Mon, 26 Oct 2020
I breadboarded a Gigabtye GA-8I955X, jumping the power to kick start the process. Boy was that a mistake! Turns out the motherboard will startup and shutdown without all of its connections made to its pins: PW, RES, MSG, HD. Well, maybe it was just the missing reset jumper. Point being, only plugging in the power cable isn't going to get you very far. With a speaker connected, you will not hear any warning beeps to help you identify the issue.
This motherboard would accept a USB-HDD with Debian 6 (squeeze) running Linux 2.6, which recognized the Sil3132 straightaway. However, the Windows XP installation would not accept anything less than a slipstreamed CD. All attempts to use USB-HDD or floppies to load drivers failed.
USB support for peripherals seems lagging. Best to use a PS2 keyboard and mouse for Windows XP installation.
