[Asterisk-Dev] best approach for a new isdn driver mainly for asterisk.. ?!

[tmassey at obscorp.com]

> With respect to your epia motherboard, they do make boards with a single
> PCI slot. I know mark had a pci riser that turned the PCI card sideways,
> and I'm sure they exist elsewhere. Of course the question really comes
> down to then, what case are you putting it in? 

www.caseoutlet.com has EPIA-based barebones systems with the riser card 
and a mini case that will handle one PCI slot.  Price is approximately 
$200.  With the proper case and riser card, they could handle more PCI 
slots:  most 1 or 2U cases I've seen take a standard motherboard and use a 
riser card to allow you to put more than one PCI card into a single 
motherboard slot.

> Also, remember you need stability here. I would not trust that level
> board for long term stability.  This quote would worry me for a must
> work system, "The VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard is the ideal platform for
> an almost unlimited variety of Extreme Value PC..." Usually machines in
> this catagory are more to blame than windows for stability problems.
> Don't skimp on quality especially if it will carry customer calls. None
> of this is saying use only Digium hardware, but you do need to step up
> just a hair on the quility chain than the epia board and USB ISDN.

I can't disagree here.  My primary job is as a computer consultant.  For 
my customers, I only sell name-brand computers, primarily IBM.  Why? 
Quality:  they're rock-solid, and supported with about the best support in 
the industry.

However, we also sell a firewall solution we've built ourselves.  For 
these, we use the case I described above with a DOM.  In that case, there 
are zero moving parts, which means a lot less to fail.  We've had about a 
dozen actually in place with clients, some as long as a year and a half, 
most at least six months.  The number of lockups these devices have 
experienced during this time is exactly zero.  In the same period of time 
I've had Efficient Networks routers lock up maybe half a dozen times, I've 
even had an HP switch crash and need to be power cycled.  But these little 
guys have run flawlessly.

So, from my experience, the EPIA boards (at least the dozen or so I've 
gotten) seem to be a quality device.  There are problems.  Only having one 
PCI slot can be an issue.  The VIA CPU built into those things also needs 
attention.  They are detected as a 6th generation CPU, but they can't 
handle the CMOV instruction, so you must compile for Pentium or lower. 
Also, their speed is *not* what you'd think:  the 533MHz CPU's are more 
like 400MHz (or much less if your code is floating point heavy), and the 
800MHz are more like 550's.  But in total, they are really very nice 
boards for the money.

Of course, YMMV.  Having a company policy that says you will not use such 
a device because from the specs it seems that the odds of it failing are 
higher than you wish to accept is not unreasonable.  However, if you are 
open to the possibility of working with such a piece of equipment, I 
encourage you to evaluate these little guys.  If their specs fit your 
needs, you may find that the quality does, too.

Tim Massey
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