ASRock M3A780GXH/128M

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ASRock M3A780GXH/128M

Back in April we reviewed the ASRock X58 SuperComputer and found it to be a phenomenal motherboard for use with Intel Core i7 processors. While ASRock is regarded as being a budget manufacturer, this affordable Intel X58 motherboard could overclock quite far, ran well with Linux, and offered a great set of features. While that was a very nice Intel product, how are ASRock's current offerings on the AMD side? In this review we have our hands on the ASRock M3A780GXH/128M to see how well this AM3 Socket motherboard with a 780G + SB710 Chipset performs under Linux.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13992

[tmpdir]

Thats dissapointing... wanted this board for my new system.

Anyone suggestions on how to get it working with ubuntu 9.04?

Searching gave me no answers for now. Will look into it later when I have more time.

[bridgman]

I guess the question is which component on the mobo needs the new kernel to work. It doesn't seem to be NB/SB since those work fine with 2.6.28 AFAIK.

[tmpdir]

Thanks bridgeman... when reading the article I assumed it was not the northbridge, this shoud be easy enough to bypass and he was using an pci card. The Southbridge i've indeed seen working on linux before.

Probably have more time this weekend, so this should make an nice puzzle... debugging a board I don't own and can't find any handson experience about on the internet and to make things even worse michael didn't get it to work either.

so guys all suggestion are welcome and needed :D

[tmpdir]

Just an update: decided to go for an different board with support for linux.

[RonJohn]

Based partly on this review, I just purchased and installed the similar A780GXE/128M.

However, the AHCI BIOS only sees 4 of my 5 SATA devices, and, of course, the one it doesn't see is my boot device. Of course, even if it saw that one, that would mean it didn't see one of the other devices, which is almost as bad.

And it wouldn't even boot from CD without me disconnecting my one PATA HDD.

So, unless ASRock tech support finds something I've missed, this board is going to have to RMA.

[tmpdir]

short time ago I contacted asrock tech support about this motherboard and the posibility to get it running under ubuntu 8.04. Besides the fact they where open to suggestions to update the bios to improve linux support, they also tested it under ubuntu 8.04 and told me it works with ubuntu 9.04.

here is the relevant part of their message:

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Could you please ask the user to install Ubuntu 9.04 under AHCI mode?
We tested it and the system looks fine .

Audio test --- pass
Network test ---- Pass

System configuration:
CPU : AM3-550
DRAM : Kingston DDR3-1333-1G
VGA : Onboard
HDD : WD-SATA2-1TB
DVD-ROM : ASUS DVD-RW
Power Supply : 850W

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Maybe this should be added to the article for future reference?