Installed an ASRock X58 Extreme3 motherboard, so far the following results:

Linux Kernel 2.6.34

  • basic function works out of the box (as expected!)
  • hibernate (suspend to disk) breaks
    • should work if you unload xhci_hcd (USB3)
  • suspend to ram (mem) suspends, but does not resume
    • caps lock & scroll lock LEDs flash on resume
    • diagnostic LED shows 24
    • pm_tests pass
    • pm_trace hash matches drivers/base/power/main.c:564
  • sensors shows some coretemp temperatures
    • W83677HG-I has no driver (would be needed to read fan speed, vcore, etc.)
  • couldn’t find any controllable fan (BIOS can control 2 pwm fans and 2 voltage fans, but only manually except CPU fan)
  • system clock is way too slow! It lags 10 minutes just after 2 hours of operating. hardware clock seems to be fine though(?)

maybe not related to the board

  • Sony photo camera is not recognized as mass storage unless rmmod -f usb_storage && modprobe usb-storage after connecting; somewhat annoying.

not used yet:

  • USB3
  • SATA3 (6Gb/s)

overclocking experiments

  • can easily adjust QPI / core speed in BIOS.

random thoughts

  • I feared most the northbridge cooler fan; but it is perfectly silent (to my ears).
  • ECC ram works as advertised
  • remember to turn on virtualization features and turbo boost stuff in BIOS (everyone would check that, I guess)
  • direct BIOS flash from USB is very convenient
  • use amidmi or amidedos to edit dmi data