2010-01-03
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! 2010 started but my blog is still alive :). This year you can expect from me lot of new changes with my hardware. I'll try to write at least something about their performance. What is more, my cpu collection became bigger. I just need to make photos. I am sure that collection will grow this year too. As I am focused on mini-itx right now you'll probably find more news about them here. So, if somebody reads this blog I'll be happy to share my experience with you and in 2010.
2009-12-21
Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P - *BSD and Linux experience - continued
From my last article you can find that I unsuccessfully tried to boot NetBSD and OpenBSD on the Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard. MirOS BSD booted ok (with some conditions like IDE option instead of RAID) and I was planning to use it for NAS. However, MirOS BSD didn't support integrated 1GbE network interface (Realtek 8111C). I bought Intel Pro/1000 GT PCI card to solve this, however, it didn't work too. Realtek 8139D 10/100 network interface worked ok but it was not Gigabit. So I decided to try FreeBSD as last hope for BSDs. It installed without any problems and detected hardware (without RAID mode), however, the first boot was unsuccessful. It couldn't mount root partition for some reason. As I didn't want to spend more time on that any more I had decided to give up on BSDs.
So, I decided to use Debian (stable 5.0 release AMD64 port) on my NAS server. It installed without any problems (I used base packages ISO with some packages downloaded from internet). It booted with RAID option on and detected all my hard drives without problems (update: problems appeared later, read about RAID mode below). FFS partition mounted in read-only mode too. However, the problem began here. I tried to copy all data from FFS partition to EXT3 (in other drive). Copy process was very slow for some reason (3MB/s). I don't know if it's a kernel problem but the fact was that I had needed 3 days to copy all data (about 800MB). Later Intel Pro/1000 GT went to 10MBit/s mode. I used ethtool to set up it correctly once again.
The speed always goes down than I uploading/downloading something from samba, but it ends up for about 7-9MB/s. It is not very good and I think the main reason for this is slow copying I mentioned earlier. I’ll try to change a kernel to a newer version and I’ll try Realtek 8111C in the future too. Despite this problems, Debian works very stable. I think this ends up my efforts to set up NAS on JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard. I hope I’ll solve last problems in the future. In conclusion I can say, that this motherboard is not suitable for BSD platforms for now. If you want to use it like a server you need to use Linux. VX800 is not supported by BSD systems.
Update (2009-12-22)
I recompiled the kernel to 2.6.32.2 (from 2.6.26-2). It didn't helped to solve a copy process problems but I figured out that for some reason dma had been disabled (hdparm utility). It seemed that hard drives had been working at PIO mode. So it wasn't unexpected that copy speed hadn't exceeded 3-5 MB/s. As hdparm -d1 didn't work (I got an error that permission to do this was denied) I disabled RAID (AHCI) in BIOS once again. DMA was enabled automatically after restart.
As I didn't try real RAID in any configuration I don't know what problems you could get from this. It seems that VX800 RAID is not very well supported too (or it is not enabled in kernel, but I didn't find any separate options instead of default VIA SATA modules which was used with other VIA chipsets). After that everything works like a charm. Copy speed is good and what is more I got constant ~50MB/s through samba during download/upload process. I didn't have such speeds with my VT-310DP and NetBSD (as I remember they were between 14-19MB/s and it draws lot of questions why it was so then). So I can be finally happy with my NAS server. Last thing I'll try to compare Intel 1Gbit card with integrated Realtek in the near future. Of course, I'll try to investigate RAID/AHCI matter but that is not a priority now.
So, I decided to use Debian (stable 5.0 release AMD64 port) on my NAS server. It installed without any problems (I used base packages ISO with some packages downloaded from internet). It booted with RAID option on and detected all my hard drives without problems (update: problems appeared later, read about RAID mode below). FFS partition mounted in read-only mode too. However, the problem began here. I tried to copy all data from FFS partition to EXT3 (in other drive). Copy process was very slow for some reason (3MB/s). I don't know if it's a kernel problem but the fact was that I had needed 3 days to copy all data (about 800MB). Later Intel Pro/1000 GT went to 10MBit/s mode. I used ethtool to set up it correctly once again.
The speed always goes down than I uploading/downloading something from samba, but it ends up for about 7-9MB/s. It is not very good and I think the main reason for this is slow copying I mentioned earlier. I’ll try to change a kernel to a newer version and I’ll try Realtek 8111C in the future too. Despite this problems, Debian works very stable. I think this ends up my efforts to set up NAS on JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard. I hope I’ll solve last problems in the future. In conclusion I can say, that this motherboard is not suitable for BSD platforms for now. If you want to use it like a server you need to use Linux. VX800 is not supported by BSD systems.
Update (2009-12-22)
I recompiled the kernel to 2.6.32.2 (from 2.6.26-2). It didn't helped to solve a copy process problems but I figured out that for some reason dma had been disabled (hdparm utility). It seemed that hard drives had been working at PIO mode. So it wasn't unexpected that copy speed hadn't exceeded 3-5 MB/s. As hdparm -d1
As I didn't try real RAID in any configuration I don't know what problems you could get from this. It seems that VX800 RAID is not very well supported too (or it is not enabled in kernel, but I didn't find any separate options instead of default VIA SATA modules which was used with other VIA chipsets). After that everything works like a charm. Copy speed is good and what is more I got constant ~50MB/s through samba during download/upload process. I didn't have such speeds with my VT-310DP and NetBSD (as I remember they were between 14-19MB/s and it draws lot of questions why it was so then). So I can be finally happy with my NAS server. Last thing I'll try to compare Intel 1Gbit card with integrated Realtek in the near future. Of course, I'll try to investigate RAID/AHCI matter but that is not a priority now.
2009-11-24
Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P - NetBSD and OpenBSD experience
The more often I play with BSD operating systems the more I feel an archaic mood which spreads from them. On the other hand I like them because of that. They still retains a simplicity and transparency which I found in Unix like systems when I've tried them first. Some Linux distributions went into some deeper waters and it is not always easy to understand how it works and there to find something. So, I prefer BSD system in my NAS server. However, I mentioned about problems with NetBSD in a previous blog post. I wasn't able to boot NetBSD 5.0.1 as it hanged every time I had tried. As I didn't find any solution I tried earlier NetBSD version (4.x). I was unlucky again. The install booted this time, however I got watchdog timeout several minutes after network card had been configured (I used ftp install). I had similar problems on my VT-310DP with this version, because of this i decided not to install it at all (NAS server with network problems is a pain). So I decided to give up on NetBSD (It wasn't easy as I would need to reconfigure all my server once again) and tried to install OpenBSD instead. I downloaded 4.6 boot media without package sets as I like ftp install. OpenBSD CD booted without any problems and network configured successfully (watchdog timeouts have never appeared during installation). Installation is somehow similar to NetBSD (text-based) but not exactly the same. Install process went successfully, however the fun began after it. I rebooted computer and it hanged during POST (I saw only CPU information). I tried to add usb key to other computers but they also hanged. It appeared that BIOS didn't like default OpenBSD mbr (master boot record) on my Patriot Xporter XT usb memory stick. I copied mbr from other computer and computer started without problems. Of course, I couldn't boot OpenBSD with mbr which points to inexisting grub. However, I booted system from CD as it gives an option to change booting parameters and destination. I'll try to install grub into OpenBSD and conquer the booting problem in this way. So, Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P has problems with BSD systems. NetBSD is not compatible at all at this point (in my experience at least). OpenBSD works ok probably (I need to work with it more to confirm), but you might have problems with booting if you use a memory stick at least (it wasn't the motherboard problem as OpenBSD hanged in all my computers). I saw complain about FreeBSD in RAID mode in newegg comment (JNF76 model with Eden 1.6GHz CPU) but my board doesn't hang during POST in RAID mode (though I didn't setup RAID). If you plan to buy this board for a small server you need to careful and ready to solve possible problems. I didn't try Linux. If I'll have time I'll do that (and maybe FreeBSD, MirOS BSD too).
Update (2009-11-25):
I tried MirOS BSD (current #10 Samhain 2009) yesterday (it is OpenBSD fork). Install script is almost identical to OpenBSD except some special things for MirOS BSD (I'm not going into details here as this blog item is not about that). It installs and boots ok (from CD), however, there are a lot of problems with hardware compatibility (almost all VIA hardware is marked as unknown during boot). Realtek RTL8111C network chip is not recognized too so MirOS BSD is almost useless in this motherboard. I'll try to contact to their mailing list, maybe they'll tell me something but for now MirOS BSD is not suitable for this motherboard. Though it is the first BSD which installed and booted without any problems.
Update (2009-12-01)
MirOS BSD doesn't have drivers for RTL8111C and it is not very likely that they'll be in the near future. You need to use supported PCI card (or maybe daughterboards might work but they use Realtek too). MirBSD OS doesn't see VIA Nano RNG and AES engines. It might be fixed. I probably will make a server on it with Intel PCI card (I'll post results later).
I stuck with OpenBSD once again. It hangs everytime then MBR is correct and shows OpenBSD partition. Somehow magically I booted several times but after one more reinstall I couldn't to repeat this. I didn't try OpenBSD on other media but it hanged in all my computers. I consider that OpenBSD and Patriot USB drive is not supported now. On the other hand I think that OpenBSD will be fine on normal hard drives as I didn't have any problems in that short period of time I managed to use it.
NetBSD 4.0.1 installs and boots ok. But I didn't try anything else. I mentioned about watchdog timeout issue that was very annoying on VT-310DP with the same NetBSD version.
Update (2009-11-25):
I tried MirOS BSD (current #10 Samhain 2009) yesterday (it is OpenBSD fork). Install script is almost identical to OpenBSD except some special things for MirOS BSD (I'm not going into details here as this blog item is not about that). It installs and boots ok (from CD), however, there are a lot of problems with hardware compatibility (almost all VIA hardware is marked as unknown during boot). Realtek RTL8111C network chip is not recognized too so MirOS BSD is almost useless in this motherboard. I'll try to contact to their mailing list, maybe they'll tell me something but for now MirOS BSD is not suitable for this motherboard. Though it is the first BSD which installed and booted without any problems.
Update (2009-12-01)
MirOS BSD doesn't have drivers for RTL8111C and it is not very likely that they'll be in the near future. You need to use supported PCI card (or maybe daughterboards might work but they use Realtek too). MirBSD OS doesn't see VIA Nano RNG and AES engines. It might be fixed. I probably will make a server on it with Intel PCI card (I'll post results later).
I stuck with OpenBSD once again. It hangs everytime then MBR is correct and shows OpenBSD partition. Somehow magically I booted several times but after one more reinstall I couldn't to repeat this. I didn't try OpenBSD on other media but it hanged in all my computers. I consider that OpenBSD and Patriot USB drive is not supported now. On the other hand I think that OpenBSD will be fine on normal hard drives as I didn't have any problems in that short period of time I managed to use it.
NetBSD 4.0.1 installs and boots ok. But I didn't try anything else. I mentioned about watchdog timeout issue that was very annoying on VT-310DP with the same NetBSD version.
2009-11-18
Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P 1.0GHz Mini-ITX First Impressions
I've bought one more mini-itx motherboard recently. It is supposed to change my VIA VT-310DP. VT-310DP is used for data server right now, however, it has some compatibility problems and it needs an active cooling even than I reduced cpu clock to 533 MHz. Why is that you ask? I found that changing multiplier in the VIA VT-310DP had changed cpu clock only for a one processor. The other one still worked at 1 GHz (the same problem as with powersaver utility). Because of this, it probably still ran hot enough and small heatsink couldn't dissipate the heat. My titan cooler is not to loud but it has annoying noise. It is difficult to find small and silent fan... So, one of the reasons I took Jetway that it was fanless. The other reason is more performance as it has much more modern CPU. And finally this Jetway motherboard has so called JWDB Header. You can insert additional Jetway daughterboards into it as I plan to buy four SATA daughterboard in the future. This motherboard is Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P.
Package
Motherboard comes in a small box with curved(?), glossy surface. Besides motherboard, you can find one black SATA cable, one IDE/PATA cable, serial/COM cable, back panel shield, CD with drivers and manual (which is not necessary but nice addition as it comes in handy when you need to find something fast). Motherboard is packaged into anti-static bag with foam on the back. Nothing extraordinary, except extra serial cable maybe.
Hardware
Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard is based on VIA Nano U2300 1GHz 533FSB CPU. VIA VX800 serves as northbridge and southbridge at the same time (VIA calls it media system processor). They are covered with separate fanless heatsinks. It has only one DDR2 slot so you can put up to 2GB DDR2 400/533/667 memory. There are PS/2 mouse&keyboard ports, 1xCOM, 1xVGA, 2xUSB and 1xRJ45 1Gbit LAN (based on Realtek RTL8111C) connectors on a back panel. Also there are three audio ports (line-in, line-out, mic. VIA 1708B 6-channel audio codec). Rear I/O ports set is poor however that is quite usual on IPC boards which aren't intended to mass market like ION platform. You can add up to four additional USB connectors through USB headers on the motherboard. You can also find one PCI expansion slot. Storage drives can be attached into two SATA II ports and one IDE. There are FP audio, COM ports, HDMI/SPDIF, DVP, LVDS headers too. It can be attached two system fans and one cpu fan. Finally, there is an integrated speaker on the motherboard so you don't need to attach it from a case. Motherboard is powered by standard 20-pin ATX connector.
Jetway motherboard uses green PCB and feels quite qualitatively made. Differently from VIA VB8001 all capacitors are solid state ones. PCI, SATA, DIMM, IDE connectors are yellow. Heatsinks aren't higher than back panels height. CPU heatsink has a metal platform at the back and is fixed with some star shaped screws. So it would be painful to change it in my opinion. VX800 heatsink uses clips only so it can be changed more easily.
BIOS
It is used the Phoenix/Award BIOS as in other VIA CPU based motherboards I have seen. Motherboard came with A02 version (2009 02 03 datecode). A05 is the newest currently but I haven't updated it yet. As I have VIA VB8001 I will compare them a little bit (specifically issues I talked about in the last post). What I can tell you right now that it is more feature rich, however, there are some differences from what you'll find in the manual too.
Firstly, VB8001 didn't had thermal monitor 2 (Ratio&VID transition) option to select. This is not the case with JNF76. It is even selected by default. However, there is described Thermal monitor 3 option (dynamic Ratio&VID transition) and you can't select it in this motherboard too. I don't know the difference between them and I still need to confirm that powersaver works as it should. Jetway doesn't show current thermal monitor bus ratio and bus vid.
What is more, pc health status shows much more information than in VB8001. It shows CPU and System temperatures what you can't find in the VB8001. There is also a possibility to set a shutdown temperature or thermal-throttling. And one more interesting feature is to show PC health status at boot. It means you can see temperatures and voltages values at boot in the POST screen. This is nice feature, isn't it? Though maybe it is not useful very often. There are various voltage values (some of them exists in VB8001), all fans speeds (shows in VB8001 too) and smart fan configuration (not present in VB8001).
One more difference is an option to enable S.M.A.R.T function for HDDs in BIOS. I still need to test SATA behavior as I didn't try to attach any HDDs or CD-ROM.
In "miscellaneous control" (which serves the same purpose as frequency/voltage control in VB8001) you can change external cpu clock or FSB (default 133 MHz) and various RAM/CPU voltages.
Update (2009-11-24)
As with VB8001 BIOS doesn't show SATA devices in Standard CMOS features. What is more, you can't see IDE devices too if SATA - RAID mode is enabled. IDE devices appears in RAID utility screen. Boot from CD-ROM option doesn't not work when RAID mode is enabled too (even it's a IDE CD-ROM and it appears as a separate devicewith the same problems as in VB8001 (still need to figure out but it has similar problems)).
Summary
All in all I am quite pleased with Jetway motherboard. It is well made, BIOS looks decent and everything appears promising. However, there are some unclear things in the future. CPU temperature reached 41-44°C and system temperature reached 35-37°C in BIOS on idle. Heatsinks became quite hot. So I still need to test if passive cooling is enough for the system. The other problem appeared when I had tried to boot NetBSD. Operating system hanged after USB controller was detected. It worries me as I planned to use current configuration without modifications. What is more, I need to check how PATA/SATA and RAID works. I hope to test PowerSaver and some performance capabilities. Finally, I use DDR2 533MHz as it was cheap to get at buying moment (the new RAM modules became quite pricey). So it can be that with DDR2 667 MHz system can work better.
Package
Motherboard comes in a small box with curved(?), glossy surface. Besides motherboard, you can find one black SATA cable, one IDE/PATA cable, serial/COM cable, back panel shield, CD with drivers and manual (which is not necessary but nice addition as it comes in handy when you need to find something fast). Motherboard is packaged into anti-static bag with foam on the back. Nothing extraordinary, except extra serial cable maybe.
Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P motherboard is based on VIA Nano U2300 1GHz 533FSB CPU. VIA VX800 serves as northbridge and southbridge at the same time (VIA calls it media system processor). They are covered with separate fanless heatsinks. It has only one DDR2 slot so you can put up to 2GB DDR2 400/533/667 memory. There are PS/2 mouse&keyboard ports, 1xCOM, 1xVGA, 2xUSB and 1xRJ45 1Gbit LAN (based on Realtek RTL8111C) connectors on a back panel. Also there are three audio ports (line-in, line-out, mic. VIA 1708B 6-channel audio codec). Rear I/O ports set is poor however that is quite usual on IPC boards which aren't intended to mass market like ION platform. You can add up to four additional USB connectors through USB headers on the motherboard. You can also find one PCI expansion slot. Storage drives can be attached into two SATA II ports and one IDE. There are FP audio, COM ports, HDMI/SPDIF, DVP, LVDS headers too. It can be attached two system fans and one cpu fan. Finally, there is an integrated speaker on the motherboard so you don't need to attach it from a case. Motherboard is powered by standard 20-pin ATX connector.
BIOS
It is used the Phoenix/Award BIOS as in other VIA CPU based motherboards I have seen. Motherboard came with A02 version (2009 02 03 datecode). A05 is the newest currently but I haven't updated it yet. As I have VIA VB8001 I will compare them a little bit (specifically issues I talked about in the last post). What I can tell you right now that it is more feature rich, however, there are some differences from what you'll find in the manual too.
Firstly, VB8001 didn't had thermal monitor 2 (Ratio&VID transition) option to select. This is not the case with JNF76. It is even selected by default. However, there is described Thermal monitor 3 option (dynamic Ratio&VID transition) and you can't select it in this motherboard too. I don't know the difference between them and I still need to confirm that powersaver works as it should. Jetway doesn't show current thermal monitor bus ratio and bus vid.
 |  |
What is more, pc health status shows much more information than in VB8001. It shows CPU and System temperatures what you can't find in the VB8001. There is also a possibility to set a shutdown temperature or thermal-throttling. And one more interesting feature is to show PC health status at boot. It means you can see temperatures and voltages values at boot in the POST screen. This is nice feature, isn't it? Though maybe it is not useful very often. There are various voltage values (some of them exists in VB8001), all fans speeds (shows in VB8001 too) and smart fan configuration (not present in VB8001).
One more difference is an option to enable S.M.A.R.T function for HDDs in BIOS. I still need to test SATA behavior as I didn't try to attach any HDDs or CD-ROM.
In "miscellaneous control" (which serves the same purpose as frequency/voltage control in VB8001) you can change external cpu clock or FSB (default 133 MHz) and various RAM/CPU voltages.
Update (2009-11-24)
As with VB8001 BIOS doesn't show SATA devices in Standard CMOS features. What is more, you can't see IDE devices too if SATA - RAID mode is enabled. IDE devices appears in RAID utility screen. Boot from CD-ROM option doesn't not work when RAID mode is enabled too (even it's a IDE CD-ROM and it appears as a separate device
Summary
All in all I am quite pleased with Jetway motherboard. It is well made, BIOS looks decent and everything appears promising. However, there are some unclear things in the future. CPU temperature reached 41-44°C and system temperature reached 35-37°C in BIOS on idle. Heatsinks became quite hot. So I still need to test if passive cooling is enough for the system. The other problem appeared when I had tried to boot NetBSD. Operating system hanged after USB controller was detected. It worries me as I planned to use current configuration without modifications. What is more, I need to check how PATA/SATA and RAID works. I hope to test PowerSaver and some performance capabilities. Finally, I use DDR2 533MHz as it was cheap to get at buying moment (the new RAM modules became quite pricey). So it can be that with DDR2 667 MHz system can work better.
2009-11-11
VB8001 - hardware and BIOS
This blog item is not about performance, it's only about hardware and BIOS. You can find some performance numbers here.
VIA VB8001-16 is a mini-itx motherboard (17x17cm). It is powered by VIA Nano L2200 1.6GHz 64-bit CPU. It also has two DDR2 667 memory slots (up to 4GB), PCI-Ex16 slot for additional video card, 2xSATA ports, 1xIDE port and one mini-pci slot at back side. Northbridge is CN896 (integrated VIA Chrome9 HC graphics), southbridge - VT8237S. There are COM, VGA, 2xUSB, PS/2 keyboard & mouse, RJ-45 Gbit and audio ports. It sure looks quite empty :). I don't know why they didn't included two more USB ports. But it is embedded board so it's understandable. As you can find in the forum above you should be aware of mini-usb headers on the motherboard. Standard header to attach front panel USB won't fit without adapter. You can have additional six USB ports with them (three headers). One of the headers (12-pin) can be used for VIA wlan usb module. There are more headers on the motherboard but I won't go to the details about them. You can find description on the user manual if you need to. Motherboard still uses electrolytic capacitors instead of solid ones which became popular in many current motherboards. CPU and northbridge are covered by one "big" heatsink and they are actively cooled. Once again PicoPSU hits one of the capacitors but it is better situation than in VT310-DP. It fits almost by 100%. Fan is quite loud imho... This is there I hate VIA the most :). They've never done such things right (ok, it is my opinion too as I had only two mini-itx motherboards from them).
Enough about hardware which is as it is. I want to talk a little bit about disappointing points of BIOS. It is quite a standard AwardBIOS. However, it has some specific problems. Firstly, it sees only 3GB at boot (if you have 4GB. OSes see all RAM). Then you enter BIOS you find some more unpleasant surprises:
1. VIA CPUs have a feature called PowerSaver (or longhaul earlier) which has somehow similar purpose to Cool'n'Quiet and SpeedStep technologies accordingly in AMD and Intel CPUs. Theoretically you can choose between Thermal Monitor 1 (on-die throtting) and Thermal Monitor 2 (Ratio&VID transition) in BIOS (Advanced BIOS features->CPU Feature). You can find even a description of both options in BIOS. However, in reality you can't choose Thermal Monitor 2 for some reason (there is now such option to select). So once again I can't use PowerSaver at all (like it was in VT310-DP). CPU always works on full frequency.
2. There is no CPU temperature in PC Health Status. I need to use programs which aren't always accurate.
3. Boot from CD-ROM doesn't work with SATA CD/DVD-ROM. It wouldn't be an issue as it appears as separate device and you can choose it in boot priority, however there is a problem here. You can choose it in device priority only if boot(?) CD/DVD inserted (it didn't appeared with just simple data dvd inserted). Otherwise dvd-rom just disappears from devices. So, if you want to install a new OS from CD you always need to insert disk, go to BIOS and set a priority to newly appeared device.
4. SATA devices is not viewable in Standard CMOS features. It was so with old motherboards. So no progress here with VIA.
5. Overclocking options doesn't exist (only some voltage tweaking). However, it is not a big deal with such system.
Other problems aren't confirmed. I don't know if SMART working properly. There is no options to enable/disable it for hdds and applications doesn't detect any SMART values for my current hdd (but it might be other problems (for example, with hdd itself as I bought it used recently)).
I have read about issues with virtualization. BIOS doesn't have a feature to enable/disable it. Once again it might be a problem with software which doesn't know about such CPUs and its capabilities (update 2009.12.27. According to wikipedia virtualization is disabled before stepping 3. My both VIA Nano boards have CPUs with stepping 2) . And there is no clear option to disable integrated video if it is possible at all. I didn't try to disable shared memory as I was afraid that it might lead to the same situation as in VT310-DP (BIOS hangs and you need to clear it to boot).
So it is the start. I may update this blog with new problems in the future if I'll find/remember them.
VIA VB8001-16 is a mini-itx motherboard (17x17cm). It is powered by VIA Nano L2200 1.6GHz 64-bit CPU. It also has two DDR2 667 memory slots (up to 4GB), PCI-Ex16 slot for additional video card, 2xSATA ports, 1xIDE port and one mini-pci slot at back side. Northbridge is CN896 (integrated VIA Chrome9 HC graphics), southbridge - VT8237S. There are COM, VGA, 2xUSB, PS/2 keyboard & mouse, RJ-45 Gbit and audio ports. It sure looks quite empty :). I don't know why they didn't included two more USB ports. But it is embedded board so it's understandable. As you can find in the forum above you should be aware of mini-usb headers on the motherboard. Standard header to attach front panel USB won't fit without adapter. You can have additional six USB ports with them (three headers). One of the headers (12-pin) can be used for VIA wlan usb module. There are more headers on the motherboard but I won't go to the details about them. You can find description on the user manual if you need to. Motherboard still uses electrolytic capacitors instead of solid ones which became popular in many current motherboards. CPU and northbridge are covered by one "big" heatsink and they are actively cooled. Once again PicoPSU hits one of the capacitors but it is better situation than in VT310-DP. It fits almost by 100%. Fan is quite loud imho... This is there I hate VIA the most :). They've never done such things right (ok, it is my opinion too as I had only two mini-itx motherboards from them).
Enough about hardware which is as it is. I want to talk a little bit about disappointing points of BIOS. It is quite a standard AwardBIOS. However, it has some specific problems. Firstly, it sees only 3GB at boot (if you have 4GB. OSes see all RAM). Then you enter BIOS you find some more unpleasant surprises:
1. VIA CPUs have a feature called PowerSaver (or longhaul earlier) which has somehow similar purpose to Cool'n'Quiet and SpeedStep technologies accordingly in AMD and Intel CPUs. Theoretically you can choose between Thermal Monitor 1 (on-die throtting) and Thermal Monitor 2 (Ratio&VID transition) in BIOS (Advanced BIOS features->CPU Feature). You can find even a description of both options in BIOS. However, in reality you can't choose Thermal Monitor 2 for some reason (there is now such option to select). So once again I can't use PowerSaver at all (like it was in VT310-DP). CPU always works on full frequency.
2. There is no CPU temperature in PC Health Status. I need to use programs which aren't always accurate.
3. Boot from CD-ROM doesn't work with SATA CD/DVD-ROM. It wouldn't be an issue as it appears as separate device and you can choose it in boot priority, however there is a problem here. You can choose it in device priority only if boot(?) CD/DVD inserted (it didn't appeared with just simple data dvd inserted). Otherwise dvd-rom just disappears from devices. So, if you want to install a new OS from CD you always need to insert disk, go to BIOS and set a priority to newly appeared device.
4. SATA devices is not viewable in Standard CMOS features. It was so with old motherboards. So no progress here with VIA.
5. Overclocking options doesn't exist (only some voltage tweaking). However, it is not a big deal with such system.
Other problems aren't confirmed. I don't know if SMART working properly. There is no options to enable/disable it for hdds and applications doesn't detect any SMART values for my current hdd (but it might be other problems (for example, with hdd itself as I bought it used recently)).
I have read about issues with virtualization. BIOS doesn't have a feature to enable/disable it. Once again it might be a problem with software which doesn't know about such CPUs and its capabilities (update 2009.12.27. According to wikipedia virtualization is disabled before stepping 3. My both VIA Nano boards have CPUs with stepping 2) . And there is no clear option to disable integrated video if it is possible at all. I didn't try to disable shared memory as I was afraid that it might lead to the same situation as in VT310-DP (BIOS hangs and you need to clear it to boot).
So it is the start. I may update this blog with new problems in the future if I'll find/remember them.
2009-10-19
VIA VB8003 - to buy or not to buy?
Not so long ago VIA announced VB8003 motherboard for multimedia. One of the main its features is a separate S3 435 ULP graphics processor with 256 MB GDDR3 memory. Combined with VX800 media system processor (which has its on integrated graphics) the motherboard has two HDMI ports and DVI, VGA as well. However, it is interesting how two graphics will perform in one time (as one hdmi comes from integrated graphics and the other one from 435 ULP as well as one vga from integrated and dvi from 435 ULP)... Is it possible to attach four monitors at once (2xHDMI, 1xDVI and 1xVGA) is unknown for me too. It appeared on some on-line shops for about ~225EUR without VAT. Despite interesting features, this price neglects it's attractiveness IMHO. What is more, a visible port which resembles pci-e x4 is some proprietary video capture port which is not compatible with pci-e. It is a biggest disappointment for me as I expected to used for some additional SATA ports or other pci-e boards. I don't know any board with such port even on VIA side (they said that it would be possible to add some video capture board or additional com ports which aren't interesting for me). The other disappointment is two fans on cpu and graphics processor. It will add more noise which is not very acceptable for htpc solution. I believe that it is possible to make it even fanless or at least to leave only one fan, however, VIA never tried to do such solutions (trying to save costs here?). Instead of standard audio jacks you have two rca jacks. However, you can get audio jacks in the front panel. One more good thing is dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports. There is one COM port. It is probably for embedded purposes as it is not used much in daily life. You also have LPC port for additional COM daughterboards and usb pin headers for WLAN (b/g) through USB module or expansion module for four additional USB ports and some mfc header for multifunction security module. There is Compact flash connector on the back instead of mini-pci like in vb8001 and vb7002 motherboards. You can see it as plus if you want to save some energy but most likely it won't be used. You need SO-DIMM DDR2 memory too.
I planned to buy it after first announcement however price, two fans, video capture port instead of pci-e and some other minuses holds me back for now. I see it as failure as VIA VT310-DP was (interesting thing but the price/performance just unacceptable) but I might be wrong. Probably there are more interesting solutions and you can replace 435 ULP with low-end NVIDIA and ATI discrete graphics which will have the same or even better and guaranteed performance (as it is quite difficult to find anything about 435 ULP performance). I haven't found any reviews of the board yet. So that's all about it from me.
I planned to buy it after first announcement however price, two fans, video capture port instead of pci-e and some other minuses holds me back for now. I see it as failure as VIA VT310-DP was (interesting thing but the price/performance just unacceptable) but I might be wrong. Probably there are more interesting solutions and you can replace 435 ULP with low-end NVIDIA and ATI discrete graphics which will have the same or even better and guaranteed performance (as it is quite difficult to find anything about 435 ULP performance). I haven't found any reviews of the board yet. So that's all about it from me.
2009-09-14
Haiku R1/Alpha1
The first alpha version of Haiku (R1/Alpha 1) is released today. It took about 8 years to reach with point. Give it a try. I will try it this evening and see what happens and what it can do. Special thanks for all developers who made this possible. It is only alpha but still the project will not stop at this I hope.
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