The difference between bricks and meters would be better ascertained if you were to take software out of the equation IMO. The BIOS or the MeeGo read-only environment would do this. You'd only have a one or two version numbers to control. But sample variance would remain...

Ok, I have finally managed to do the test series with MeeGo 1.2 (installed on the SSD just like the other OSes). MeeGo with it's binary proprietary xorg driver fore CedarView Atoms draws noticeably less power than the other Linux distros, but still slightly more than Win7.
Please see detailed results in the article. I have also added my final conclusions.

Thanks for your detailed measurements. Now we know (almost) exactly what difference the drivers makes.
It's surprising how much power the NIC draws considering this is a low-power board by the way.

Yes, I was surprised about that too, the difference between having an ethernet cable plugged in with a gigabit ethernet connection established to unplugging the cable is consistently 1.3/1.4 Watts with every OS I tested.

I wouldn't have expected that given that the TDP declared by Intel is only 0.727 W.
http://ark.intel.com/products/32209/Int ... Controller

I guess that proves again that TDP isn't equal to real life power draw.

Edit: actually thinking about it a network link involves a few more components, like for example the line filter (which is built into the RJ45 socket on the DN2800MT). I have no idea how much those peripheral components add to the power consumption.

TDP is how much heat a heatsink/cooling solution needs to dissipate. The actual power draw will always be at least the TDP. Not all power draw is wasted as heat; depending on the efficiency of the device, some or most of the power will be doing "real work" (as opposed to just making heat). Consider that the NIC is actually putting some current on the cable itself.

Also consider that the power supply which ultimately provides power to the Ethernet controller is not 100% efficient. So here is another factor that contributes to measured power draw being higher than TDP.

Actually that's a common misunderstanding. Electrical energy can only be transformed into heat (to be more precise radiation of some kind, not just heat), light (this is actually radiation too), chemical energy or motion or any combination of these.
Since integrated circuits (at least Ethernet controllers) don't generate motion or light and don't store energy chemically (capacitors do that) ALL power they use will be transformed into heat (to be more precise there is some electromagnetic radiation too, but that's not really relevant here). The work they do is simply a side effect but cannot 'use up' power by itself as that would contravene the law of conservation of energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy


These are certainly valid points.

You know, I always wondered about that. And what you say confirms my suspicions and makes sense: in the case of an IC, "real work" and "making heat" are effectively synonymous, right?

Although, to be semi-serious/semi-smarty-pants, in an IC, aren't we technically creating motion---the motion of pushing electrons around? Or I suppose "electrical energy" and "moving electrons" are really the same thing... so maybe saying that we're changing electrical energy into moving electrons is like saying we're turning water into H2O.

My electricity & magnetism class was too many years ago and even then I didn't get a very good grade.

Yes (please consider I'm certainly not the ultimate expert about this either but this is what I was told by someone who is an expert and it makes sense to me at my level of expertise).


Well this is certainly beyond my level of expertise! That said I really should have used the term 'kinetic energy' rather than 'motion' and I don't think the movement of electrons is considered kinetic energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

Anyway I think we are drifting OT here...

About linux graphics driver:



source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTA3ODU

hopefully...

I've managed to get the xorg driver from meego to work in fedora 16 kde spin.
I had to patch the original release kernel (not the latest fedora kernel update) to include the cedarview drm module, uninstall the fedora xorg server and drivers and install the meego xorg server and cedarview xorg driver.
Graphics acceleration and video seem to be working fine.
XBMC gives a black screen, probably because GL isn't fully implemented yet.
I can give more details and upload the kernel rpms if anybody wants them.

Interesting, thanks for reporting it. This is something I thought would be possible but didn't try due to lack of time.
The problem with this is though that you are stuck with specific versions of the kernel and xorg, without any easy possibility of applying security updates (other than rebuilding everything yourself each time).

I wish Intel would at least provide the binary driver like nvidia does, as a tarball that works with multiple kernel and xorg versions due to some open source glue code that gets built at install time.

The DN2800MT I received was opened and came with an empty ziplock bag.
Did anything useful (cable, adapter, accessory) come with yours apart from the SATA cables and the I/O shields?

I noticed s2ram -f disabled my video output.
Do you get the same thing and does that lower the power consumption (I don't have any decent power meter)? In that case, I guess one should suspend and resume after rebooting.

There was a BIOS update in the meantime by the way. The documentation mention something about "power sequence control" as well as LVDS but I doubt an update would do anything.

Hi!

I would really appreciate any help on getting the dn2800mt to work under Linux (preferably ubuntu, not MeeGo). My email is phil@philtroy.com. I have a 1920x1080 driver and it only displays 1280x1024 (which is the only fix I need right now).

THANKS . . .

Phil Troy

I got a CD (with drivers and manual, never actually used it as I downloaded the latest drivers from intel.com) a sticker showing the MB layout and ports, two sata cables, a sata power cable and two I/O shields (half and full height).

Mine was unpackaged too as I bought the Bulk version.

Hope this helps.

I can't currently do any tests with my DN2800MT, but will check this as soon as I can.

What do you mean by "I have a 1920x1080 driver", did you actually mean you have a monitor with 1920x1080 native resolution or what else?

I have no experience with Ubuntu, but with Mageia 2 the DN2800MT should work out of the box with your monitor.

Which version of speedfan are you using?
According to the history page speedfan should fully support the Nuvoton W83627DHG chip.

Sure. Now I know I'm not missing anything.
I also got the bulk version but the boards' seal was broken. It seems someone decided to examine or test the board... and left a ziplock bag behind. No biggie.

PhilTroy,
I haven't looked into the graphics and I'm not planning to but I've got a 1080p display on hand and could follow linuxman's instructions to test something if you need me to.

lm_sensors is apparently supposed to suport the chip and I still get a 111C reading. The BIOS also doesn't report the CPU temperature. So the bogus 111C might not be fixed by W83627DHG support.
You can get core temperatures anyway and another temperature (probably the one the BIOS calls VRM temperature) is a decent proxy for core temperatures.
My board's reported temperatures seem reasonably calibrated by the way (based on readings right after resuming from hours of standby to RAM and to disk).

I don't think you'll need a fan. The board is supposed to get fairly hot according to the documentation. I'll post some temps which could be useful to others.
maximum temperatures while crunching for Einstein on a DN2800MT without graphics drivers positioned vertically in a relatively poor fanless case (Morex T3310) stored in an unventilated cabinet with not much room for hot air above the case and ambient around 21C: core0 66C, core1 61C, winbond1 (memory?) 50C, winbond3 (VRM?) 63.5C

Hi!

I would appreciate whatever help you can offer. Specifics on my side include:

- a dn2800mt board with a samsung 64gb solid state drive

- many different versions of ubuntu, plus meego, plus mageia

- an acer t230h (1920x1080) display as well as a va2333-led viewsonic display.

What I ultimately wish to do is to run the acer t230h at 1920x1080 with the dn2800mt, preferably on 64 bit lubuntu. If I get that successful I wish to next get the acer t230h touch screen capabilities to work as well.

I have tried the following:

- Lubuntu 11.10 and 12.04 (beta) with the acer t230h - only 1280x1024 resolution

- Meego with acer t230h - 1920 x 1080 resolution (but I do not want to run meego; I prefer to be in a debian/ubuntu 64 bit environment environment running lxde (after all the dn2800mt is not a fast processor)

- I tried maegia 2 beta 2 (please forgive my spelling) but obtained 1280x1024 resolution

- I tried Lubuntu 11.10 (or 12.04 beta I don't remember) with the viewsonic monitor and it found 1600x1200; when I switched cables back to the acer it kept that resolution but when I rebooted it was back to 1280x1024

- I am trying now i(in a few minutes) to install cedarview-graphics-drivers-20120314-Oubuntu1_i386.deb (found on launchpad.net) on top of lubuntu 11.10 i386 mode (I would prefer amd64 but at this point in time I will try anything)

- I even emailed Alan Cox at Intel to find out about the open source driver he is working on but from what I could tell from his reply it is very limited.

- I tried many different xorg.conf files but at best kept the 1280x1024 resolution

I think that part of the issue is that when I try to use xrandr it tells me it cannot determine gamma; I think that the dn2800mt with the default drivers just cannot access the monitor; whereas the proprietary drives (used in MeeGo) can and do.

I would appreciate any help you guys can offer.

Thanks . . .

Phil Troy

P.S. Linuxman - in my first post, you are correct, I meant that the display has a native 1920x1080 resolution, but when attached to the dn2800mt with lubuntu (and others except MeeGo) mostly only gives me 1280x1024 (except for the one time I got 1600x1200, which still isn't native resolution).

THANKS . . .

Phil Troy

With Mageia 2 beta 3 try to append video=1920x1080@60 video=LVDS-1:d to the grub kernel line.

Also you will need to add an xorg.conf file with a suitable modeline since X doesn't seem to recognise the native resolution of your display.

Here is my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file that I used with Mageia 2, you will need to change the modeline and the resolution settings to match yours: http://pastebin.com/X7mpEF3x
One of the following modelines might work (I found these on the web with a quick search):

# 1920x1080 @ 60Hz:
Modeline "1920x1080_60" 172.798 1920 2040 2248 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -hsync -vsync
Modeline "1920x1080_60" 138.500 1920 1968 2000 2080 1080 1083 1088 1111 +hsync -vsync

Here are some more in case none of the above work:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Modeline_Dat ... A_ModePool

If you run into problems, have a look at the X log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Edit to add: the kernel in Lubuntu 12.04 is too old, you need at least the 3.3.0 kernel for the Cedarview framebuffer driver. With Lubuntu all you will get is plain Vesa framebuffer. That's why I recommend Mageia 2 as Mageia uses the 3.3.0 kernel.

According to the TPS they still recommend having a fan inside the case.

Btw, after watching the 3DMark in this video i'm a bit concerned about casual gaming performance. So i'd like to ask user reports about:
 - old games using DirectX <= 8 (e.g. from GOG.com)
 - 3D console emulators (e.g. Project64, ePSXe, etc.)
- Flash/Java games

You're misrepresenting the document. They even tell you want type of fanless case to use (with the stock heatsink) and give you a maximal ambient temperature for one such case.
They only recommend a fan "for best thermal performance". That much was obvious.


Obviously this is not a gaming board so no one may have used it for gaming (even casually). Maybe someone played a couple of games on a laptop with the same CPU.
3D performance is going to depend on the GPU driver you're using and therfore on your OS. You should be a lot more specific (OS, specific free games and settings you're interested in) if you want people to test something for you...
In the future, I hope driver availability is going to improve and make gaming a bit more practical on this board. If the Windows 8 RC was released with good support for the GPU for instance, it would be easier for people to test gaming performance.
If you want to run arbitrary "casual" games on a low-power board, I recommend looking at Zacate board such as one of the Zotacs which has a decent fanless heatsink or one of the MSIs which is pretty efficient.

There is a ppa repository with drivers for ubuntu 12.04 in here: http://ppa.launchpad.net/sarvatt/cedarview/ubuntu/

I've managed to get accelerated X working in Ubuntu 12.04 with these steps:

Would be OK as a small, low power file server, but until Intel quits their practice of purposely crippling the onboard graphics in Atoms and their chipsets, I'll be sticking with AMD Brazos (E-450, etc.) boards for entry level low powered desktop systems. Comparable computing power, and _much_ better graphics, You can pretty easily run them fanless in a well ventilated case.

I knew AMD Fusion is a better choice for gaming,
btw i think if this mobo is capable of some casual gaming is still worth the money because of the more powerful CPU with HT support.

Have you tried some 2d console emulators (like Nestopia) that makes little use of the GPU?

The CPU is hardly more powerful. It's a very low-power mobile version.

While you could in principle run old 2D stuff just fine, emulators can be demanding. A quick Google reveals that some people are using more powerful CPUs for Nestopia in order to get more accurate emulation.
But you could definitely run ancient PC games as well as games written for platforms that are easier to emulate. It's just that you'll have less issues with drivers and you'll be able to run more games with a different board. You still didn't tell the OS you want to run but it's fair to say that at the time being the only OSes which are going to make it easy for you to play games on this are Windows Vista 32 bit and Windows 7 32 bit.