Need info for Asus mobo

[TonyB]

Hello,
I am considering buying an Asus A7M266-D mobo. It has a sound card on board. How well does this sound card compare with a soundblaster 5.1? Anyone have problems?

TIA

[Hayl]

i haven't looked specifically at that motherboard but my rule of thumb is "get nothing on-board" and use your own components. this way you get to pick what you want to have and aren't paying for on-board stuff you don't want/like.

[TonyB]

Thanks for the reply,
I agree, but this mobo does not come without a sound card. Unless someone knows of an Asus dual AMD mobo that does.

edit--> OR another brand (tyan Iwill etc) than anyone has used that has nothing built on board will work...

[mdwatts]

I have the same A7M266-D with dual 1800 MP's. Built it around 9 months ago and have not had a single problem.

My distros (OpenLinux and SCO Linux) always detect the onboard CMI8738 and load the correct modules (cmpci & soundcore).

Though I'm not into mp3's or bother playing audio cd's, the CMI8738 does sound quite good with my Logitech 4.1 (including subwoofer) speakers.

I changed the jumpers on the A7M266-D to allow front and rear speaker output along with the subwoofer and all the speakers work.

The included USB2.0 PCI card was detected and the correct ehci-usb (USB2.0) module is automatically loaded on boot (the onboard USB has problems and was disabled on mine).

[TonyB]

Thanks for the reply mdwatts. Thats the info I needed.

edit--> can the USB2.0 card use 1.1 printers,cameras etc?

[mdwatts]

Yes as it should be backward compatible with USB1.2.

I'm quite pleased with the A7M266-D and may get another as I want to setup a OpenUnix 8.0 server soon.

[TonyB]

Thanks mdwatts fot the info