Hi, MSI K8N Neo4 SLI Platinium woes: more details. The sequence in time is like this, in brief: - bought the board, assemble the machine. - network does not work well, have to fix things manually at each boot - YaST update last week (included kernel update) - network works fine for the internet (second network port does not work but I didn't knew) - Did the NForce update yesterday - Now back at square one, have to fix things manually after each boot, only one port works (now I know because I need it). So here's the story: I've downloaded yesterday the latest NForce drivers directly from Nvdia. These are the sound and network drivers. Before that I did the YaST online update last week. After the YaST update the network always started right. I just booted the machine then I could immediately use the internet without doing something else to fix the network. So yesterday I downloaded the latest NForce drivers. After installing, I shut down the machine. This morning the network does not work. It does not work like this: In any case I do not touch the network cable. It always stays plugged at the same port. Before the Nforce update eth1 was used. Now eth0 works and eth1 does not. I thought they were two distinct network ports. So now, when the machine boots, both ports are up and running, bot have the same MAC address. I have to manually shutdown eth1 (ifconfig eth1 down) and make the default gateway through eth0 (route add default gw 192.168.1.1) for the internet to work. Before the YaST update (that included a kernel update) it was the other way around: eth0 did not work and eth1 did. And the network cable always stayed in the same plug. That's for networking. Then there's sound. The nvmixer refuses to work with "set volume failed" on all controls. I can only get stereo sound. Now, should I got to Creative to get mobo drivers for the sound ? Or replacements for ALSA ? I thought ALSA did all. And then USB. I was 'tolerating' the machine like this for some time because I like the speed, especially with its 4 GB of RAM and smp (recently updated) kernel, but yesterday I had to conenct another device additional to the usual internet router and I saw that I simply cannot use the two network ports on the mobo. They are both at the same MAC and IP address. Can I change randomly the addresses in YaST network card configuration ? Let's try it. I've uninstalled the network card so now it offers two choices: - Micro-Star CK804 Ethernet Controller YaST-suggested driver: forcedeth - Micro-Star International Marvell 88E8053 Gigabit Ethernet Controller YaST-suggested driver: sk98lin None mention nvnet. So I try this: In YaST I change the last digit of the MAC address of the first one and I enter 'nvnet' for the driver. For the Marvell Gigabit I keep the same MAC and I enter 'nvnet'. I close YaST, I restart it, and fine, both have kept their settings... But ifconfig shows both at the same IP and MAC address ! And the network does work. So I try again, this time keeping the suggested drivers. Again, ifconfig shows both at the same IP and MAC address and I have to kill eth1 and add a default route to use the internet. It's getting close to be like some kind of a Windows config nightmare. I've had Linux network problems in the past in different systems (I used to build Linux From Scratch and I plan t eventually build one for AMD X86_64) and always I read the documentations available, understood the principles, and fixed the problem. Now, maybe I can kill eth1 and add the route in a bootscript... (if I'm cynical enough). At the moment I'm surely not thinking about using the second network port unless I unplug the network cable and replace it with another for the device I want to add. It's a bit bad, because time is short, and I need to connect to this other device (a spare Linksys router) to upload OpenWRT to it (direct network conenction is needed for flashing operating system in this embedded device) and eventually spend lots of time to demonstrate the possibility of remote debugging an embedded device. That's for work and it can influence the development of an important project. So I need both the internet conenction and a direct connection to the other device. How nice, I have a mobo with two ethernet ports ! OK, I'm dramtizing a bit here and I can unplug the regular internet router and plug the device and get on with the work without being able to surf the internet for informations on embedded Linux remote debugging at the same time I try that on the device. Then I can go and walk to another machine, surf the internet for infos, print them on a printer, and bring them back to the AMD X2 machine with only one network port out of two working. I can do that and that's probably what I will do. In the long run I don't want to work like that in 2006. In 1990 with Windows 3.1 that would've been all right, but not now. So until further notice I really think of scrapping that mobo and changing it for one whose all components work with Linux (SuSE 10.0 at least). One upon everyone agrees that it is a fabulous Linux mobo for X2 CPUs. One that everyone says that everything is working fine. Surely such a mobo must exist and participants of this forum must have a pretty good idea what it is exactly. Isn't it ? On the other hand, if anyone here has exactly a MSI Neo4 K8N SLI Platinium, could you share some tips ? All suggestions appreciated, thanks !