SlimServer on Micro-ITX

[max.spicer]

I'm thinking of building a Micro-ITX system to replace my current, noisy and power-hungry PIII-500 Linux server. I'm currently looking at the VIA EPIA SP 8000E board (http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=444#p1627) and just wondered if anyone had any experience of running SlimServer on similar class hardware. Given the low spec of my current machine, I'm hoping things will be fine, but it would be nice to get some corroboration.

Thanks,

Max

[audiofi]

I'm running it on an M1000 which works fine, the computer also doubles up as a PVR and even then I haven't noticed any massive lag.

Library isn't huge though, about 1500-2000 tracks

[SadGamerGeek]

I'm running on an M1000 (1Ghz C3 CPU) with no problems. I'm running Linux - Fedora FC5 with no gui stuff to keep the load as light as possible though. I have around 6,000 tracks.

I did have some initial performance issues related to the version of Perl that FC5 comes with, but Triode (Adrian) was extremely helpful and put in some mods which have completely sorted that out.

[Mark Lanctot]

BTW a very nice power calculator here:

http://www.epiacenter.com/powersim/powersim_v2/epiasimulator_v2.htm

Watch out for the 3.5" HDD calculation though, use one at http://www.storagereview.com/ instead.

[max.spicer]

Would people mind if I ask a few purely Micro-ITX questions here? I'm looking to run a board like the VIA EPIA SP 8000E inside a case like the Morex Venus 669. My main goal is low power and near silence, hence the fanless CPU. I was a bit dismayed to find that nearly all the cases include case fans and power supplies with fans. I was rather hoping (naively?) to be able to run a fanless motherboard inside a fanless case, with a fanless power supply with an external power brick. Is this just unrealistic (for under £400)? Do you need to connect the case fans on these cases?

For info, I'd be putting a single 3.5" disk in the case, memory and not much else.

Any information that anyone can supply on this sort of thing would be gratefully received!

Max

[audiofi]

A couple of options really.

The Silverstone LC12 is a fanless case with fanless power supply:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc12.htm

Otherwise, get something like a Morex Venus, use a fanless power brick:
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=10#picoPSU

Remove the built in power supply, remove the two tiny 40mm fans (which are useless anyway) and slap on a 120mm fan on the back (externally) via an adaptor. Then turn it down and you'll be pretty close to silent
It might work without a fan altogether though as you won't have the power supply making all of the heat.

I have a 120mm fan on the back of my Venus case so can take a photo to show you what it looks like if you want.

For under £400 (with or without HDD?) it should definitely be possible though. I did some calculations a few months ago and they were coming in around the £400-£450 mark with HDD, XP license etc.

I can help you price something up if you want, I still have most of my calculations from when I was looking into it

[mherger]

My main goal is low power and near silence, hence the fanless CPU. I was a bit dismayed to find that nearly all the cases include case fans and power supplies with fans. I was rather hoping (naively?) to be able to run a fanless motherboard inside a fanless case, with a fanless power supply with an external power brick. Is this just unrealistic (for under £400)? Do you need to connect the case fans on these cases?

A while back (more than a year...) I described my system together with the goals I tried to achieve:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=43590&postcount=5

I simply did not connect the case's fan. No noise, very cool :-).

Maybe you want to monitor the CPU temperature in the beginning. Run some full scans with the fans turned off and compare the temperature to the specs. At <1GHz it should IMHO be fine.

[max.spicer]

My £400 does include the hard disk, but it's running Linux so forget licence fees! I'd be very interested in pictures and any other details you have.

Thanks for all the advice!

Max


A couple of options really.

The Silverstone LC12 is a fanless case with fanless power supply:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-lc12.htm

Otherwise, get something like a Morex Venus, use a fanless power brick:
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=10#picoPSU

Remove the built in power supply, remove the two tiny 40mm fans (which are useless anyway) and slap on a 120mm fan on the back (externally) via an adaptor. Then turn it down and you'll be pretty close to silent
It might work without a fan altogether though as you won't have the power supply making all of the heat.

I have a 120mm fan on the back of my Venus case so can take a photo to show you what it looks like if you want.

For under £400 (with or without HDD?) it should definitely be possible though. I did some calculations a few months ago and they were coming in around the £400-£450 mark with HDD, XP license etc.

I can help you price something up if you want, I still have most of my calculations from when I was looking into it

[bert1e]

I am running an MEII-6000(I think) board its a 600Mhz fanless processor with 512Mb and a 250Gb samsung disk in a Silverstone case. Its silent. I dont have a CD drive or monitor connected its just plugged into my router. Its running clarkconnect 3.2, mysql and just recently slimserver 6.3.1. I also use it as a remote syslog server and a file server. Its proved very reliable is on 24/7 and I am only using a 60W power supply. I serve up 9,500 songs and it seems fine to me :) The web interface can be a bit slow but I using the squeezebox is fine.

The only real problem I have with it is that I cant get my USB ports to work at USB 2 speeds. I think its probably down to drivers and the kernel. I only mention that as it means I have to backup over my LAN. I had thought I was going to do an rsync to an external drive every once in a while.

[audiofi]

I'll get some pics of it for you in about 30 mins-1 hour

Need to double check the prices I got as I'm sure the HDD will have dropped in price, but will post back here with them all asap

Andrew

[audiofi]

Better late than never!

Here are some pics:
http://audiofi.dudehost.com/other/case1.jpg
http://audiofi.dudehost.com/other/case2.jpg

That one still has the power supply in it to save buying a new one, I cut out the blades from the old fan and fitted the new one on top.

The power cable was a little hazardous, but I just told everyone to keep away from it

In terms of costs, I had the motherboards coming in around £65, a case at £100 (silverstone one) or about that much for a morex+external PSU, £30 for RAM, and £65 for a HDD (was 200Gb then, probably get 300Gb for that much now)

Then add another £15-£20 for the external fan stuff

Total would be under £300 for the lot

I did a few enquiries for pre-built ones too which weren't bad either (under £400), if you want details of these, drop me a pm and I'll email them through

[max.spicer]

Nice. I have to say, I'm not entirely convinced by the external fan, though. The Silverstone case looks ideal apart from its height. I'm trying to convince myself that I could live without the expansion possiblity of a 2nd 3.5" drive. It's probably too small for a pci card as well, but I can't find data on that just now. I wonder why there are so few silent ITX cases on the market - you'd think it would be what everyone wanted!

Max


Better late than never!

Here are some pics:
http://audiofi.dudehost.com/other/case1.jpg
http://audiofi.dudehost.com/other/case2.jpg

That one still has the power supply in it to save buying a new one, I cut out the blades from the old fan and fitted the new one on top.

The power cable was a little hazardous, but I just told everyone to keep away from it

In terms of costs, I had the motherboards coming in around £65, a case at £100 (silverstone one) or about that much for a morex+external PSU, £30 for RAM, and £65 for a HDD (was 200Gb then, probably get 300Gb for that much now)

Then add another £15-£20 for the external fan stuff

Total would be under £300 for the lot

I did a few enquiries for pre-built ones too which weren't bad either (under £400), if you want details of these, drop me a pm and I'll email them through

[audiofi]

This was one of the options I looked at:
http://www.norhtec.com/products/ss/details.html

They say its totally fanless and can be custom built.

It came to roughly £325 with shipping, tax etc.

[Mathiou]

I'm running an Epia 800 fanless thanks to the Zalman NB47J, with a 160Gb HDD inside a Hoojum Cubit3 case. The OS is DamnSmallLinux, thanks to SlimCD.

The fan is running silently but I plan to build a temperature controlled system. You can have a look at "elektor" magazine. In july-august magazine, there is an article about a temperature controlled fan. Under 30°C, the fan is off. Above 30°C, the speed increases with the temperature.

[Michaelwagner]

The article is a bit hard to find, since it's called "gentle breeze". I was looking for fan, for themostat, etc.

http://www.elektor-electronics.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=27&art=53102&PN=On

To actually read the article you have to pay.

[max.spicer]

I've just finalised on my spec for an itx box. I want it to function as a headless Linux server, that needs to be quiet and low power. This is my first venture into ITX, so I'd really appreciate it if anyone could spot any errors or omissions. I'm only intending to buy what's mentioned here - if anything is not here, I've forgotten it! Note that this is a fanless solution - I'm rather hoping it will run like this.

EPIA EN 12000G Fanless C7 Mini-ITX Board
163.33 + 9.4 p&p = £172.73

Silverstone LC12 Fanless Case
£83 + £7 p&p = £90

Western Digital WD3200JS Caviar 320GB 7200RPM Sata2 8MB Internal Hard Drive
67.84 + 4.99 p&p = £72.83

512MB CCL Choice PC4200, Original Branded Memory, DDR-2 / 533MHz
26.44 + 0 (shipped with HDD) = £26.44

Total: £362 (All prices include VAT).

Thanks to all those that have helped so far, especially audiofi!

Max

[Smiley Dan]

You're worried about noise and power but still buying a HDD?

I've got one of these boxes which I use in place of a squeezebox, connected to my TV. I PXE boot it so avoiding a HDD. Obviously you need some form of storage as you want a standalone server, but why not CFF? All these boxes are optimised for this.

[Mark Lanctot]

You're worried about noise and power but still buying a HDD?

I've got one of these boxes which I use in place of a squeezebox, connected to my TV. I PXE boot it so avoiding a HDD. Obviously you need some form of storage as you want a standalone server, but why not CFF? All these boxes are optimised for this.

?

Music collections require a lot of storage space.

I have a small music collection but it still takes up 70 GB. CF cards max out at 4 GB.

I must have missed something?

[audiofi]

I've just finalised on my spec for an itx box. I want it to function as a headless Linux server, that needs to be quiet and low power. This is my first venture into ITX, so I'd really appreciate it if anyone could spot any errors or omissions. I'm only intending to buy what's mentioned here - if anything is not here, I've forgotten it! Note that this is a fanless solution - I'm rather hoping it will run like this.

EPIA EN 12000G Fanless C7 Mini-ITX Board
163.33 + 9.4 p&p = £172.73

Silverstone LC12 Fanless Case
£83 + £7 p&p = £90

Western Digital WD3200JS Caviar 320GB 7200RPM Sata2 8MB Internal Hard Drive
67.84 + 4.99 p&p = £72.83

512MB CCL Choice PC4200, Original Branded Memory, DDR-2 / 533MHz
26.44 + 0 (shipped with HDD) = £26.44

Total: £362 (All prices include VAT).

Thanks to all those that have helped so far, especially audiofi!

Max

That all looks pretty decent, a couple of small things:

1) Motherboard is slightly cheaper here: http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=88
(I bought my M1000 from them and they were excellent)

2) I'd probably choose Crucial RAM over the CCL one as Crucial stuff comes with a lifetime warranty, so you're paying an extra £4 odd for a much better warranty:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=CT6464AA53E

Other prices look pretty good, the case is at pretty much trade price!!

The only thing missing would be a sata cable, I'm not sure if the drive will come with one

[max.spicer]

I've currently got about 170GB of music, so I'm fairly sure that I do need a hard disk. ;-) This box will replace my current SlimServer box.

Max


?

Music collections require a lot of storage space.

I have a small music collection but it still takes up 70 GB. CF cards max out at 4 GB.

I must have missed something?

[max.spicer]

icp-epia's prices don't include delivery or vat. They charge £9+vat for delivery, so their price is £177.131. I emailed them earlier about their suspiciously low price. Thanks for checking though!

Good call over Crucial memory - I'd forgotten they do free shipping.

I'm reasonably sure that the WD drive does come with a SATA cable. If not, I'll blag one from somewhere.

Thanks again,

Max


That all looks pretty decent, a couple of small things:

1) Motherboard is slightly cheaper here: http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=88
(I bought my M1000 from them and they were excellent)

2) I'd probably choose Crucial RAM over the CCL one as Crucial stuff comes with a lifetime warranty, so you're paying an extra £4 odd for a much better warranty:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=CT6464AA53E

Other prices look pretty good, the case is at pretty much trade price!!

The only thing missing would be a sata cable, I'm not sure if the drive will come with one

[Smiley Dan]

Sorry, wasn't thinking about the storage!

In my setup the storage is separated out again from the server itself.

Personally I can vouch for the UK company, mini-itx.com. Their service was quick and efficient.

[max.spicer]

I've just ordered the lot, so fingers crossed!

For those that are interested, here's my final spec again, this time with links to suppliers. I didn't include these before in case you all rushed to buy them and made them go out of stock. ;-)

Final spec:

EPIA EN 12000G Fanless C7 Mini-ITX Board
http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=2#p1645
163.33 + 9.4 = 172.73

Silverstone LC12 Fanless Case
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/277468/art/silverstone/pc-lc12-computer-case-sil.html
£83 + £7 = 90

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=6618&category_id=112&manufacturer_id=0
Western Digital WD3200JS Caviar 320GB 7200RPM Sata2 8MB Internal Hard Drive
67.84 + 4.99 = 72.83

512MB 240-pin DIMM DDR2-533 PC2-4200
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.asp?imodule=CT6464AA53E
30.54 + 0

Total: £366.10

All prices include VAT. The bit after the + is the shipping cost to the UK mainland.

Again, thanks to all those who've helped out!

Max

[Mark Lanctot]

Sorry, wasn't thinking about the storage!

In my setup the storage is separated out again from the server itself.

It would be neat to put the OS on flash though. Nearly silent bootup!

[Michaelwagner]

It would be neat to put the OS on flash though. Nearly silent bootup!
Yeah, and faster bootup too, and less reliant on mechanical stuff.

The problem is, almost every O/S wants some temporary storage somewhere.

If you put that on flash, the flash gets worn out pretty fast.

If you put that on mechanical, you still have a hard disk.

No one (that I've found) makes volatile memory in a USB stick format - i.e. doesn't remember, faster than flash, much higher capacity than flash.

Or has someone found such a thing?

[Mark Lanctot]

Yeah, and faster bootup too, and less reliant on mechanical stuff.

The problem is, almost every O/S wants some temporary storage somewhere.

If you put that on flash, the flash gets worn out pretty fast.

If you put that on mechanical, you still have a hard disk.

No one (that I've found) makes volatile memory in a USB stick format - i.e. doesn't remember, faster than flash, much higher capacity than flash.

Or has someone found such a thing?

There's this:

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/gigabyte-iram/index.x?pg=1

4 GB capacity, saturates the SATA 150 connection.

Expensive though when you populate it, and insecure - your OS is depending on a battery.

Also it's a full-height card which will be a problem for the small cases discussed in this thread.

[Michaelwagner]

Thanks. I didn't know about that unit. Has some applications.

I actually don't need the memory to remember data, but it does need to remember it's a hard disk and reformat itself on powerup if it's been too long. Any idea if it does? I didn't see anything.

[Mark Lanctot]

I actually don't need the memory to remember data, but it does need to remember it's a hard disk and reformat itself on powerup if it's been too long. Any idea if it does? I didn't see anything.

Not sure what you're asking about reformatting itself on startup, but to the SATA controller it looks like any SATA hard drive and will behave as one. If the battery fails, on startup the "drive" will appear unformatted.

With no OS data, the controller wouldn't know how to format it. If you had a floppy drive and inserted a DOS start-up disk I suppose you could reformat it but you'd also need the SATA drivers for the controller.

[mherger]

The problem is, almost every O/S wants some temporary storage somewhere.

If you put that on flash, the flash gets worn out pretty fast.

The way DSL (and thus SlimCD - if installed using the frugal install) solves this problem is by using the flash medium like a CD and running everything in memory/ramdisk. My CF card only contains the system image plus a backup partition where I backup configuration and stuff once every 24h (cron). You only have to keep an eye on the log files which tend to fill the disk to a system halt (happened to me after an uptime of a few weeks :-)).

[max.spicer]

Less than 24 hours after I placed my order for the motherboard with mini-itx.com, I've just had it delivered to my door. Now that's what I call service! They were also extremely helpful when I emailed them with questions about the board, and replied within an hour. Highly recommended.

Looks like I'll also get my harddisk from CCL today (despite only going for the cheap 7 day postage) and the memory from Crucial. That "just" leaves the case/power supply. Typical. :-(

Max

[Smiley Dan]

Yeah, and faster bootup too, and less reliant on mechanical stuff.

The problem is, almost every O/S wants some temporary storage somewhere.

If you put that on flash, the flash gets worn out pretty fast.

If you put that on mechanical, you still have a hard disk.

No one (that I've found) makes volatile memory in a USB stick format - i.e. doesn't remember, faster than flash, much higher capacity than flash.

Or has someone found such a thing?
As I said, you don't need any storage, so long as the OS and apps you run are light enough to run in memory. I do it right now as I PXE boot and run in RAM. Alternatively, I could mount over NFS but what I have now works.

[Smiley Dan]

Less than 24 hours after I placed my order for the motherboard with mini-itx.com, I've just had it delivered to my door. Now that's what I call service! They were also extremely helpful when I emailed them with questions about the board, and replied within an hour. Highly recommended.

Looks like I'll also get my harddisk from CCL today (despite only going for the cheap 7 day postage) and the memory from Crucial. That "just" leaves the case/power supply. Typical. :-(

Max
Bit late now but I ordered one of the Travla cases from mini-itx... totally silent. Only annoyance is the piercing blue LED!

[Michaelwagner]

As I said, you don't need any storage, so long as the OS and apps you run are light enough to run in memory. I do it right now as I PXE boot and run in RAM. Alternatively, I could mount over NFS but what I have now works.
Sure, if the box has enough memory.

I'm thinking of things like slugs, which need a memory transplant in order to run serious work.

[Michaelwagner]

Only annoyance is the piercing blue LED!
You can just tell everyone that big brother is watching them :-)

[max.spicer]

Well my system arrived on Monday and is now happily running Debian after a few false hardware and software starts. I've been taking pictures and notes so will write the thing up at some point.

One issue that I'd like to clear up however is the amount of memory available to the system. I've got a 512MB DDR2 533 DIMM from Crucial, but when the system boots the BIOS reports this as "45872OK +64M shared memory". In other words, I appear to be missing 54MB. Is my memory not quite working properly, or has the motherboard simply grabbed some of the memory for video mem etc? The thing that concerns me slightly is that I'm missing 54MB, whereas the message suggests that it's taken 64MB for shared memory.

Could anyone with similar hardware enlighten me on this?

Thanks,

Max

[koen]

I've got a 512MB DDR2 533 DIMM from Crucial, but when the system boots the BIOS reports this as "45872OK +64M shared memory". In other words, I appear to be missing 54MB. Is my memory not quite working properly, or has the motherboard simply grabbed some of the memory for video mem etc? The thing that concerns me slightly is that I'm missing 54MB, whereas the message suggests that it's taken 64MB for shared memory.
Max

First of all, 1MB is 1024K, not 1000K so that is probably where your discrepancy comes from. Secondly video cards using shared memory seem to grab 64M of the main memory by default. This is to be able to run 3D at high resolutions with 24bit colour. There should be a setting somewhere in the BIOS where you can choose how much memory is set aside for the video card. Because you will be running this in text mode only go for the smallest (usually still 16MB) to free up as much as possible for your applications.

Regards,

Koen.

[audiofi]

As said above, in the BIOS is the option to turn the graphics memory down, I have mine set on 4Mb as I have a separate graphics card and thats the lowest setting (there is no way to turn it off)

[max.spicer]

You're quite right about it being 64MB after all. I know very well that 1MB is 1024K, but it appears that I can't add up!

I've had a good look through the BIOS settings and can't find a way to decrease the amount allocated. I'll have another look! If anyone could confirm that my motherboard (or Epia's in general) have this setting, that would be very helpful. Pointer's about where it is wouldn't go a miss either. ;-)

Thanks for you help,

Max


First of all, 1MB is 1024K, not 1000K so that is probably where your discrepancy comes from. Secondly video cards using shared memory seem to grab 64M of the main memory by default. This is to be able to run 3D at high resolutions with 24bit colour. There should be a setting somewhere in the BIOS where you can choose how much memory is set aside for the video card. Because you will be running this in text mode only go for the smallest (usually still 16MB) to free up as much as possible for your applications.

Regards,

Koen.

[audiofi]

My M1000 definitely has the setting, I'll dig out the manual in a few mins and see where it is for you.

I think its under integrated peripherals or something, but will double check

[audiofi]

Just checked and on mine its Integrated Peripherals - Frame Buffer Size

[max.spicer]

Found it in the end. It's under Advanced Chipset Features->AGP & P2P Bridge Control->VGA Share Memory Size. This can be set to 16MB, at which point the amount of memory increases correspondingly.

Oddly, you can also set this to 0MB. I did this out of dogged curiosity, and got exactly what I asked for - absolutely no display output from the next reset. This caused me to discover for the second time how hard it is to get to the BIOS reset jumper on the motherboard. Not a recommended setting. :-)

Max


Just checked and on mine its Integrated Peripherals - Frame Buffer Size

[koen]

Oddly, you can also set this to 0MB. I did this out of dogged curiosity, and got exactly what I asked for - absolutely no display output from the next reset.

Max

Once your server is set up I imagine you will access it using ssh and the slim webserver? You could then happily set it to 0MB and run it headless to use that last 16 MB.

Koen.

[max.spicer]

I wouldn't recommend it. You lose ALL video output, including the POST screen. It makes diagnosing network problems very difficult as you've basically thrown away the console. My previous server has sometimes refused to boot fully (generally wating for an answer to an fsck question), at which point it is invaluable to be able to plug in a monitor and keyboard.

Max

PS Anyone who is thinking about the serial port at this point should keep that thought to themselves. :-)


Once your server is set up I imagine you will access it using ssh and the slim webserver? You could then happily set it to 0MB and run it headless to use that last 16 MB.

Koen.

[Michaelwagner]

Thought I'd point out that I noticed the Damned Small Linux web site is selling computers.

There's this one:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/store/Mini_ITX_Systems/IDE_CF_Mini_ITX_System

Oh, and here's a better link for the gigabyte I-Ram
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2180&ProductName=GC-RAMDISK

[Paul_B]

Very interesting thread. I am thinking of putting together a touchscreen from mini-itx to control Slimserver and Squeezebox. I can't make up my mind whether to attach a mini-PC to each one or see if I can pass USB and Video over cat 6 to a central server.

Any one got any thoughts? The touchscreens will also be used for home-automation control

[Smiley Dan]

Sounds like an interesting project. Depends on how much you wish to separate the processing and what needs to be executed, also bearing in mind the economics of data transfer. Certainly, if you want a 'mini computer' there're communities around of people doing similar things.

I'd also be interested in other applications of Mini-itx boards as slim clients rather than servers, an application to which I believe they are better suited.

[Paul_B]

If I go down the mini-computer route then I would probably base it around this enclosure:

http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=78

The touchscreen will probably be the 8" version from mini-itx:

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=25#p505

Nit sure about the OS, I have made my living with Microsoft but I would like to have a play with Linux

[Bamsefar]

Thanks. I didn't know about that unit. Has some applications.

I actually don't need the memory to remember data, but it does need to remember it's a hard disk and reformat itself on powerup if it's been too long. Any idea if it does? I didn't see anything.

Sorry for jumping in this late, however there is a software for example windows that runs ram disks in internal memory. I think it's called SuperDrive or something like that, however I have no link available currently. An American company I think.

There is also another hardware solution like the iRam (I happen to own an iRAM), which is 16GB and SATA-II. My internal memory is not good enough though so I have no idea what it's called. However I do now that it's an .co.uk site ;)

[werock]

To the original poster, how do you find this system performs? I have been looking at something similar myself based around a VIA processor. I use high quality ogg and some FLAC files, with about 3500 songs in the library.

The main difference in my theoretical system is that I would use Windows, as I am totally clueless with regards to Linux :-(

[Paul_B]

Werock,

My project of a Mini-ITX system has come to reality. I bought a VIA EN 15000 Motherboard and 1GB of RAM fitted into a Travla 1U rack-unit (19" x 10"). My storage is external on a QNAP NAS but could easily be internal.

I am running Windows 2003 Server (to also experiment as I work in IT) The system is running Slimserver 6.5.1 and I am very impressed with the entire setup

[werock]

Thanks for your info Paul_B. Does the EN 15000 have an onboard fan? I am tempted by the fanless 12000 motherboard, but I guess the right case could supress the noise from a board fan and justify the extra processing power.

[Paul_B]

Yes the EN 15000 does have a fan but the EN 12000 is fanless. The case I have has three fans which are more noisey than the CPU fan even though at the moment I have one disconnected.

[max.spicer]

To the original poster, how do you find this system performs? I have been looking at something similar myself based around a VIA processor. I use high quality ogg and some FLAC files, with about 3500 songs in the library.

The main difference in my theoretical system is that I would use Windows, as I am totally clueless with regards to Linux :-(
The performance of my system is absolutely fine as a SlimServer. I also run it is a webserver, dns server, dhcp server, ssh server etc etc and it's perfectly responsive. I have no performance issues whatsover with the system. You wouldn't want to use it to batch encode mp3s, however - VIA is not about vast number crunching!

My system is the EN12000, which is indeed fanless. I have no fans in the case and it all seems perfectly happy. The hard disk can run fairly hot, but I have it spinning down whenever it can, at which point the system is of course completely silent.

Max

[werock]

The performance of my system is absolutely fine as a SlimServer. I also run it is a webserver, dns server, dhcp server, ssh server etc etc and it's perfectly responsive. I have no performance issues whatsover with the system. You wouldn't want to use it to batch encode mp3s, however - VIA is not about vast number crunching!

My system is the EN12000, which is indeed fanless. I have no fans in the case and it all seems perfectly happy. The hard disk can run fairly hot, but I have it spinning down whenever it can, at which point the system is of course completely silent.

Max

That's good to hear - mine would probably be just running SlimServer, so based on your experience should be fine. I'll probably still rip on my current machine and just copy the files over. Thanks for the info.

[max.spicer]

I get occasional emails and PMs asking me how I'm getting on with my ITX box. I'd prefer to keep things in these forums so that the info can be of use to more people. Here's a copy of my latest reply to a personal query:

My box is doing just fine. It's running slimserver, backuppc and a host of other stuff with no noticeable performance issues whatsoever.

My only slight issue is that the hard disk's reported temperature can get a bit high. It's currently running at 51degrees according to hddtemp. I've seen it at 55, which is at the top end of the operating specs. However, I suspect the specs of being over cautious anyway, especially for a fluid bearing drive. My main solution to this problem has been to make sure the disk is kept spun down whenever possible - I wanted this to make it silent anyway. Much fiddling with laptopmode (a 2.6 kernel addition) and the BIOS (couldn't get Linux itself to spin my disk down) has achieved a fair amount of success on this. Definitely do go for a cool disk!

Max

[Paul_B]

Interesting comments Max. As my sig says I went for the EN 15000 which does have a cpu fan. The board is in Travla 1U rack case which also has some fans. I am running a Windows OS and use the excellent Speedfan to report temperatures. As such I have been able to disconnect two fans in the case which were quite noisey. This leaves the CPU fan and a small PSU fan which is pretty quiet. My temps are around 37C for the CPU and 33C for the HDD. For me this is quiet enough as the server lives in the garage.

I see Jetway have just released a 2GHz based Mini-ITX board.

[bogomipz]

Hi,

I have a similar setup. It has somewhat lower specs, but runs slimserver and various tasks in the "home-server" category absolutely fine:

* EPIA-ML6000EAG (600MHz fanless)
* Silverstone LC09 (fanless, external power)
* Samsung SpinPoint P120 250GB, 7200RPM, ATA/133
* 512MB TwinMOS PC3200

My only problem is HD noise. This computer was supposed to run 24/7 but the disk is so loud that I have to power down at night. Disconnecting the drive makes the box dead silent.

I have trouble getting the disk to spin down properly. Keeping unwanted messages out of the log was lots of work, and even with that out of the way it seems impossible to track down all processes that access the disk for whatever reason. Besides, I often let slow downloads run overnight, leading to small but constant disk activity. Making the disk spin down on a server running all sorts of small services just doesn't seem feasible to me.

Max, you seem to be happy with your 3.5" disk and spin-down approach. Was it really so easy to keep Debian from accessing files? From the size of your music library I guess you were forced to use a 3.5" disk. Did you ever wish a laptop drive would be enough?

The conclusion so far is that my disk choice was wrong and I need to replace it with a laptop drive. Any comments, ideas, or recommendations? Do you agree that 2.5" is a better bet than relying on spin-down? I'd hate to spend more money only to make another mistake.

Best regards,
Truls

[Mark Lanctot]

Strange, I have the same exact drive for my music library and it's very, very quiet.

It's mounted in an Antec Sonata case with the rubber grommets Antec uses for that case. Might want to try those?

[bergek]

I have the same drive except that I went for the 400GB. I wouldn't say it is exactly quiet but for a 3.5" disk I am happy. A laptop disk was not an option for me due to size constraints.

I have the hard drive in IDE2 and I have a 2GB IDE Flash disk in IDE1. I run Ubuntu 6.06 server headless which, together with Slimserver and databases, take up 800MB of the IDE flash. Swap is turned off. I added the following to /etc/hdparm.conf:

/dev/hdc {
write_cache = off
spindown_time = 242
}

With this setting the HD spins down after an hour but the rest of the system is running 24/7.

[bogomipz]

Strange, I have the same exact drive for my music library and it's very, very quiet.

It's mounted in an Antec Sonata case with the rubber grommets Antec uses for that case. Might want to try those?

Since one of my high priorities for the drive was limited noise, I wouldn't expect other 3.5" disks to be significantly more silent. With the noise levels I've got, though, I didn't dream of rubber grommets being enough to silence it, but perhaps I should give it a try. Thanks for sharing your experience, Mark.

[Michaelwagner]

The thing is, it may not be the drive radiating the noise, but rather transfering vibration to the case, which re-radiates it as noise. Consider rubber grommets, as Mark suggests (Hi Mark, long time), but also consider seeing if you can plastic screws of the size and thread gauge that you need. Because the metal screws, having no "give", will also couple vibration to the case.

[MadsD]

Hi Max... you still here? :)

I was about to send you an e-mail when I noticed you wanted to keep questions regarding your system in this forum :)

Considering your setup it seems the LS12 case has S-ATA power connectors in it, is it true? How many actually?

The Via EPIA EX15000G has 2 S-ATA connectors and 1 IDE connector, does this case has the equal amount of power connectors?

I've been searching forever and ever for information regarding the power connectors but all everyone is listing is that 60W power adaptor :) Not even Silverstones own homepage lists what's available.

[max.spicer]

Hi Max... you still here? :)

I was about to send you an e-mail when I noticed you wanted to keep questions regarding your system in this forum :)

Considering your setup it seems the LS12 case has S-ATA power connectors in it, is it true? How many actually?

The Via EPIA EX15000G has 2 S-ATA connectors and 1 IDE connector, does this case has the equal amount of power connectors?

I've been searching forever and ever for information regarding the power connectors but all everyone is listing is that 60W power adaptor :) Not even Silverstones own homepage lists what's available.

Hi,

I'm still around. I've got pictures of the innards somewhere so I'll dig them out and have a look. Failing that, I guess I could always take the lid off...

Max

[MadsD]

Hi,

I'm still around. I've got pictures of the innards somewhere so I'll dig them out and have a look. Failing that, I guess I could always take the lid off...

Max

Wauv, fantastic. I asked an Internet shop earlier today, and to their collective memory they _might_ think it has it... that just doesn't cut it for me :) I'm not spending money to find out I cannot use what I bought :)

Thanks again, waiting patiently..

[max.spicer]

Hi Max... you still here? :)

I was about to send you an e-mail when I noticed you wanted to keep questions regarding your system in this forum :)

Considering your setup it seems the LS12 case has S-ATA power connectors in it, is it true? How many actually?

The Via EPIA EX15000G has 2 S-ATA connectors and 1 IDE connector, does this case has the equal amount of power connectors?

I've been searching forever and ever for information regarding the power connectors but all everyone is listing is that 60W power adaptor :) Not even Silverstones own homepage lists what's available.

Okay, I've just had a trawl through my pictures (and my memory) and I'm certain that the power supply supplied with my LC12 case does not provide any SATA connectors. I made sure that I bought a SATA disk with both SATA and IDE power connectors. As far as I know, most disks do have both, and you should be able to get an IDE-SATA power adapter cable if not.

Here's a couple of pictures that should help - you can just see the two IDE power and the single floppy power on the end of the cable. There's no other connectors.


Max

[MadsD]

Aaaah, thank you very much. I will have to buy a molex to S-ATA power-connector then. My harddrive that I intend to put in doesn't have "normal" power plug.

Thank you very much for this info :)

[MadsD]

I'm sorry to bother you again, Max, but you're one of the few that actually has this setup I want to build myself.

My thinking is that I want to toss the video signal up on my TV and play some DivX-encoded movies. Have you successfully viewed any DivX-movies on your machine, which wasn't choppy etc?

I've noticed in some reviews of the EX15000G, that HD-video ain't actually working perfectly, but DivX is MPEG4, which should be hardware assisted decoding - Can you confirm if the performance is good?

Would you believe that it has enough performance to be both a server (windows domaincontroller, iis, file-sharing etc (2 concurrent users)) and a multimedia-playing (divx-content mostly) machine?

[MTBforever]

As i have just done a similar install with the same case as on the pictures and using a EN12000 board i would like to add one comment.

If you have plans on using it as HTPC you will need some kind of TV receiver card which does not easily fit in that case as it has no space for the card on the back side.

I have played some movies in normal DVD format without any problems and also some divx but thats not HD nor is the DVD. Im using Ubuntu and as far as i know there still no driver avail for HD video.

As slimserver, webserver, openvpn entry point it serves me quite well but unless someone get the HD chip working dont expect that. But seriously?? How many of your Divx movies are in HD??

I dont use it for HTPC son the issue about space for the PCI card is no issue to me.

[MadsD]

Nice, Thanks MTB... I must presume that the EX is newer than the EN and hence the EX should perform equally or better compared to your board :)

And, I haven't though too much about adding a TV-card. Cause I'll probably be leeching on Joost when it arrives or as you say, watch DivX-movies. That is my need. Besides, there's nothing on TV anyway ^^

DivX movies in HD-format - that's contradiction at it's best. If I'm not mistaken, then HD is compressed in that H.242-codec (MPEG4 Part 10) and DivX is DivX which is MPEG4 part 2 specification, or vice versa :)

[MadsD]

Has anyone tried their VIA EPIA system together with http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ ? Does video playback work?

Apparently it needs some DirectX 9 feature to be fully compatible with the video playback-portion of the software. So I was wondering, if anyone has tried this?