last updated at 28 Nov, 2002 10:22 (1 times)
Regarding motherboard you can almost pick what ever you want. But, then again, it's worth spending some few dollars extra to get a good board. I've always liked ABit or Asus and currently running with a Asus P4S533 board. What you should check out is what version of USB the board has integrated (since most boards has that today); be sure it's USB 2.0 and not USB 1.0. As bonus most newer boards also has Firewire as well. No support in OS2. But, great to get along if possible (at least if you have a digital video cam). Intragrated audio is rather common as well now days. Just make sure that the audio chip has support from OS2. Asus for example uses rather often Crystal chips and drivers are available both from IBM and as well ported drivers from Linux. Network cards I would try to avoid as integrated part since of driver problem. If you're going to use IDE disks well, there shouldn't be any problem with the major boards on the market. Once again, try to avoid odd and strange brands that you hvan't heard about.Regarding graphics boards; since I don't play games or need 3dfx or any other fancy features I've during the last 5 years used Matrox boards. The have native drivers available and as well you can use SciTech drivers with great result. I'm currently using the Matrox G550 Dual Head board. For more information about SNAP, check following readme file:
ftp://ftp.scitechsoft.com/snap/os2/beta/readme.txt
Networks cards here you can pick from a wide range of NICs available, I've used either 3Com or D-Links without any problem and as well RealTek without problem.
Soundcard, well crystal based such as AOpen AW320 the goes for around $15 to the more expensive SoundBlaster boards.
DVD drivers, well Pioneer drivers would be a good suggestion, even if there in this forum indicated problems - but there are solutions to as well available. So I would say Pioneer. If you're looking into DVD-Writers, you should try to look at following list; but hopefully someone else can help out with DVD-Writers and how well it works within OS2 (suggestion anyone?):
http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdwriters
Harddisks, well only check for the 3 years warranty. As I know of here in Sweden only IBM and Samsung now offers this. Maxtor and others has reduced their warranty down to 1 year for consumer drivers such as IDE. High end SCSI still comes with 3 years.
To sum up, it's hard to give good recommendation. It also depends on how and to what you are going to use the system (more info). But, take a lookse as well at Tom's Hardware Guide. There you will get information about how well boards performance, etc.
/Kim