[geeks] AGP irritations

[Kevin]

I don't see it as SGI's fault at all.  When these LCD
panels were designed and sold (98/99) there really
wasn't an accepted industry standard.  Point in fact,
there isn't a 100% accepted standard at the moment. 
Plus the fact that SGI generally is only concerned with
making things work with their own equipment and it
does that just fine.

The x86 issue here is similar to what Dave was talking
about the other day about "roughly" compatable hardware
sold by zillions of manufactures.  It's too much of a
PITA to figure out in advance if what you are looking
at is going to actually work with what you have. 

Regarding the card i'm dealing with at the monet, the
auction said the card was AGP 2x, and in theory an AGP
2x card will work in a AGP 4x slot.  An AGP 2x 3.3 volt
card however, will not work in SOME AGP 4x boards. 
There are five kinds of AGP slots, 2x, 4x, 8x, Pro and
Universal. Some components are backwards compatible,
some are not, some will damage hardware, some will not.
 Some flat out don't work at all.  For instance, I paid
$500+ for a dual PIII Gigabyte mobo in late 1999.  When
i then in turn paid$318 for a GeForce 256 four months
later, it didn't work AT ALL. It turns out that the AGP
spec was not fully supported on this board.  It doesn't
supply the full 3.3 volts to the card.  The result?
hard lockups within three or four minutes of booting.

Of course i'm not saying that you don't have
compatibility issues with Sun, SGI, HP and so on.  I'm
just saying that it is much more rampant with x86
hardware.  At least that's the way i see it.

/KRM

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 14:04:31 -0700 (PDT)
Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- Gary Nichols <gary at linuxforce.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 Jun 2003, Kevin wrote:
> > 
> > > Not to rehash the "x86 is crap" arguments from
> > > earlier but unpleasant surprises like this can be
> > > added to the list of x86 downfalls.  Now i'm
> > > forced to the buy the overpriced SGI adapter box
> > > or another AGP card with the funky OpenLDI (Micro
> > > Centronics) connector.
> > 
> > You can also buy the PCI version of that same card
> > (#9 Revolution PCI).
> 
> I fail to see how this is an "x86 downfall" - if
> anything, it is an SGI downfall that they choose to
> use such a "funky" connector...
> 
> If it really is too much hardship for you to take,
> I'd be happy to take the (presumed) SW16000 flat
> panel off your hands ;^) (I'll even pay shipping to
> ease the pain)
> 
> 
> =====
> Lionel
> 
> "Nothing would please me more than being able to hire
> ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good
> software" Bill Gates, in "An OpenLetter to Hobbyists"
> dated February 3, 1976
> 
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