[geeks] Sun to adopt newest Intel Xeon chips for upcoming servers (link)

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 @ 11:18 -0500, Joshua Boyd said:

> I don't use nvidia cards without the nvidia drivers, so I really can't
> say if the problem is the drivers or the card.  The biggest place I had
> trouble was a P4 with a Via chipset and Via onboard graphics.  It was
> rock steady, but slow with the Via graphics, but would lock up, usually
> while rapidly scrolling through either a long web page or file in emacs,
> with nvidia hardware and drivers.

nVidia gets blamed for a lot of problems that aren't their fault.

They provide good reference designs for graphics cards, but some card
makers cut corners and it causes problems that are often blamed on the
drivers or nVidia GPUs.

I had lockup and cold boot problems with my second nVidia card, an MSI
FX5700. The cold boot problem was solved by boosting AGP voltage to
1.7V, and later I found out this is either a bad motherboard or cheap
card components that cause it to draw too much power.

The lockup problems were never fully resolved, and there were other
minor issues.

I replaced the card with a BFG 7800GS OC, and every problem I'd ever had
with graphics went away.

There was never anything wrong with my motherboard or the drivers.

> On a different system with a similar nvidia graphics card, lockups are
> very rare, but not non-existant.  The same system with an earlier card
> would allow the system to be locked up over buggy OpenGL applications.  

Who made the card, and which motherboard?

Do you ever have cold boot issues with the card?

I've had trouble with MSI and Abit graphics cards.

I've had good experiences with BFG, EVGA, and Gigabyte graphics cards.
I've also installed a couple of Asus nVidia graphics cards and they are
fine. Nothing special, but they work well.

I've no idea about the other brands, and I'm afraid to try them out with
my own money.

> A third case, the new C2D laptop with Nvidia 7800 chip and current
> nvidia drivers that I've been using for about 2 months hasn't locked up
> once. 

The 7800 and 7900 are quite fast too. I have a 7900GS now, nearly free
because I sold off some junk to get it.

Of course, the 8800 is supposed to be six times as fast as the 7900.

...and I don't care at all, not one @#$%@#$% bit.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Work for something because it is good, not
just because it stands a chance to succeed." -- Vaclav Havel]