A-Open i855GMEm PentiumM+1.4 Celeron $89

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:50 am

Here

SPCR article

This is apparently the same MATX board reviewed by SPCR a while back. Good price coming with a CeleronM 1.4. This board can be undervolted, with many other options. It could probably run <40w including the drives. The review makes it sound ideal for a low-power system. This board uses std 478 heatsinks, and might even be run passive with the right configuration.

I've been looking for a low-power board for a while now.....this is it. Ordered it this morning.

Want a little more speed? How about a PentiumM 1.5? Here

AuraAllan · Post by **AuraAllan** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:14 am

Looks very nice. Could be useful for a small low-power server. To bad shipping to Denmark is ~50$

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:52 pm

Bluefront wrote:Here

SPCR article

This is apparently the same MATX board reviewed by SPCR a while back. Good price coming with a CeleronM 1.4.

I've been looking for a low-power board for a while now.....this is it. Ordered it this morning.

Good for you!
It's a great price.

I bought the MB minus the CPU in January '07 for more than double your price, so you're doing very well.

I love the board and the power of my system. It's super quiet too.

crabnebula · Post by **crabnebula** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:06 pm

I am under the impression from reading the forums that one can build a system as economical power-wise by using a desktop AMD processor and almost any AM2 motherboard, especially those based on the GeForce 7025/7050 chipset.

I'm curious why one would favor an older S479 versus a more modern AM2? Are there any specific advantages that you see?

Reason I ask is because I'm looking to build a low-power home server. I was initially considering going the Pentium M route, but am no longer sure it provides the best value for a low power system.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:24 am

FWIW....after some searching I found this MB combo at at least two other places for $89. I did not recognize the names of these places however. I really doubt there are a whole lot of these things to sell off this cheap....

Couple of things here.....Since this board is fairly standard, it is a bonus for me. I have numerous ram sticks that should work ok. And it has two ram slots, whch is a big benefit over the normal one slot on these low-power boards.

I also have a bunch of 478 HSFs to try out. And since it has an AGP slot, I can upgrade the video out of my used parts box. Also....there are the three PCI slots. I was not going to stuff this MB into a small case anyway, so the size of the board is of little concern.

I am not a fan of AMD boards......period. Then there's the excellent SPCR review of the thing. Not to mention Ralf Hutter liked it well enough to adopt it as his own. There should be few surprises to anyone who gets one.....

This is not the fastest board out there......that's not what I was looking for. But with the right CPU, it's fast enough.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 7:25 am

crabnebula wrote: I'm curious why one would favor an older S479 versus a more modern AM2? Are there any specific advantages that you see?

Ultra-low powered system, something from 15~25W depends on system spec.

I've DIYed a AM2 3000+ with MSI K9N6PGM-F(MCP61 single chip, embody 6100+nForce410), it consumed 35~40W at idle. CPU undervolted to 1G @ 0.83V by CrystalCPUID. I found it exciting that, 3000+ is enough for my pocket/need, almost any AM2 boards with Cool'n'Quiet support would successfully undervolt to some degree of your own will. From my experience with Abit AN-M2(7025), Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H(690G), no obvious power wattage difference of them, get one you like it. Some of my friends like S3H best, because it's a full-ATX size board.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:30 am

I don't remember was it you bluefront who dug up Pentium4 EE CPU deal?

In any case, I'd go with something more traditional. 1.4 mobile celeron is simply not powerful enough. FRY's had recently Intel E2140 CPU with ECS motherboard for $70 on sale. Sure, the motherboard isn't as fancy as Aopen and CPU requires more energy, but it runs very well, and performance per watt is almost as good.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 1:30 pm

Good memory....yeah that was me. And I've got it running ok. FWIW....I've been gathering pieces and ideas for my next project, which I've already revealed in a different thread. It'll be a dual computer with this low-power board on one side and a hi-power board/setup on the other. I should get started with the project shortly.

The nice part about this particular board.....you can install a faster Pentium M chip, and still draw about the same current.

Here's the board for $90

Flandry · Post by **Flandry** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:20 am

I was really tempted by this deal until i went back and looked at reviews comparing Dothan to Core Duo (Yonah) and Core Duo to Core 2 Duo (Merom). There was basically no increase in energy consumption per clock at each of these transitions, but a substantial increase in computational power (two cores, plus optimizations, etc). There's just no way i can justify buying a new Dothan board at this point.

If i want an ultra-low consumption system i'll pick up a Via (or maybe the D201GLY2). For any task that requires computational power, a C2D undervolted will be much more appropriate than the original Pentium M platform. Doubly so seeing as how the new Penryns will be even better and run on the same platform.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:11 am

Just so you guys know, and this is no hit on Bluefront, he likes to experiement with older hardware on the cheap. Yes, you could build a very low power system with an AM2 undervolted, but he likes to play around with a generation or two behind the current state of the art. I'm kinda the same way, although I tend to do it on the AMD side of things.

I'm a big fan of S754 boards with Semprons or single core athlons. Only recently have I moved to AM2. Although I just built a new S754 gaming machine for $20 from spare parts all I needed was a motherboard and I found one at Frys for $20 that works great! All Via chipset but who the hell cares. It is a 2.4Ghz 3400+ and 9600XT. It plays WOW just fine when my brother comes over. When i need more speed, I still have my AGP X850XT waiting to go in.

Sometimes it is fun to just do more with less. Still, I remember when Bluefront wanted that P4 EE and I still don't understand that one. Ehh

Also, how come I never see anyone undervolting these Celeron 420's?

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:31 pm

Heh.....that P4-3.4EE setup is running good, and it may be the other side of this 2in1 computer project. You guys have to realize there's no end in sight to hardware development. Your latest, greatest will be yesterday's technology in a few months.

I'm well satisfied with the P4 platform....it'll do anything I can think of doing with a computer. I've enough pieces around here to keep these things going for a long time. And there will be used stuff available forever. This Pentium M computer will be plenty fast when I'm done with it.....probably running on a 50W wall-wart and a PICO.

You can upgrade to a 1.7 Pentium M for about $80 at EWiz. That setup will be 10x as fast as a VIA C7......and cost much less.

flyingsherpa · Post by **flyingsherpa** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:28 pm

Bluefront wrote:You can upgrade to a 1.7 Pentium M for about $80 at EWiz. That setup will be 10x as fast as a VIA C7......and cost much less.

just FYI, you can get used Pentium M's for great prices on ebay. they are generally yanked out of dead laptops, which is why there are so many on there. many sell for $30-50 dollars.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:13 pm

It's time to take the leap to used laptops, guys.

Pentium M based used Dells in the $300 ~ $400 range.

Using RMClock to set the CPU to ULV levels, my used Latitude D400 uses 14 watts @ idle - including the monitor. It peaks at 18 watts with CPUBurn running. Take the monitor out of the equasion and it's 8 watts @ idle and 11 watts peak with CPUBurn.

40 watts @ idle not even including the monitor is outragous!

doodddoo · Post by **doodddoo** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:09 am

Nice find Bluefront, I'm currently using this board as my main system and have been doing so for the past year and a half. Paid ~$120 US for the board and $160 US for a Pentium M 1.73GHz Dothan. No regrets whatsoever. Currently running my system with 1 fan (PSU fan) and using a Scythe Ninja Plus revB heatsink to cool the CPU. (a little overkill I know). I'm currently overclocked at 2.00 Ghz and she's still purring away happily with 48C full load : ) My HDD is a Fujitsu 80GB 2.5" housed in an enclosure, doesn't make a squeak : ) and also running a passive GFX card

Just a bit nervous to get a passive PSU for it now *~*!

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:27 am

Nice to hear from other users of this board. I'll be running a 2.0 Dothan, without any over-clocking. The SPCR article was pretty thorough, but if anyone else knows of any problems, or tweaks, please post about it.

I've been running a Pentium M 1.5 Pansonic laptop at work for a while now. It's lightening fast, and could perform well as a standard computer by hooking up an external monitor. It is totally silent.

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 3:04 pm

These are great boards. I used two of them with 2.0 GHz CPU's for about two years in my wife's and my main machines. No reason really to get rid of them, but I couldn't resist Core Duo and Mini-ITX.

My suggestions--use an XP-90 heat sink and a 92mm Nexus Real Silent fan at the lowest Fanmate setting. It should be close to inaudible. The boards work great with Notebook Hardware Control and will run the CPU's at .70v with the 6x multiplier and about 1.10-1.15 at full load. I think a real limitation of using the Celerons is that you can't take advantage of Speedstep, but as others have noted, Dothans are very cheap on ebay now. I used the PICO PSU with an 80W brick. I hated the on-board VGA Extreme Graphics 2 video (very fuzzy text), so I used low power Matrox video cards.

I think that the later ones will take the 133 (533) MHz FSB chips, although mine wouldn't, because I got them early.

Hard to beat these babies for basic tasks in an MATX box.

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:25 pm

Bluefront wrote:I've been running a Pentium M 1.5 Pansonic laptop at work for a while now. It's lightening fast, and could perform well as a standard computer by hooking up an external monitor. It is totally silent.

What's the model number of the Panasonic?
Doesn't it have a fan?

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:32 pm

Has anyone here who has used this board (I've got one) tried to boot off of a flash card and been successful?

I've tried the steps outlined at this site and ended up with the following errors when I tried to boot from a USB flash card.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2583/mak ... _pebuilder

Yukon PXE v.1.11
Client MAC Addr. -----
Guid.
PXE-E53 'No boot filename received'
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM
Disk Boot Failure. insert system disk and press enter.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:26 pm

Panasonic Toughbook....don't know the #. If it has a fan, you wouldn't know it.

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:18 pm

Bluefront wrote:Panasonic Toughbook....don't know the #. If it has a fan, you wouldn't know it.

Thanks!

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 4:18 pm

Bad news for me anyway.......I got the board today but it has a problem. I get no video most of the time when I try to start. I was able to see the BIOS screen a few times, but when I exit the BIOS the video is gone. I exchanged ram (five different chips), tried two different standard PSUs (known good), and hooked up an AGP graphic card. No change.

I reseated the CPU (it came installed), cleared the CMOS numerous times. Nothing. I did find the CMOS battery was dead, which I replaced. I'm suspecting a bad MB. I don't have another CPU to try, so I'm screwed. RMA time I guess......

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:18 pm

Aw bad luck.

I'm thinking about jumping on one of those $300 1.4 P-M laptops though. I need a box for my music server and this would suit me just fine. Hooked up to a touchpanel and a PCMCIA sound card it should be great. With Notebook hardware control I should be able to get the thing to idle without running the fan, and when not in use you know the laptops enter standby reliably. If I don't get the fan to turn off, then i've got a perfectly capable laptop for someone in my family. Anyone have a dell D600 than can tell me how loud it is?

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:12 pm

Bluefront wrote:Bad news for me anyway.......I got the board today but it has a problem. I get no video most of the time when I try to start. (

That's too bad. Sorry to hear about it.
Please keep us posted as to how you make out.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:51 am

The RMA on this board is pending......but I was lucky enough to get it working for a while this morning. I had intended to reinstall the OS on this new board, but it booted so fast, I didn't hit the boot from cd in time.....so it booted straight to the old XP install, found a bunch of new hardware, and started working ok. Here's a few things I learned......

The SPCR review says it comes with an 80x15 fan on the heatsink. Not mine....looks like the SPCR picture, but the fan is 70x15, so I couldn't put a better fan on it. Actually that heatsink runs hot for the Ambient of 21C, with the fan at 12V.....it idled at 39C. So I put a Zalman 5700 on it using a little shim and a small mod to get the right pressure.....works good. At 1/2 speed it idles at 34C, and never goes over 39C at 80% fan speed (using CPU Burn).

The AOpen fan speed utility was working great. Actually Speedfan can control all three fan headers....nice. There is one header on the board called "power temperature". You plug in a wired sensor, and speedfan will read the temperature anywhere on the board (the box doesn't come with this sensor).

I was never able to find the right driver for the on-board LAN.....the one on the supplied CD wouldn't load. Actually I thought I had down-loaded the latest driver....that wouldn't load either.

I did not flash the BIOS, considering the on-going display problem, but it has the earliest BIOS. Anyway....at least I learned a few things, but with more problems than I had anticipated.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:00 pm

OK...I got it to boot up once more this afternoon. This time I was using a 120w PICO, using the PICO 50W PSU. I had a 3.5" Samsung HD hooked up, and nothing else. I ran CPU burn for 1/2 hr to see what would happen.....ran good. The 12V rail never dropped below 12.2V.

So.....This is without any under-volting, at the stock Celeron M 1.4 speed. Very nice.....proves to me that it might handle a low-power AGP card when I switch to a 2.5" drive.

I was adding a few more programs, and installed one that required a re-boot. Now the thing refuses to start again....crap.

NoiseFreeGuy · Post by **NoiseFreeGuy** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:20 pm

Bluefront wrote:OK...I got it to boot up once more this afternoon. ...
I was adding a few more programs, and installed one that required a re-boot. Now the thing refuses to start again....crap.

Good to hear of your progress.
It sounds like the board is probably faulty though.

cansan · Post by **cansan** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:52 am

autoboy wrote:...Anyone have a dell D600 than can tell me how loud it is?

I'm currently using a D610 and the fan is very quiet, on the low setting, it is easily easily masked by the hdd noise. At high, its audible but very smooth, no whining, just airflow noise. Also, a friend of mine had the D505, and it was pretty much the same, so I would say your chances with the D600 are very good.

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 10:37 am

There might be variability here, either with examples or ears. I don't find my D610 quiet, and when it goes on high, it's like a vacuum cleaner. It's not often used, but I'm planning to quiet it down with I8kfangui when I have the time.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:26 pm

Have you guys tried Notebook hardware control yet? I tried it on my Fugitsu notebook and it decreased the heat enough at idle and load that the fan barely runs at idle and is pretty quiet and at load it does not get as high pitched. You can't control fan speeds, but you can decrease voltage which really helped me. Both good and bad news on the D600. I might just try to recycle some of my old computers instead of getting a laptop for this project. laptops are not very customizable so I would be stuck with whatever I got.

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:56 pm

autoboy wrote:Have you guys tried Notebook hardware control yet?

I use it on all my laptops and almost all of my desktops (which are primarily MODT). It works great, but I haven't had the same good luck you have had on quieting fans in laptops. One limitation is the Core Duos and 2 Duos are blocked from as low voltages at idle as P-M's.

A-Open i855GMEm PentiumM+1.4 Celeron $89

A-Open i855GMEm PentiumM+1.4 Celeron $89

Re: A-Open i855GMEm PentiumM+1.4 Celeron $99