i give up

[Joe Kelsey]

Conrad J. Sabatier wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:49:02 +0900
> Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> what a tragic story.  and zero technical info, like even what your
>> controller is.  best of luck in penguin land.  bye!
>>
>> randy
>>     
>
> No, actually, I forwarded to Soren all the information I could glean
> from Windows Vista, Linux and FreeBSD (which I managed to install on an
> external USB drive).  I also applied the patches he sent me, which
> failed to cure the problem, and have been monitoring the mailing lists
> and CVS repo for any signs of progress, but so far I've seen nothing.
>   
The first step in upgrading a FreeBSD system is to NEVER purchase 
ANYTHING with an nVidia logo anywhere near it.  nVidia purposelessly 
witholds programming information form free developers, so there is 
virtually no chance for being able to make anything with nVidia work at 
any time.

Second, DO NOT use motherboards with built-in video.  These are almost 
always nvidia chipsets and suffer from the nvidia problem.  Also, the 
video is crappy and buggy.

Several people have mentioned reliable internet shops to order proven 
hardware from.  Whenever you walk into a "local" computer store, you get 
no expertise in anything non-windoze.  Go somewhere where you can use a 
magnifying glass to examine the chips and actually determine whether or 
not you are likely to suffer the nvidia disaster.  Write down the 
motherboard information and ask on the mailing lists.  I had a horrid 
problem with crappy SATA chips on my motherboard, and I had to buy two 
different SATA PCI cards before I got one that worked.

Trade in the defective motherboard to get a new one that works.  Think 
before you ever try to buy anything with nVidia logos on it, unless you 
are willing to run Linux crap.

Good luck in the future.

/Joe