I got the Albatron K8X800 because it was a second-rated board on all the reviews I read and it had many more built-ins, but now it seems to be harder to find. I had problems with a hypertransport Hard Drive, but it turned out to be circutry on the drive and a replaced HD solved it. I use the on-board SATA, Gig-E,USB, Firewire, and sound. Its been rock solid and all HW I've used is completely supported in 9.0. I just purchased my upgrade and probably won't install for a two or three weeks, however. I really hate to bother it. I don't think its even been rebooted in about 3 months. BTW, this board's specs and price are most like the Gigabyte in comparison and uses the same chipset. On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 13:04 , Laurent GUERBY <laurent@guerby.net> sent:

On Sat, 2004-06-26 at 01:27, Laurent GUERBY wrote:

...

Thanks for any suggestion and/or experience report. I'd like to avoid binary only drivers (no tainted kernel thanks :) and if possible gigabit internet.

Not sure I was clear, I'd like to _have_ gigabit ethernet :).

Thanks to those who responded, so far:

ASUS K8V SE Deluxe => ok (gigabit, 125 euros) MSI K8T Neo-FSR => ok (no gigabit, 110 euros) Aopen AK-86N => ok (no gigabit, not found on my web sites)

Here is a list of socket 754 motherboards I assembled, may be people can complete if they own one of these:

ABIT KV8 / KV8 Pro / KV8-MAX3 AOpen AK86-L / AK89-L / AK89 Max / AK89-N ASRock K8S8X ASUS K8V / K8V Deluxe Biostar K8NHA Pro Chaintech VNF3-250 / ZNF3-150 / ZNF3-250Gb Pro / SK8T800 EPoX 8HDA3+ / 8KDA3+ Gigabyte K8VT800 / K8VT800 Pro / K8NS / K8N / K8NS Pro / K8VNXP / K8NNXP / K8NSNXP MSI K8N Neo-Platinum / K8T Neo-FIS2R Soltek K8AV2-RL

Experience with Althon 64 Barebones and SuSE 9.1 would also be appreciated :)