Search for a PC for the next 10 years

[Guillaume Gay]

Bonjour to all!

I jump into the bandwagon for a slightly off-topic message WRT hardware. I am too lazy to open a new topic just for this. my apologize to Guzzi!
I am in the search for a PC for the next 10 years  and I might opt for an MSI X570-A Pro Motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU.

This spec can of course fit any Linux distro out there hands down and even... Windows 10, if I really (REALLY) wanted to.  I could run any OS in a VM but I wonder if ArcaOS could run on this hardware?  I also planned to add a cheap (and fanless) Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 - 2 Go to it just to be sure to have the choice for a display connection.

What do you think? Has anyone tested this?
--
Guillaume GAY

[Pete]

Hi Guillaume

As a result of "Googling" for X570-A Pro I see that Asus and MSI both produce that model number, both using the AMD X570 chipset. If Asus had not added shielding to chipset and rear panel outputs it would be difficult to spot the difference between the boards. Gigabyte also has X570 mainboard variants.

CSM: MSI definitely has a CSM option in the BIOS which I think is still need to boot ArcaOS;.
           I suspect the Asus and Gigabyte boards have but best to check.

USB: USB2 ports should be useable - may be even USB3 in the near future

SATA: should not be a problem

Video: Whether using "On Ryzen" GPU or separate video card your choice is SNAP or Panorama drivers in VESA mode I believe

Audio: Hopefully will work with uniaud drivers

LAN: MSI uses Realtek 8111 which should work with the multimac drivers
          Asus uses Intel I211-AT - no idea if this is currently supported, Sorry.
          Gigabyte uses Intel GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) - no idea if this is currently supported, Sorry.


So, for the Asus and Gigabyte boards you need to check that it has BIOS CSM support and whether there is a driver available for the Intel nics used.


Maybe our resident "Ryzen expert", ivan, can add a little more to the above.

You could email AN to ask about Intel LAN driver support if no-one else can answer here.

The MSI board *looks* like it should work with minimum faffing - shame as I usually prefer Asus or Gigabyte boards myself.


Hope the above is of some help
 
Pete

[Guillaume Gay]

Thanks Pete for the (quick) answer!

I indeed made a mistake in the specification of the mainboard: it's a MSI.  I just checked the invoice and corrected my original message.  Oh! I probably left one or two typos for you all to review, though.

So I should be on the "lucky path" with the motherboard.  I of course checked the NIC (Realtek RT 8111), since adding a good old 3COM PCI NIC isn't an option anymore. Wasn't that the good old time(r)? 

For the video, I deliberately chose a Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 that ought to support VESA standards, hopefully. And again it's fanless, so it's silent.

Well guys we'll see in a week (or a bit more due to the confinement). I just hope I'll find the time to test ArcaOS installation as quick as possible.
Some will say I could spend less time on #netlabs IRC.  I'd answer them just

Take care you all.
--
Guillaume GAY

[ivan]

Hi Guillaume,

While I don't have that MSI board I do have an MSI A320M Pro-VD Plus using a Ryzen 3 2200G that runs ArcaOS with very few problems.

Lan works without problems
In my case video works VGA, DVI-D using the Panorama driver into a 28 inch 1920x1200 monitor. I have an ASUS board with HDMI whivk also works.
SATA also works, even for a DVD drive.

The BIG problem is the USB ports.  Despite what is marked as USB 2 they require the USB 3 driver which we don't have (USB2 uses a pass through of the USB 3 chipset) so a real USB 2 addin card is needed if you want to use anything USB, keyboard, mouse/trackball, USB stick, etc. (StarTech PEXUSB4DP works but only after the OS has booted therefore you can't boot from it).

You may find that you need a bit of ingenuity to get ArcaOS installed if you don't have a SATA DVD attached to the MB.

Any problems just ask.
 

[Matt Walsh]

Just updated a  Arca 5.04 computer to an ASRock B450 -HDV r4.0 motherboard Ryzen 5-00 with 8 gig Ram. Video is a VisionTek card with 2gig Ram & Radeon 5400. Started OK and network connects right away. I use PS/2 KB & Mouse, so OK.  No USB at present. Made a 4 gig Ram Drive (G:) which works.
Haven't checked sound yet.  Airboot seems to have an issue on an SSD, but a metal SATA boots fine.

Does anyone know what all the AMD bios settings are for? Is hyperthreading OK.  I am trying to turn them on & off to see what works, but any help appreciated.
Matt W.

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

3.5 GB is much. Be happy with that.

Hyperthreading must be switched off for stability. See https://www.arcanoae.com/?s=hyperthreading. That's probably also mentioned somewhere in the ACPI docs.

[Dave Yeo]

It's the Intel Hyper threading that is broken if the scheduler (all older OSes including OS/2) doesn't understand it, I believe the AMD does work but you can test.

[Martin Iturbide]

Note: I split the topic.

Ivan: I updated the wiki page with your comments (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/MSI_A320M_Pro-VD_Plus). Please let me know if the audio works and if there is any trick on config.sys or unimix.

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

Just updated a  Arca 5.04 computer to an ASRock B450 -HDV r4.0 motherboard ...

Hi Matt

Thanks Matt. I created a draft wiki page with the info you posted.

Can it please be possible for you to share here the PCI.exe and LSUSB report of this mainboard to include it on the OS2World wiki?  I have this article explaining how to use PCI.exe and LSUSB just in case.

Regards

[ivan]

Hi Martin,

Rather than fight with the multiple adapters that this board has (HD audio, hdmi audio and some sort of generic audio) I just use a C-Media Unitek Y247A USB audio adapter with a bluetooth transmitter attached to allow me to use headphones.

The first 3 attachments should be self explanatory, the last (mix.txt) is the output from unimix.