MicroATX Socket-P motherboard?

__Tango · Post by **__Tango** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:36 pm

This is pretty interesting. I had been reading about how MoDT was a waste of time, but now i'm thinking i need to go back and look again.

Just wondering about the MoDT solutions...most of the CPUs talked about in this thread are the T5xxx CPUs. How do the P8xxx and P9xxx stack up from a power consumption level? Can the mobos discussed in this thread be used with the P8xxx or P9xxx? Are they as energy efficient?

Thanks!

darkbane · Post by **darkbane** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:41 am

@Magsy:
What board are you talking about when you say that it uses a bit less power than the Aopen 945 one?

As for the Battery: there's a mode of charging the battery called "float charge", basically the one most ups use: in the case of a Gel-Lead (brick) battery, you can charge it between 13.8 and 14.2 volts and be safe: the gel won't boil and there's no sulfation of the plates. Don't go below or beyond that voltage, and you can keep the battery 'charging' forever (ie: 2 to 4 years, after that the battery will begin to decay)

@Tango: there are very few Penryn supporting MODT boards, that's mainly what's this thread is about.. read it all and you'll find what's avaiable

Bye!

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:52 am

Magsy wrote:Sorry!

They have many more for sale now and I'd recommend it. Mine has been running 24/7 as a full time Windows 2008 Hyper-V Server with AD/Exchange etc.

I haven't had a single hiccup, CPU sits at 8 degrees celcius and go up to about 20/25 under load. (Its in the attic, ambient 8 degrees c)
The heatsink and fan is pretty small, about a quarter of the weight of a core 2 duo oem cooler with a fan at 2000rpm.

I have the Apoen 945 "whatver its called" Merom board too, it uses a little more power but I have a crappy T5300? in there and its overlocked a bit (2x2ghz). I have a HD 3470 and can decode anything I want, 1080i with VA/MA Deinterlacing is not a problem using VMC and Cyberlink Decoders. It can do 1080 progressive in software and most interlaced content, but some difficult to deinterlace 1080i can make it choke without hardware accell.

I am now ready to buy from this seller. Just one question for you if you don't mind, seeing as you are the only owner of this "EcoQuiet" board I know of!

Do you know whether it supports 4GB ram? Because the Aopen 945 boards don't (I have both the 945GMm-HL and the 945GTm-VHL), despite what the specs say - the BIOS doesn't support "memory hole remapping", so the max is only 3GB.

And is there anything particular about this board I should know about? I know the lack of support for 667 and 1066MHz FSB support, but don't know if there's anything special. You know, there's always something quirky about each of these MoDT boards.

Actually I lied, another question - does it do on-board RAID?

To anyone else who want to buy this as well, this is the link -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0360143054
Recently the seller has been throwing in 2GB ram too :O

Thanks!!

audiojunk · Post by **audiojunk** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 2:48 am

wywywywy wrote:
Magsy wrote:Sorry!

To anyone else who want to buy this as well, this is the link -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0360143054
Recently the seller has been throwing in 2GB ram too :O

Thanks!!

Why can't i find anything of this board on the official Asus site?
I have the Asus N4L-VM and i thought that was the only S479 board from Asus.

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:07 am

Because, I think, it is supposed to be used in some of Asus' desktop machines (probably one of those entertainment PCs), and not meant to be sold separately.

ex.treme · Post by **ex.treme** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:17 am

Interesting price and mb. Thanx for link.
But: support 45nm cpu Penryn? , shame that 1066 fsb isn't supported,.
It is new i965 chipset platform - ? compare 945 and 965- which is energy saver ?

Found: i think only Merom support, late mb, but nice price.

darkbane · Post by **darkbane** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:26 pm

Hi to everyone

That board is nice, but beware of some issue:

1) It does NOT have a standard cooler holes setup.. this mean you'll be able only to use the default small, loud included cooler, and most likely you WON'T be able to go fanless, unless you do some dirty work building an homemade adapter to fit larger, P4/PD cooler.

2) it doesn't seem to have any digital output: no HDMI nor DVI!

3) 965 is known to be more power hungry than 945, so..

also, as a side note: the 3gb limit is not an Aopen fault: if you install a 64bit OS (Like linux or XP64) there's no such limit.
read more here:
http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 4:32 pm

Thanks for the info! Didn't know it doesn't have DVI! This could be a deal breaker...

The cooler issue is a pretty annoying one too...

And yes, the 3GB problem is actually Aopen's fault. In order for a 64-bit OS to recognise more than 3GB, the BIOS must support "memory hole remapping" first, otherwise you can't even get 3.2GB, let alone 4GB. And yes I use 64-bit Vista already.

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 5:47 pm

wywywywy wrote:Thanks for the info! Didn't know it doesn't have DVI! This could be a deal breaker...

How about using an ADD2 card?

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:52 am

Yea sure, if one can be found and is compatible with the board... but the problem is I've never seen anywhere selling the ADD2 (not even the bay), except being bundled with certain retail boards

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:08 am

wywywywy wrote:the problem is I've never seen anywhere selling the ADD2 (not even the bay), except being bundled with certain retail boards

At least on U.S. Ebay searching for "ADD2" brings up a large number of unbundled ones. I can't, of course, attest to their compatibility with any particular motherboard.

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:11 am

I don't see any Asus ADD2 there, I thought the ADD2 must be of the manufacturer as the motherboard???
(This is a genuine question.)

darkbane · Post by **darkbane** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:26 pm

Hi

I didn't know about the lack of memory remapping in the aopen bios.. not that this is an issue, for a regular server use (mine just got upgraded from 2x512mb modules to 1x2gb, and I even lessened of 1W the power requirement)

Apart from this, since I run with swap file disabled, I can assure that (with my usage) even 1gb is enough for 'server' role.

Moreover, I've got a board with 1.07TR2 bios (wich seems way newer than the 1.05 posted on aopen site).. if AWDFLASH allows me to dump it, I could handle it to you if you want to experiment with it,

Bye!

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:34 pm

Actually I just found that I have a copy of the 1.07 BIOS stored somewhere from ages ago! Let me try that first...

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:00 pm

wywywywy wrote:I don't see any Asus ADD2 there, I thought the ADD2 must be of the manufacturer as the motherboard???
(This is a genuine question.)

No, doesn't need to be the same vendor. But there is a genuine issue of some motherboards not supporting ADD2. Best bet is probably to confirm this support through Asus.

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:25 pm

Thanks. Never knew ADD2 was a standard across vendors. I always thought it was a common term that basically means "DVI add-on cards" regardless of how or what they interface with.

Thinking about it, I think I have a spare ADD2 somewhere, from the 945GMm-HL...

mietde · Post by **mietde** » Sun May 03, 2009 2:07 pm

wywywywy wrote:Actually I just found that I have a copy of the 1.07 BIOS stored somewhere from ages ago! Let me try that first...

Hi all,

For about 20 months i have two 945GMm-HL boards, one as a desktop with T7200 Ati2600 2x1gig ram and all passive cooled but with 2x12cm fans who are not really audible.
I can hear the stock psu from the cheap Antec htpc case, sorry don't remember the type at the moment.

Another one, same cpu + ram is doing it's doing as a file server, can't understand the > 100watt consumption from the outlet socket though, Seasonic SS300 should be good enough to get the consumption reasonable but i find it's about 40w more than i though upfront.
It's running 2003 server btw.

My desktop runs on XP and i want to upgrade it to Windos 7 by the end of the year and i try to get some knowledge about the max. ram amount.
So far, i understand i could use max. 3 gig and perhaps the 1.07 bios makes it possible to use a larger amount of ram.

Please post your 1.07 bios experiences and the bios aswell if that allows the usage of larger ram amounts.

Tia

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Mon May 04, 2009 1:47 am

Hi.

1.07 didn't make a difference. It is a hardware limitation like with many 945 boards/laptops. We are stuck with 3GB

mietde · Post by **mietde** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:01 am

That's a shame.
But how about the 3gig?
I now have 2x1gig so i could upgrade one sodim to a 2gig which would make 3gig in total but...
I think the board is dual channel so with 1x1gig and 1x2gig i would lose the dual channel feature.
Microsoft lifted the minimum specs for windows 7 to 2gig, being able to use 3 gig would keep it above minimum requirements but i wonder if that would be worth giving up the dual channel feature.

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:09 am

I personally use 2x2GB, as they are so cheap nowadays anyway. Speed of memory doesn't matter to me but amount of memory is, because I run a lot of virtual machines.

Win7 runs fine on my 1GB tablet (Fujitsu P1610) by the way.

Saying that, I think it is about time I get rid of these 945GM/945GT boards and use something newer. 8GB would be lovely, especially as Crucial released 4GB SO-DIMM memory modules last month.

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:16 am

mietde wrote:I think the board is dual channel so with 1x1gig and 1x2gig i would lose the dual channel feature.
Microsoft lifted the minimum specs for windows 7 to 2gig, being able to use 3 gig would keep it above minimum requirements but i wonder if that would be worth giving up the dual channel feature.

I'm currently typing on a system with an MSI 945 board and running 2 x 2GB. XP shows 3.25GB RAM and two utilities show it's running dual. You might try 2 x 2GB given how cheap RAM is these days. On the other hand, I'm not sure dual gives you that much.

wywywywy · Post by **wywywywy** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:51 am

The MSI board would still have dual channel showing 3.25GB, but the Aopen board will lose it and show 2.99GB if you use 2x2GB.

MicroATX Socket-P motherboard?

Replies

Warning about the EcoQuiet

@wywywywy