Bay-trail motherboards

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speculatrix
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by speculatrix » Tue Apr 15, 2014 5:41 am

Lambdatek here in UK have the GA-J1900N-D3V in stock, we are considering them at work for running pfSense, and I wanted one for home to run linux. It seems that there are issues with the board which have turned me off them:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=73518.0

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Tue Apr 15, 2014 8:01 am

If you didn't need the serial port*s*, Gigabyte also have at least one fanless Ivy Celeron board with two NICs, don't they?

speculatrix
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by speculatrix » Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:33 pm

HFat wrote:If you didn't need the serial port*s*, Gigabyte also have at least one fanless Ivy Celeron board with two NICs, don't they?
yes, one such one was in that pfSense discussion, the GA-C1037UN
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product ... x?pid=4762

the CPU is the Ivy Bridge 1037U and takes 17W so isn't too bad, but not as good as the Baytrail-D
http://ark.intel.com/products/71995/Int ... e-1_80-GHz

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Tue Apr 15, 2014 1:35 pm

The one you linked to isn't fanless. There's a fanless version which has a -EU suffix.

These TDP figures are useless. The CPU is sure to burn less than 17W. But yeah, it should be slightly less efficient than a Bay Trail for what that's worth.

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Thu Apr 17, 2014 3:51 am

Both ASRock boards are finally supposed to be available at a decent price (70CHF shipped for the J1900 version) here. They officially support all versions of Windows 7 and regular RAM. They also have a somewhat unusual assortment of legacy ports.

Sill no MSI in stock anywhere so I'll probably be buying an ASRock.

gorkypl
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by gorkypl » Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:06 am

Finally a motherboard that we were waiting for:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900-ITX/

Strange thing (but very promising if true) is that ASrock claims that up to 16GB memory is supported - that would be great news to those of us who plan to use ZFS for storage.

speculatrix
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by speculatrix » Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:49 am

having read of the issues with the Gigabyte J1900 board, I asked the person at Gigabyte UK whether there was going to be a newer BIOS to fix those problems, and he said he'd look into it.

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:53 am

gorkypl wrote:Finally a motherboard that we were waiting for:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900-ITX/
I hope for the DC variant, to be available soon for reasonable amount of money.
Last edited by Jakoob on Tue Apr 22, 2014 5:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

doobree
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by doobree » Sun Apr 20, 2014 2:28 am

As a Heads-up I've just noticed this variant of the ASRock J1900 motherboard on AliExpress with a much more HTPC friendly set of ports...
This needs to be added to the list?

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/IMB-151D ... 80160.html

Two SODIMMs, HDMI, Two SATA and DC Input :)

Rational
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Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:18 am

Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Rational » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:22 am

Hi Guys,
I posted this over on the XBMC page, but have been watching this thread for a long while now and wanted to share the love here too. Actually this thread helped me find the board I bought. So thanks! Hope this helps. First poster, loooongtime reader of SPCR reviews. Especially of PSUs years ago. Grateful.
R

__________________

So I've got my Gigabyte GA-J1900N-D3V here up and running Win 8.1 pro update on the F2 bios without any issues at all. Loving it!

Fanless, silent bliss. 15 watts idle and not much more maxxed out. Got a little 80w pico psu in a little mini-box mini-itx case and about to put it in the Coolermaster Elite 130 that just arrived today so I can use the Full PCI slot.

Running the Ripjaws cas 9 4gb pair with an 840Evo 250GB. Smooth as can be. Really nice little rig. Actually snappier and seems to multitask better than my old Q6600 I upgraded from.

Similar passmark scores. I've got around 2118 on my Win7 that I cloned over from my old PC to this new one using the Samsung data migration software. It worked fine. I loaded the Win 7 drivers from Gigabytes site and all worked great. Here's my passmark result for Win 7: http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V8/dis...2850662080

I'll post my 8.1 Pro results in a few minutes. Should be very similar. I just ran it and got 2079 CPU mark but it wouldn't let me upload it as I had the Rapid mode enabled on the SSD. Will redo and post.
Edit: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=184930&page=14 =2118 CPU. But overall passmark rating is lower at only 203 vs 817. Not sure why. Looks like perhaps the stock drivers that come via the Windows update service just aren't cutting it. I'll install all the Gigabyte drivers and redo yet again. Good to know.

So all in all, this is the first silent PC I can actually call a 'real' PC that I can use for surfing with 25+ tabs open with NO lag. My 2820 NUC couldn't do that as it was only single channel memory and had a passmark score of around 1000. So this is the perfect solution for someone trying to save on wattage and noise like me. I was at 230 watts on my old PC. Now I'm at 15. Awesomeness. Plus it is stable as can be and has an onboard 24bit 192Khz sound card. Can't beat that. And a full PCI slot and two nics. The only thing I wished this had was onboard DC power and an HDMI port. Right Now I'm using a DVI to HDMI adapter. Still love it.

Oh, and be sure to buy a Molex to 4-pin aux power cable if you use the mini-box PicoPsu. I didn't realize this board had Aux power, but it won't boot without it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00066I...UTF8&psc=1

Hope that helps.
R

EDIT: Update. I responded earlier that I didn't see an HDMI audio out, but was just looking again and it is there. Oops. Mod hasn't approved that post yet, but I was mistaken. My monitor isn't playing the audio though even though the green volume meter is bouncing up and down. SO, it seems that perhaps the DVI>HDMI adapter is blocking it. But the OS is trying. I can try hooking it up to my TV later to see if audio is actually passing through and the problem may actually just be my 27" monitor. I'll let you know.
Last edited by Rational on Thu Apr 24, 2014 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Thu Apr 24, 2014 10:17 am

Rational wrote:Hi Guys,
Right Now I'm using a DVI to HDMI adapter. Still love it.
Hi Rational,
thanks for info and let the board serve you well :)

How did you solve the sound? When using DVI -> HDMI converter I guess, there is no sound.
MSI J1900i should solve this thanks to HDMI, but is still unavailable in my country.

washu
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by washu » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:00 pm

Jakoob wrote: How did you solve the sound? When using DVI -> HDMI converter I guess, there is no sound.
DVI and HDMI are electrically identical so you can have sound on DVI. Lots of video cards support sound on DVI, but you would have to try it to be sure.

Rational
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Rational » Thu Apr 24, 2014 2:54 pm

Hi guys, thanks.
I just use the 1/8 inch analog output jack to my amp. I almost never use HDMI audio out on my PC as I don't like the sound from my monitor speakers.
I could try it to see if it works if that helps you. But I'm not seeing an HDMI option listed in my playback devices, so I'm guessing it's not active or possible.

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:46 am

The MSI J1900 board is finally supposed to be in stock here (still no J1800 in sight). Initial pricing is unsurprisingly higher than the ASRock boards.

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:34 am

Guys,
do you have or can you get this manual? : ftp://asrock.cn/manual/Q1900DC-ITX.pdf
For me it is sadly not working...

Thanks

gorkypl
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by gorkypl » Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:43 am


Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:00 am

Thank you. This board looks very good, however it seems there is no HW support for RAID. Is it enough just to run some software RAID solution? I'm interested in RAID 1 (just mirroring).

speculatrix
Posts: 72
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by speculatrix » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:12 am

Jakoob wrote:Thank you. This board looks very good, however it seems there is no HW support for RAID. Is it enough just to run some software RAID solution? I'm interested in RAID 1 (just mirroring).
very few low cost boards have true hardware raid, they're nearly all fake raid. There are some LSI raid controllers rebranded as Dell or IBM which, with some effort, can be reflashed to generic LSI firmware and have RAID1 features restored.

software RAID1 has been quite robust on linux and freebsd for quite some time.

gorkypl
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by gorkypl » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:21 am

I have never seen a motherboard that supports true hardware RAID, which is not surprising if you consider the cost of a real hw RAID card (300$ and more).

All motherboards that are advertised as RAID-capable are using software-RAID. These so-called fakeRAID motherboards use some kind of proprietary software to arrange disks into a RAID.

So, basically, going with some kind of software RAID is the best possible solution - even if the motherboard claims to support RAID by itself.
And if you want mirroring and are using some kid of *nix system (Linux, BSD, illumos), then forget about RAID completely and use ZFS mirroring, which is the best thing available, without any doubts.
Last edited by gorkypl on Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:22 am

I know, that I can't expect anything superb in terms of RAID capabilities from those low-cost boards. I hope for RAID 1 the software solution will be good enough. Actually maybe even better, because right now I'm running RAID card (Sil3132) and Windows aren't able to reach the discs and put them to sleep, nor the card gives any option to turn them down.

I've read, that similar problem is with the RAID controller on SuperMicro X10SBA as well, which is pitty.

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:27 am

gorkypl wrote:And if you want mirroring and are using some kid of *nix system (Linux, BSD, illumos), then forget about RAID completely and use ZFS mirroring, which is the best thing available, without any doubts.
Honestly I'm not linux/unix Guru and for last five years no matter what hardware I've tried, there was always some driver issue or the power consumption was way bigger compared to Windows, therefore even now I'm thinking to use Windows operating system, namely Windows Server 2012. It maybe overkill in terms of capabilities and resource consumption, on the other hands it works :)

I will search for the software RAID capabilities in case of Windows.

gorkypl
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by gorkypl » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:33 am

Yeah, I am definitely not a *nix-fanatic, by any means, so you should definitely use whatever suits you best :) I am sure that Windows have some kind of hdd mirroring solutions available.

However, as there is still some time left before this board arrives, you can check http://www.freenas.org - a very user-friendly, free and open source BSD based solution, bootable from pendrive. Perhaps it'll suit your needs.

OK, no more OT from my side ;)

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:40 am

I hope we arent doing so much of offtopic. I think it is good to notice, that generally all these boards have very poor Linux/unix support and for full performance Windows are quite often the only way to go.

I remember my Intel D510MO wasn't able to run Ubuntu, nor Debian and some tests even showed better power consumption on Windows. Same last year for Intel DN2800MT, where closed source graphic card was used. Sadly manufacturers are still Windows oriented in case of the cheap mass produced boards...

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:13 am

IIRC, washu says Windows software RAID1 is fine but it often makes sense for Windows users to use Intel's fakeraid of they want RAID5.
ZFS is not better than Linux software RAID. It's different (combining features of several standard software components) and it's got issues.

Linux runs fine on the D510MO.
The DN2800MT has issues because it's GPU is odd. What is actually mass-produced tends to be well supported by Linux. And you often have to wait a bit to get decent support on new hardware. Still, I've been running Linux on a DN2800MT for two years and it's been working fine.
Power consumption can be higher, especially if you're not careful with software which has pointless graphical effects. But usually the difference isn't a big deal, one way or the other.

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:46 am

Both versions of the MSI boards are now supposed to be in stock locally. But I don't know if their prices will settle a bit lower than it is right now. How expensive are they in the US?

gorkypl
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by gorkypl » Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:59 am

HFat wrote:IIRC, washu says Windows software RAID1 is fine but it often makes sense for Windows users to use Intel's fakeraid of they want RAID5.
Personally, if I had data important enough to consider RAID5, I would not put trust in any kind of fakeRAID, but obviously it's purely a personal opinion. I have seen, however, dead fakeRAID arrays, that were very hard to recover.
HFat wrote: ZFS is not better than Linux software RAID. It's different (combining features of several standard software components) and it's got issues.
Well, this can make a rant, but RAIDZ eliminates most of RAID weaknesses (write hole issue, silent data corruption).
Also, the built-in features of ZFS eliminate some overhead that would be introduced by adding a separate layer (like LVM).
These days I see no reason to use mdraid - except for the root file system perhaps.

As for the performance of integrated graphics (and back on topic) - the Bay Trail performance is sometimes higher on Linux - see here (the whole thread is interesting):
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?ti ... pid1691324
windows performance of the renderer is half(!) of what linux does out of the box.
EDIT:
For those interested, Asrock Q1900-ITX should be available in Poland in the first days of May, with expected price ~70EUR.

washu
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by washu » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:12 am

Yes, Windows software RAID 1 is just fine. So is RAID 0 if you want that, but it is not bootable.

Windows software RAID 5 is really slow at writes because it does not do full stripe writes. It's not bad on reads, so it can be OK for a media volume that does not get updated often.

Intel's fakeRAID is the cheapest way to get good RAID 5 speeds on Windows. Not quite as good as a good hardware RAID or mdadam, but way better than the built in Windows software RAID 5. It also blows away all other fakeRAIDs, and even some crappy hardware RAIDs. The Sil3132 mentioned up thread does not even come close. It can also give you RAID 10 and/or bootable RAID 0 if you want that.

Let me also chime in that Linux runs fine on the D510MO.

Jakoob
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by Jakoob » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:30 am

gorkypl wrote:EDIT:
For those interested, Asrock Q1900-ITX should be available in Poland in the first days of May, with expected price ~70EUR.
The "B" version Q1900B-ITX is on stock in Czech already (http://www.agem.cz/Default.aspx?content ... d_id;42400) seems to me ASRock already started the shipment of Bay-trail boards. Price is around 72 Euro
Last edited by Jakoob on Mon Apr 28, 2014 11:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

washu
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by washu » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:43 am

gorkypl wrote: Well, this can make a rant, but RAIDZ eliminates most of RAID weaknesses (write hole issue, silent data corruption).
Neither of these are the problem that ZFS proponents make them out to be.

Good RAIDs don't have the write hole issue. This includes mdadam, GEOM, Intel FakeRAID and good hardware RAIDs.

Silent data corruption does happen, but not on hard drives. Bad RAM is almost always the cause, followed by software bugs and network issues. ZFS cannot help there. A normal "green" drive already has more error detection/correction bits per sector than ZFS. In the best case the drive has 3 X the bits that ZFS has, in the worst case (large files) the drive has 100 X the ECC bits vs ZFS. A hard drive is already way better at detecting errors than the tiny bit ZFS adds on top. Another way of putting it, with a typical ZFS block size of 128K, a hard drive would have done 32 or 256 (depends on the sector size) separate checks on the data before ZFS even sees it to do only 1 check. The chance that a drive will miss an error that ZFS would catch is in the realm of "mathematically impossible".

I'm not in any way saying ZFS is bad, just that some of it's features are overblown. If you are worried about data corruption, ZFS will not help you in 99.9% of the cases. You need something above the filesystem for that.

HFat
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Re: Bay-trail motherboards

Post by HFat » Mon Apr 28, 2014 8:55 am

Cheap tapes (or optical) as well as cheap controllers account for a lot more than 0.1% of data corruption I think. Controller badness is especially common in USB gear in my experience. But I guess this is ironically where people are least likely to use ZFS... and where people are most likely to use PAR2 and such.
Can't drives return bad data from bad RAM in their cache by the way? I can't say I've actually identified such a problem so maybe safeguards have long been implemented in drives (in contrast with other cheap devices).

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