BIOS
M3A78-T Crash – Hard Lock – Instability – Time to Switch
Aug 24th
I have given up on the M3A78-T. I wish I could return it, but I’ve had it for several months now. Its simply is not a stable motherboard. Even with the newest bios the board would crash constantly under completely random conditions. There was nothing in the logs, which is because it wasn’t a software problem; something is seriously wrong with the design of that motherboard. I tried everything, but it would not operate stably. I switched to a M2N-SLI Deluxe. One word, STABLE. This motherboard is using the exact same software and is operating completely stable under the exact same circumstances that the M3A78-T would crap out. If you run Linux, and do anything remotely complicated, do not purchase the M3A78-T. I think the board is stable if you are not doing anything serious. For instance I run a virtual machine to host this website, compiz for the desktop, and a variety of applications on different viewports. This is a complicated software configuration that pushes the hard to the limit. The M2N-SLI Deluxe handles if fine!
VirtualBox 3.0.4 DHCP Hard Lock
Aug 22nd
As previously posted there is an ongoing issue with vboxnet0. It is the apparent cause of a system wide hard lock. I don’t think its a hardware issue, although it may end up being one. I hope not, therefore I will be investigating all possible software causes. Given the complexity of my system if can be many many things. It could be the bios, and general motherboard instability; and virtualbox has reported stability issues. It could be compiz, or the the binary nvidia drivers. I will know more soon.
Phenom 1 x4 9650 ASUS M3A78-T Overclocking
Jun 20th
The Phenom chips have frequency scaling properties. The only reason to use this feature is to manage temperatures, if the frequency is lower the processor will consume less power and therefore run cooler. My computer with Thermaltake water cooling would run at 28C – 32C with the frequency scaling option enabled in the BIOS (AMD Cool’n Quiet). I currently have the BIOS configured with this feature off. The FSB is scaled to 215 with the multiplyer at 11.5. The processor voltage range is 1.15 – 1.25 and I have gold series OCZ 1066 DDR2 ram. The voltage for these chips are 2.1, and the timing is 5-6-6-18. Enable 2T and ganged mode. I cannot get the chips to operate at 1066, the computer wont post. No worries ram speed is not a major player in the speed of application launching. The FSB play a greater role. Currently the RAM is operating at 900 Mhz, and the processor is operating at 2.54 Ghz. The temperature of the computer is consistently 30C – 32C even under load.
RAM Problems – Data Loss
Dec 2nd
Recently I tried to installed 2 one Gigabyte chips in my PC that currently has 1 Gig. The chips are PNYs, and are real nice complete with a metal cover. For some reason the RAM chips causes data loss on my hard drives to the point where a complete format was required to re-establish the partition tables. It may be the BIOS, or the motherboard, I haven’t a clue. It really created a mess, and I probably re-installed my server environment 3 times today taking about 10 hours. Just goes to show you that not all hardware is compatible. Obviously the RAM chips may be broken, but how often do you buy a brand new pack of RAM and have them malfunction out of the box. What a day.
Walmart $430 Compaq PC Dual 64 Bit AMD Turions
Nov 22nd
For $430 this was the quickest pc I have ever purchased. I was in and out of the store in less than 10 minutes. Circuit City is at least a 30-45 minute deal, and obviously mail order is substantially longer. I would image Stapes would come in a little quicker than Circuit City, but overall I got a kick out of my stealth PC purchase and extraction experience. I am currently using the PC for this very server environment. It has these great Turion 64 bit chips, which Debian is a scream machine on. The AMD chips have a special virtualization component, which significantly improves the memory managment of the machine. I utilize a virtual server environment for bgevolution.com, and the 1 Gigabyte of ram works nicely with the AMD virtualization component enabled in the BIOS. Overall two thumbs up for a quality PC that was purchased in record time. You simply can beat the accessibility; Walmart is a warehouse and if you catch the right time, and there are no lines your shopping experience will be swift.
Manufacturer Splash – BIOS – Boot Lag
Nov 17th
If you are experiencing a lag that you believe is abnormal operation, before thinking it is a hardware issue it may prove to be software. I was experiencing a lag prior to the manufacturer boot splash; that screen with the press f10 button to configure the BIOS 
It would just hang there and not proceed to launch grub. A bad grub install can cause boot problems. I have corrected certain boot problems with a clean hard drive format, removing all primary and logical partition and performing a clean OS install.
