[plug] SiSsy chipsets

[Kenworthy Family]

Yep - I have an integrated motherboard with a SiS do everything chipset.  Had to
wait until I installed kernel 2.2.12 before I had reasonable sound - alsa had
only limited support (no recording).  Still cannot get the video chipset to go
under xfree 3.3.3 and SuSe drivers - using an old trio card which at least runs X
fine.  When I sort out what's going on with the rest of the box (in the middle of
upgrading to gcc 2.95(done) and glibc 2.1 (to do) and some things are not working
as expected - Licq for one, I cannot get it to compile in socks support and their
list has been no help - if its not standard redhat, no upgrades, forget it) and
get some time I'll upgrade to the latest xfree which is supposed to work with the
video chipset.  Linux support for new hardware seems to lag 6 months unless you
roll your own - only so much time to go around!!
No disk problems with:
hda = Quantum bigfoot 4.3gig - reliable old clunker
hdb = Seagate 317242 17 gig - new, fast, quiet
hdc = Matsushita 12x CDROM
hdd = LS120

Which reminds me, had some problems with an LS120 disk and reformatted it under
windoze (the machine apparently has the required drivers) - can it be done under
Linux - need to keep a dos file system as its used for transferring data.?

BillK

John Summerfield wrote:

> > > Matt Kemner wrote:
> >
> > > Alternatively it could be an incompatibility between the ST and the SiS
> > > chipset "00:01.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems 5513 (rev d0)"
> > > (do people still use SiS chipsets)
> >
> > Sigh. They come out on new motherboards. "Built in 8MB video card," the
> > box says, failing to mention that those eight megabytes come from system
> > RAM _and_ the video card competes with the CPU for the right to access
> > said system RAM. The SiS chip in question has built into it (of all
> > things), a video controller, an AGP bridge, and dual IDE interfaces.
> > Sounds like a car with an integrated radiator, clutch and sump to me.
>
> Well, we've not laid my problem to the chipset yet, and it's not occurred
> for over 24 hours. I did a little tuning with hdparm, and the seagate
> drive's the fastest I have (by a small margen of ther other 8.4 Gbyte
> drive).
>
> My daughter has a system with the same M/b. It'w working very nicely
> thankyou. Yes, we know that the vide RAM comes from system RAM. We don't
> think the odd 4 Mbytes is particularly significant out of the 32 Mbytes
> she has (or the 96 I have).
>
> She can choose the amount of RAM she uses for the video and hence the
> screen resolution and number of colours she gets. OTHO I, with my one and
> two Mbyte video cards are severely constrained; to fix it requires I spend
> money.
>
> I bought my Mb when the previous board died. The cost ($90) and the fact I
> could use my existing CPU (P133) were points much in its favour.
>
> It's true I have a problem now; it's not at all clear whether it's the
> drive, the combination of drives, or the chipset at fault.
>
> Of course, if you're in the market for a TNT of VOODOO, this M/b and
> others like it are not for you. For text display, the concept is
> excellent; I saw an ad mentioning a cheapish card that has onboard sound,
> video, LAN (100base) and modem. For Windows, no doubt an excellent choice,
> especially for SOHO use. For Linux, probably still a good choice, but the
> chances of everything working are not so good.
>
> --
> Cheers
> John Summerfield
> http://os2.ami.com.au/os2/ for OS/2 support.
> Configuration, networking, combined IBM ftpsites index.