If you give up the HTPC requirement, consider an Alix board from PCEngines, such as the alix1d . I have an Alix board that I use for my firewall/router/gateway; it only consumes 5 watts AC. The 1d I linked has a two USB ports, so you can connect two external hard drives. Or, it also has a PCI slot, ...

Anyway, I haven't had time to finish digging into the "maximize parked head time in linux" problem, but you can see the discussion I started on the Linux-RAID mailing list here: "linux disk access when idle" . It's odd that the drive heads should reactivate after 5 mins. My RAID5 array spins down a...

Not sure how your drives are used. But, I believe you can get the OS to not access those drives when idle by revising your file system setup. Looking at your server setup, I think that you might have some system directories living on these drives eg /var, /tmp, or swap. CentOS and distros based on ...

I just thought I'd update this to say that I've had the system running stably for a few weeks now. With the Biostar A760G motherboard, 5050e CPU (stock voltage/speed, but using OS-based frequency scaling), 2 x 2 GB of DDR2-5300 ECC RAM, boot from compact flash, four 1 TB WD RE-2 Green drives, Season...

I've always been curious, though: even if the BIOS doesn't explicitly support ECC, but the CPU does, what happens if you use ECC memory? Maybe it actually does "just work" behind the scenes? I found this page with some Linux ECC utilities (and I'd be surprised if something similar didn't exist for ...

Re: ECC memory ... how do you know if you need registered or non-registered? [EDIT] Rather, how do I find out what this board accepts? Or does it not matter? ECC nonregistered kits are not expensive at all... I use non-registered. How I know that... I actually didn't put any thought into it; I alre...

I was also looking for boards with ECC support, and I found Asus is the only manufacturer that makes non-server boards with ECC support. It's good to know that the Biostar also supports ECC, but it seems it's the only one that has ECC support. I'm planning to go with nvidia 8200 because of their be...

I'm using a Biostar A760G motherboard plus a 5050e CPU. See detailed info in this thread.

I just read through the manual of the Biostar A760G-M2+ and have a question now: is the default RAM voltage really 1,95V? It seems to be pretty high compared to other boards (1,8V). Or is it just an old bios version? Is it possible to undervolt the RAM or get it at least down to 1,8V? Yes, that's a...

Look for the common wire color--usually black or white. Then they change the positive wire color on all the various connectors. Quiz time, you have 4 case headers: wire colors are black/red, black/green, black/blue, and black/yellow. Which color is the negative? Black! Edit: saying it with confiden...

I've been building and tinkering with computers for years now, yet one thing I've never learned: what is the polarity those connectors that go from the case to the motherboard (e.g. power on/off, reset, power LED, HDD LED, etc)? Usually the motherboard headers are labeled positive/negative. But the ...

Not sure if it's comparing apples with apples, but this chap Adam has built and documented his dual core atom build (mini itx, MSI IM-945GC though not available anywhere in the UK). Like you (and alot of us) he is after a low power always on server. The reason I posted is because he has kindly publ...

[EDIT] Looking at the Biostar's manual, it states that ECC memory is NOT supported... ??? [EDIT #2] Never mind - the BIOS manual shows all the ECC options. Don't know why the main manual says it's not supported... I too noticed that the A760G manual says that ECC is not supported, in direct contrad...

What will this server be used for? If you want the max power consumption at load to be 30 watts, you really only have two choices: a fairly extreme underclock + undervolt of a CPU like an AMD Sempron or Intel Celeron; or, get a wimpy CPU such as those from Via, AMD Geode or Intel Atom. Check out thi...

My vote is for the Alix board. I just bought one myself (the one with three NICs). According to the Kill-a-Watt, it only uses 5 watts. Previously, I was using a Via EPIA-CL600E (with a compact flash card for a hard drive). It used 18 watts. I don't know about the Geode being end-of-life or not, but,...

I just noticed this thread... It's probably too late to change motherboards, but I'm really excited about the Biostar A760G in terms of low power consumption. However, I am optimizing around the idle case, which is a little different than your application. One thing you should definitely be able to ...

psiu wrote:Any chance you can get a good up close photo of the cpu area of the motherboard? Maybe the prying SPCR eyes will see something.

Yup, I'm going to try to do that this weekend. Stay tuned...

Short story: I powered on one of my computers, heard a muffled popping sound ("pffffff"), went to investigate, and saw a little bit of smoke coming from either the motherboard near the VRM circuits, or the PSU. Matt This story is entirely consistent with a capacitor in the VRM failing. On motherboa...

FSP250-60GHT http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/37961 http://www.watt-power.co.uk/catalogue/watts-fsp25060ght-tfx12v-pn9pa250c702-p-351.html My initial concern is whether a tfx PSU would fit in a micro atx case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811173013 It looks like it ...

The only component I have so far is Samsung F2 EcoGreen 1.5Tb HDD, I was thinking of buying the Biostar A760G-M2+ along with 5050e CPU (extra headroom). I will also have a standard DVD Burner, for archiving from the NAS drive. I dont anticipate more that 3 HDD eventually, maybe even a max of 2, onl...

Power supply swap: I put the PicoPSU back with my MythTV media PC where it belongs. I'm now running the 5050e at stock BIOS settings (with C'n'Q enabled), IGP at 150 MHz, and floppy+sound disabled in the BIOS (i.e. same config as a couple posts ago/first post with the 5050e), but with a Seasonic S12...

I just did a test with my Intel PCIe NIC (based on the power-hungry 82572EI chip). Note that I didn't change anything (hardware, BIOS or otherwise) except adding the NIC. Idle power consumption barely went up, idling around 26--27 watts. However, the interface wasn't activated. When I activated the ...

I just put in the 5050e. 26 watts idle . And that's not tweaking any CPU clock/voltage settings in the BIOS, just normal Cool'n'Quiet operation. What I did change in the BIOS: lowered internal GPU clock to 150 MHz Disabled sound Disabled floppy With idle power this low, I'm not sure how much I can s...

Matt do you have any thoughts about an intel based solution. If you ignore the comparable cost of such a build, Would an e7400+ intel mini-itx like Commell LV-678 (Q35 chipset) or G31 biostar m/b be a solid low watt solution? Obviously it would be more powerful than a Biostar/5050e solution but for...

I hope it's okay to ask a few questions (first post). I am trying to get my head round the exact same subject; low powered always on ubuntu 9.04 headless server. Welcome to SPCR! I've received a ton of friendly advice and info from folks on this board, so know that you're in good hands. :) I need t...

Has anyone ever fried a CPU? The power supply is definitely suspect, and Corsair has issued an RMA for it. It may not have any problems, but I'd rather not take any chances with a questionable power supply. But the interesting thing: I put that BE-2350 CPU in the new motherboard I was testing (see t...

As a follow-up to my original post: I tested a two-port SATA PCIe x1 card in both PCIe slots on the A760G. Both worked! The hard drive I used was a Samsung HD103SI . I ran dozens of bonnie++ benchmarks. This is the program I used to reliably trigger a reboot when that SATA card was used in the Gigab...

Great! Thanks for your kind sharings. :D You are most welcome! Though lowest wattage may be appealing, I guess motherboard's fan control plays an important role as well. How about Biostar 760G's fan control? Gigabyte 740G can control two fans which is very good considering its price. Besides, I kno...

Background: For quite a while now, I've been on the lookout for a motherboard + CPU combination for my ideal fileserver/NAS platform. These requirements are, in rough order of importance: Ability to host at least six SATA drives on a fast bus (i.e. motherboard southbridge, or expansion cards on PCIe...

Well, the motherboard appears good. I have other PSUs, but they're all in use. The easiest one to pull from an existing machine was the PicoPSU I use for my media PC... I was really hesitant to put that at risk, but I also have a tendency to do things cowboy style. :) Anyway, the risk appears to hav...