So so... As I promised after new year I had some hardware changes. I returned to mini-itx platform once again. This time I had more reasons than just experiment as it had been with VT-310DP. Firstly, I wanted to lower power usage (I don't play much and don't do big computational projects, because of this Intel system is just absolutely unused power beast for me. Yes, I thought about it when I had bought it, however, my expectations didn't materialized and objectives changed a little bit). Secondly, I expected somehow better compatibility with various operating systems and easier environment configurations. New Intel platform couldn't provide that. What is more, I hoped to set up everything with as little time as possible ("perfecting" work place for a half or one year is just to much). Lastly I needed more space for my legs :) (there is not much space under the table)...
Purchase
Unfortunately, purchase process didn't go as well as I had planned initially. I ordered MSI AM-780E mini-itx motherboard with dual-core Athlon Neo CPU in January, however, it appeared that it hadn't been released yet. I was told to wait until mid of March. And I waited... but then I got an answer that I should wait one more month and it might be not released at all. I decided to change it as I didn't want waste time anymore and I ordered the most similar motherboard which e-shop had (from Germany). That was Jetway JNC-81 with quite similar configuration and the same chipset. The main reason I was a little bit disappointed because I didn't like mini-itx motherboards with CPU sockets. I see true mini-itx motherboards only with soldered very low power cpus. However, I didn't have a choice (I wanted dual core CPU and, of course, Intel Atom wasn't an option). I chose Athlon X2 235e CPU for it (as it was an only 45W dual core in stock in Lithuania. Quad core 600e was available too but it was considerably more expensive). I had some problems in acquiring RAM too. I wanted to get Kingston CL5 but they had become out of stock just after my order. I was forced to get CL6. MSI AM-780E was released eventually but I prepared my computer for work by that time.
The other parts included Akiwa GHB-B05-5 enclosure, Seasonic SS-250SU 250W PSU and Jetway AM2 Low Profile heatsink for JNC81. Hard drives were taken from old computer as always.
Setup
Current configuration is:
Athlon X2 235e 2.7 GHz 45W TDP
Jetway JNC81
Jetway AM2 Low Profile heatsink for JNC81 (replaced with default AMD cooler)
2x2GB Kingston KVR800D2S6/2G RAM SO-DIMM DDR2 800
Seasonic SS-250SU 250W PSU
Akiwa GHB-B05-5 mini-itx enclosure
(old ones)
Samsung HD160JJ 160GB
WD CAVIAR GP 750GB (WD7500AACS)
Setup was quite smooth except that I installed one RAM module incorrectly at first (I needed to push it more firmly). First problem was loud fans and hot operating temperature without case fan (it was included). I resolved this problem by changing Jetway fan with fan from AMD stock heatsink. It was a little bit higher but with controllable speed depending on load (four pins header) and lower noise. However, case fan was the bigger problem as it was just very loud. I slowed it with fan resistor. After that noise level and temperatures became acceptable. I found one BIOS problem. If you turn off quick power on self test, post tests RAM continuously. You must to press esc to process further (or just to set quick power on self test to enable which is default). Integrated video takes 128 MB from your RAM by default (+128MB sideport memory soldered to motherboard). There is an issue that I didn't resolve. USB ports are working in slow 1.0 mode from USB headers (aka front USB). USB ports in the back panel works correctly in ehci (2.0) mode. I might resolve this in the future.
Windows, NetBSD, Linux, Haiku
I didn't need to reinstall Windows 7 (more accurately Windows Embedded 7 CTP1). It recognized drivers correctly and everything worked out of the box except that I needed to reinstall graphic driver (ATI catalyst). 1GBit network download/upload speed was slower from my NAS server with one big (0.5-4GB) file than in Intel platform (~30-40MB/s instead of 50MB/s) but it appears to be a usual speed from Realtek NICs. I had an issue with my old network cable (which came with router). Then I inserted it network worked only at 100MBit/s. Solution was to change a cable...
My other long time dream was to make NetBSD as primary desktop system. This time I tried to make it seriously. As I had some experience with it after some years playing with it and using it on VT310-DP NAS server it helped me a lot this time. I decided to compile most packages from pkgsrc (not downloading binaries). It might be slower but you just need to start compiling (make install clean) and all dependencies will be fetched correctly and without interruptions. I don't know why but it is not the case when you set PKG_PATH variable and download binaries. You will always find stalled downloads this way (especially if there are a lot of dependencies). It took me four-five days and two complete reinstall to setup everything but in the end I got the most usable desktop NetBSD system I have ever had. I doesn't mean that there are no problems but I have Gnome 2.28.1, OpenOffice 3.1, Firefox 3.5.8 with flash plug-in (the biggest headache was to make sound work in flash), developing enviroment (gcc, opejdk7, gtk, qt, some IDE, RAD tools, shell, etc), video, music, samba, ntfs-3g, radeon-hd, correct shutdown and so on. Unfortunately, cpu scaling doesn't work and it seems a problem with ACPI driver to manage CPU p-states. There is no proper driver in NetBSD currently. I need to restart pulseaudio every time after restart to make sound work. Videos doesn't work full screen and even with bigger resolutions. I recompiled kernel with newer release 5-0 maintenance kernel (2010-04-17). It solved problem with detecting USB devices (I needed to reattach mouse after first boot often with generic 5.0.2 kernel).
I didn't test Linux much but Fedora Linux 13 Beta1 installed without any problems. CPU scaling, network and sound works as it should. I don't think that it will much difference than with earlier systems after some configuration. Linux shows good support for a common hardware currently.
I even tried Haiku current (2010-04-17 or 2010-04-18). It installed and booted without problems too. Network worked from the start (I don't know if 1Gbit/s works). I played with several applications but it was limited to that.
That's all for now.
Purchase
Unfortunately, purchase process didn't go as well as I had planned initially. I ordered MSI AM-780E mini-itx motherboard with dual-core Athlon Neo CPU in January, however, it appeared that it hadn't been released yet. I was told to wait until mid of March. And I waited... but then I got an answer that I should wait one more month and it might be not released at all. I decided to change it as I didn't want waste time anymore and I ordered the most similar motherboard which e-shop had (from Germany). That was Jetway JNC-81 with quite similar configuration and the same chipset. The main reason I was a little bit disappointed because I didn't like mini-itx motherboards with CPU sockets. I see true mini-itx motherboards only with soldered very low power cpus. However, I didn't have a choice (I wanted dual core CPU and, of course, Intel Atom wasn't an option). I chose Athlon X2 235e CPU for it (as it was an only 45W dual core in stock in Lithuania. Quad core 600e was available too but it was considerably more expensive). I had some problems in acquiring RAM too. I wanted to get Kingston CL5 but they had become out of stock just after my order. I was forced to get CL6. MSI AM-780E was released eventually but I prepared my computer for work by that time.
The other parts included Akiwa GHB-B05-5 enclosure, Seasonic SS-250SU 250W PSU and Jetway AM2 Low Profile heatsink for JNC81. Hard drives were taken from old computer as always.
Setup
Current configuration is:
Athlon X2 235e 2.7 GHz 45W TDP
Jetway JNC81
Jetway AM2 Low Profile heatsink for JNC81 (replaced with default AMD cooler)
2x2GB Kingston KVR800D2S6/2G RAM SO-DIMM DDR2 800
Seasonic SS-250SU 250W PSU
Akiwa GHB-B05-5 mini-itx enclosure
(old ones)
Samsung HD160JJ 160GB
WD CAVIAR GP 750GB (WD7500AACS)
Setup was quite smooth except that I installed one RAM module incorrectly at first (I needed to push it more firmly). First problem was loud fans and hot operating temperature without case fan (it was included). I resolved this problem by changing Jetway fan with fan from AMD stock heatsink. It was a little bit higher but with controllable speed depending on load (four pins header) and lower noise. However, case fan was the bigger problem as it was just very loud. I slowed it with fan resistor. After that noise level and temperatures became acceptable. I found one BIOS problem. If you turn off quick power on self test, post tests RAM continuously. You must to press esc to process further (or just to set quick power on self test to enable which is default). Integrated video takes 128 MB from your RAM by default (+128MB sideport memory soldered to motherboard). There is an issue that I didn't resolve. USB ports are working in slow 1.0 mode from USB headers (aka front USB). USB ports in the back panel works correctly in ehci (2.0) mode. I might resolve this in the future.
Windows, NetBSD, Linux, Haiku
I didn't need to reinstall Windows 7 (more accurately Windows Embedded 7 CTP1). It recognized drivers correctly and everything worked out of the box except that I needed to reinstall graphic driver (ATI catalyst). 1GBit network download/upload speed was slower from my NAS server with one big (0.5-4GB) file than in Intel platform (~30-40MB/s instead of 50MB/s) but it appears to be a usual speed from Realtek NICs. I had an issue with my old network cable (which came with router). Then I inserted it network worked only at 100MBit/s. Solution was to change a cable...
My other long time dream was to make NetBSD as primary desktop system. This time I tried to make it seriously. As I had some experience with it after some years playing with it and using it on VT310-DP NAS server it helped me a lot this time. I decided to compile most packages from pkgsrc (not downloading binaries). It might be slower but you just need to start compiling (make install clean) and all dependencies will be fetched correctly and without interruptions. I don't know why but it is not the case when you set PKG_PATH variable and download binaries. You will always find stalled downloads this way (especially if there are a lot of dependencies). It took me four-five days and two complete reinstall to setup everything but in the end I got the most usable desktop NetBSD system I have ever had. I doesn't mean that there are no problems but I have Gnome 2.28.1, OpenOffice 3.1, Firefox 3.5.8 with flash plug-in (the biggest headache was to make sound work in flash), developing enviroment (gcc, opejdk7, gtk, qt, some IDE, RAD tools, shell, etc), video, music, samba, ntfs-3g, radeon-hd, correct shutdown and so on. Unfortunately, cpu scaling doesn't work and it seems a problem with ACPI driver to manage CPU p-states. There is no proper driver in NetBSD currently. I need to restart pulseaudio every time after restart to make sound work. Videos doesn't work full screen and even with bigger resolutions. I recompiled kernel with newer release 5-0 maintenance kernel (2010-04-17). It solved problem with detecting USB devices (I needed to reattach mouse after first boot often with generic 5.0.2 kernel).
NetBSD 5.0.2 amd64
I even tried Haiku current (2010-04-17 or 2010-04-18). It installed and booted without problems too. Network worked from the start (I don't know if 1Gbit/s works). I played with several applications but it was limited to that.
That's all for now.
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