only happened with this motherboard.  VIA chipset.
> * I used to have a motherboard that couldn't even boot with a 5GB drive
>   installed, no matter what it was jumpered as, or how you set the BIOS up.
>   VIA chipset.
> * I have returned at least one or two other motherboards for humorous or
>   implausible failings - all with VIA chipsets.


it's broken IDE controller. normal :(

> By contrast, I have had the following problems with Intel-based chipsets:
> * A machine was dropped 15', such that, after shearing off its mounting
>   screws, the drive cage nearly cut the SCSI cable in two.  A year or so
>   later, the board spent two hours plugged in, sans surge protection, to an
>   outlet that was wobbling between 0 and 60v AC, such that the power supply
>   made a very strange humming sound and a bit of a burning rubber spell.
>   After this, the board stopped working.
>
> Now, to be fair, the i810 and i815 chipsets don't support ECC - but they
> somehow seem to have avoided the problem where vendors go around claiming
> they do.
>
> I'm not saying that VIA chipsets are cheap pieces of crap; I'm just saying

yes exactly.

i'm not intel fan. i would prefer PowerPC or maybe MIPS or ARM based
machine if it would be cheaper and more available.

> So, yes, I'll take slightly worse Intel CPU's if it gets me a motherboard

anyway Intel CPU's are faster in terms of bus throughput. which is often
more important in unix.

> a number of ServerWorks chipsets, and indeed, their HE-SL chipset just sold me
> a couple of computers - because the computers *I* built for trying to run
> gigabit networking could actually saturate a local area gigabit LAN, and
> someone else's couldn't.  :)  (I'm quite happy to say that apparently the

i installed netbsd on STL2 motherboard with 2 SCSI drives. yes it IS FAST!