On Sat, 2011-01-29 at 16:09 +0100, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: > On Saturday 29 January 2011 06:33:39 Mark Knecht wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 6:18 AM, <meino.cra...@gmx.de> wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > > > when listing my hardware with lshw I find some stuff build > > > into my ASUS Crosshair IV Formula, which I seem not to use > > > and I like to know, for what it is good for: > > > > > These are excerpts from the output of lshw: > > <SNIP> > > > > > but...for what reason there is an audio device in my graphics card? > > > Sounds to me like a bicycle with onboard toaster... ;) > > > > I love the picture, however it is more likely for things like audio over > > HDMI.. > > > > > for the smbus thingy as for the ISA-bridge there no additional info. For > > > what reason there is an ISA bridge on a board which skipped floppy > > > controller and IDE??? > > > > The ISA stuff is likely for historical conformance to the PC > > architecture. Not sure if modern motherboards use it anymore, but > > maybe they do. > > > > they do. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Pin_Count > > > IIRC the smbus is involved in power switch stuff. It's not unlike I2C > > but more simple. > > also the spd-eeprom on your memory modules can be accessed via smbus. And > some > kinds of sensors chips. And a lot more. > I have a new Jetway atom N330 board with an nvidia ION chipset with builtin CIR (Common Infra Red) controller accessed via the LPC and nvidia chipset. A pig to get to work on gentoo, but it does work.
So yes, in use even on the latest motherboards :) BillK
