Passive Pentium M w/ i-RAM

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:22 pm

Edited to update on 7/17/06

Power Supply: Coolmax FL350ATX Fanless
Motherboard: Asus P4P800-E Deluxe w/ CT-479 Pentium M Adapter
CPU: Pentium M 780 2.26 Ghz
Cooler: Modified Scythe NCU-2000
RAM: 4x256MB Kingston HyperX DDR400 2.2.2.5
Primary Drive: Gigabyte i-RAM w/4GB
Secondary Drive: Gigabyte i-RAM w/4GB
Optical Drive: Hewlett-Packard 740 USB DVD/CD Rewrite
Video: ATI X850XT PE Underclocked
Video Cooler: Thermalright V1 Ultra
Audio: Creative X-FI

I'm real happy with the Pentium M. It reaches a max of about 53C under the NCU2000. I have the ATI 850 set to 150/Core 290/Mem. It puts out about twice the performance of my 9550 at that speed and its picture quality has better color and detail. Max temp even at that speed is about 95C.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:24 am

The iRAM sounds very cool. How much space out of that 1.25GB does Windows (XP, I'd assume) take up? And do you have the swap file on the iRAM as well or is it on the Raptor?

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:42 am

XP occupies about 800MB. Windows created a 48MB swap file that is on the i-RAM. I disabled system restore to save space. I also set Intenet Explorer to empty its temp file upon exit so that it doesn't grow out of control. XP seems to have installed some kind of lesser version of itself. I've noticed that the back-up files used for windows file protection are not present. XP prompts for the intallation CD when one of the files gets changed (a pain!). Normally this all takes place in the background off the hard drive. In that respect, along with only having ~400 MB of space left for small programs and updates, I'm sure I'll eventually get the i-RAM up to its 4GB capacity.

The 2 year old hard drive from my last system only had about 1.8GB of used space. That was with XP as well. I think 4GB is set to last me a while as a system drive. Perhaps a very long time if Windows' next OS doesn't turn out to be a monster.

Weldingheart · Post by **Weldingheart** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:27 am

Wow,I thought it was a pic from spcr test setup

Is it always caseless?your house must be free from bugs and another little curious things.
Is there any reason for go 4x256 other than 2x512?

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:50 am

My hope is to leave it caseless. It facilitates running passive. I am running into a very high pitched coil noise or something. It's extremely annoying. I'm going to have to find where it's coming from and resolve it or I'm going to have to put this thing in a case.

I bought the 256MB DIMMs because I found them on special, making a 1GB total cheaper than with 512MB DIMMs.

================================

Here is a pic of HD Tach. Notice the 0.0ms random access time. It really makes a difference.

davidstone28 · Post by **davidstone28** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:57 am

Does the i-ram work with any motherboard ie non gigabyte?

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:49 am

Given that he's running it with an Intel motherboard, I'd say yes

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:54 am

davidstone28 wrote:Does the i-ram work with any motherboard ie non gigabyte?

Of course. The only thing the i-Ram uses the PCI slot for is getting power and how that works is fixed in the standards. The communication goes via a SATA cable, so that is a standard too. Nothing proprietary about it; no drivers needed.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:57 am

Copper wrote:I've noticed that the back-up files used for windows file protection are not present. XP prompts for the intallation CD when one of the files gets changed (a pain!).

Put a copy of the Windows XP installation CD (.iso) on the HD and access it with Daemon tools, keep the .iso file mounted all the time, Windows will find it automatically when needed just like any other CD that's present in a regular drive. Sounds much better to me.

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 4:37 pm

Is this an always on solution? .. or do you stop/start it at will and the PCI bus somehow provides power whilst the power is plugged into the wall (n00b alert!)... and the battery is in case it is accidentally/intentionaly unplugged?

I'm in the middle of building a HTPC and this seems like a perfect solution to remove the HD for system build removing heat/noise from the case and use LAN for the rest.

Laslty, is there a way to backup the image in RAM to a backup location? I'm assuming something like Norton's Ghost could handle this .. (and hopefully a linux solution out there somewhere!) .. but is there an option with the hardware/software you get with it?

Good luck keeping the cobwebs out

Arrikhan

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:12 pm

The PCI slot does provide power as long as the PC is plugged in and PSU is turned on, so the computer does not need to be on all the time. The battery is supposed to supply power if the computer is unplugged and even if the i-Ram is removed from the board. The i-Ram does come with an imaging tool, but I haven't used it.

It's a bit warm for spiders to call home.

My last PC was open just like this one with the motherboard screwed to the back of my computer desk with no problems. The layout of my desk provides a nice, safe little hideaway. Check out the remnants:

No cobwebs or dust.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:00 pm

I can't believe it!! This Intel board actually has overclocking. Only 4% to the system bus, but still... Overclocking on an Intel board!

It brings the CPU up to 3.53Ghz and the RAM up to DDR416. Would probably need a fine tuned test to tell the difference in performance.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:35 pm

Copper: Have you tried what I told you about XP?

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:45 pm

I haven't yet. I don't even have another drive hooked up right now. I'm still playing with the rest of the hardware.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:37 pm

Ah, ok. I thought you had a 36 GB connected to it.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:47 pm

I did until I moved it. I have the board sitting up on end so the NCU-2000 cools better. But, alas, I don't think it's going to be able to cool well enough without a fan. I could always try a chimney.

I'm definately keeping your idea in mind. I don't know how soon it will be before I can up the RAM on the i-RAM. Popping the CD in is a pain. At least three programs have already 'upset' windows file protection.

fingers · Post by **fingers** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 7:25 am

That iRAM is the coolest thing I've seen in a longtime! What are your WinXP boot times? Cold start to fully on and last BIOS screen to fully on!?

Also how long with the power off will the iRAM hold it's data?

Cheers

omgy · Post by **omgy** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:17 am

The iRam is powered throught the pci slot even when the computer is off (as long as it is plugged in).

The battery is only used when the computer is unplugged.

Anandtech Review

Mike_P · Post by **Mike_P** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:33 am

omgy wrote:The iRam is powered throught the pci slot even when the computer is off (as long as it is plugged in).

The battery is only used when the computer is unplugged.

Anandtech Review

I think he meant with all power (power outage) off

also, another space saving idea. Change the size of the recycle bin (if applicable), windows "reserves" space for the RB.

It would suck having power go out and having to re-install windows. Can you create a 1.25gb partition on the raptor and have a raid array?

you could use a winxp.iso on the raptor, but you could also just copy the entire cd to the HDD. I used to do this w/ win98 (cab files only) and whenever it asked to insert the win98se CD i just point it to that folder.

fingers · Post by **fingers** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:52 am

Cheers for the link, some very interesting stuff

Up to 16hours with the power off and a sizable but not instant load on the OS boot!

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:56 am

Mike_P wrote:It would suck having power go out and having to re-install windows. Can you create a 1.25gb partition on the raptor and have a raid array?

Using Norton Ghost is another alternative, just put an image on the HD.

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:20 pm

Mike_P wrote:It would suck having power go out and having to re-install windows. Can you create a 1.25gb partition on the raptor and have a raid array?

Write's would be as fast as the slowest drive if you 'could' do that but as for reads, if the i-RAM is the primary in the mirror (are you talking raid 1 for protection?) .. it should scream.

hm..... !

Arrikhan

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:42 pm

fingers wrote:What are your WinXP boot times? Cold start to fully on and last BIOS screen to fully on!?

From pushing the power button till the desktop loads and the hourglass disappears takes 24 seconds. From the time the first windows splash screen appears (with the progress bar) till the desktop loads and the hourglass disappears takes 11 seconds.

A fast boot time is nice. But believe me, you'll really enjoy how snappy it makes Windows. Windows hasn't felt this good since 95a.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:07 pm

I just installed Adobe Reader. What a difference. The splash screen would sit for maybe three or four seconds while displaying all the files that were being loaded as Adobe started up. Now, it's just an instant flash and right to the main window. In fact, if I disable the splash screen it starts as fast, if not faster, than Notepad did on my last computer. This i-RAM is really amazing.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 7:33 pm

To everyone who wants to read PDF files in a fast and simple way I once more recommend Foxit reader, it's like 1.2 MB big and you don't even have to install it!

fingers · Post by **fingers** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:11 am

Copper wrote:
fingers wrote:What are your WinXP boot times? Cold start to fully on and last BIOS screen to fully on!?
From pushing the power button till the desktop loads and the hourglass disappears takes 24 seconds. From the time the first windows splash screen appears (with the progress bar) till the desktop loads and the hourglass disappears takes 11 seconds.

A fast boot time is nice. But believe me, you'll really enjoy how snappy it makes Windows. Windows hasn't felt this good since 95a.

Thanks for the info, real life detail is so much better than media hype

The iRAM seems to be one step closer to the dream of a silent instant on PC but just not quiet there yet, oh well still seems well worth the expence

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:19 am

The review showed that boot time was 9 seconds compared to 14 for the Raptor HD. I think the bottlenecks are either the SATA transfer rate, or Windows itself.

There's a second version coming with DDR2.

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:48 am

Mats wrote:There's a second version coming with DDR2.

"The expected announcement of i-RAM 2 is targeted for February next year."

Damn .. does that mean I have to wait until Feb for a possible price drop on ver1 or decide to go for a faster/bigger solution ?

So cruel ... !

I might just have to let the moths out and dig in early

Arrikhan

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:59 am

arrikhan wrote:
Mats wrote:There's a second version coming with DDR2.
"The expected announcement of i-RAM 2 is targeted for February next year."

Damn .. does that mean I have to wait until Feb for a possible price drop on ver1 or decide to go for a faster/bigger solution ?

So cruel ... !

I might just have to let the moths out and dig in early

Arrikhan

It's 7 days to February, where's your patience?

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 3:34 pm

I have the Raptor hooked up and Doom 3 installed. The ATI 9550 can play the second highest setting at 800x600 smoothly. It will run the highest setting at 1024x768, but it's choppy. I think I'm going to buy a case. The CPU just won't run passive under any significant load.

I managed to get SP2 installed. It was a real challenge given what little space I had to install the update. 1.25 GB just isn't practical. I also used Giga-Byte's imaging software to image the drive. I stored the image on the Raptor, but I have no clue how to restore the image if the data on the i-RAM is lost. Will DOS read an NTFS formatted drive?