Well, I got the new motherboard and still no joy with the graphics card. Reluctantly, I packed it back up and phoned Scan to tell them and ask for an exchange. But of course, said the CSR; but just on the offchance, had I remembered to attach the power to the video card? The who to the what now? Yes, the card has a power socket on the top that you need to connect one of your PSU cables to. I never noticed (it's cunningly coloured black on a dark blue board) and it's not mentioned in the "how to install an expansion card in your PC for dummies" manuals. (Which is probably why the CSRs know about it) Plug that in and it's fine. It would probably have been fine in the previous motherboard too, although I haven't verified that. I am Jack's cheeks, pink with embarassment.
Still, it's not all bad. This motherboard *does* mean I can upgrade to a faster CPU/memory when I have some money to spend again, and the onboard sound is considerably better than my previous SB128-- the voices in Homeworld 2 now have a nice reverb effect to them :} And I can play UT2K in 1600x1200 with all the detail shoved up to max. Totally excessive. Tried a few of the games supplied with the card-- didn't really like Comanche 4 (not having the manual probably doesn't help there), and developing a love/hate relationship with Ghost Recon. And I have SATA connectors, if I ever find a need for those.
Needless to say, upgrading the motherboard is no problem in Linux (actually it's only "no problem" because I'm using a stock kernel with all the IDE/SCSI drivers on an initrd, I suppose), but Windows XP promptly craps itself and demands to re-register itself with Microsoft. *Before* installing the USB and network card drviers. No mouse or network connection. (And presumably only the keyboard because I enabled HIDBP support in the BIOS, which is *again* disabled by default, although this BIOS at least lets you change the settings in the BIOS without having to dig out a PS2 keyboard, so that's an improvement).
Still, it's not all bad. This motherboard *does* mean I can upgrade to a faster CPU/memory when I have some money to spend again, and the onboard sound is considerably better than my previous SB128-- the voices in Homeworld 2 now have a nice reverb effect to them :} And I can play UT2K in 1600x1200 with all the detail shoved up to max. Totally excessive. Tried a few of the games supplied with the card-- didn't really like Comanche 4 (not having the manual probably doesn't help there), and developing a love/hate relationship with Ghost Recon. And I have SATA connectors, if I ever find a need for those.
Needless to say, upgrading the motherboard is no problem in Linux (actually it's only "no problem" because I'm using a stock kernel with all the IDE/SCSI drivers on an initrd, I suppose), but Windows XP promptly craps itself and demands to re-register itself with Microsoft. *Before* installing the USB and network card drviers. No mouse or network connection. (And presumably only the keyboard because I enabled HIDBP support in the BIOS, which is *again* disabled by default, although this BIOS at least lets you change the settings in the BIOS without having to dig out a PS2 keyboard, so that's an improvement).
