Minisforum MS-01 PCIe Card and RAM Compatibility Thread

[LDighera]

My Minisfourm MS-01 arrived yesterday, and I found myself frustrated by a lack of User Manual and/or other documentation indicating how to access the BIOS.

Searching the Minisforum Support page minisforum fails to mention the MS-01.
On the "New" support page minisforum on the How To Turn Off RGB page minisforum, I did find a clue: After booting, press [Delete] to enter Bios.

Minisforum's support forum appears unconfigured at this time: https://bbs.minisforum.com/

E-mail addressed to support@minisforum.com goes unanswered.

I find this lack of support concerning.

Larry

 

[OJO360]

How are you planning to power the IcyDock? I've been also wanting to use IcyDock for a jbod, for a small pc or laptop even, but not sure how to power them.

Also are you / how planning to connect a 4090 to this minisforum?

Thanks!

For the IcyDock I was going to use Sata to Molex then Molex to usb, from there i could either go to PC, HUB, or wall wart. Don't know if it'll work but i don't mind experimenting for science or until someone explains why it wont work.

For the 4090 i was going to mount it into an ITX case, then run the rizer cable to MS-01, The new NCORE 100 MAX is the best looking one that can accommodate mine.

 

[BlueChris]

For the IcyDock I was going to use Sata to Molex then Molex to usb, from there i could either go to PC, HUB, or wall wart. Don't know if it'll work but i don't mind experimenting for science or until someone explains why it wont work.

For the 4090 i was going to mount it into an ITX case, then run the rizer cable to MS-01, The new NCORE 100 MAX is the best looking one that can accommodate mine.

After a research i think this is the cheapest solution for egpu... i plan to buy one for the sake of testing..

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002802776587.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.30895532f7WKtp&mp=1

 

[chingkt72]

My Minisfourm MS-01 arrived yesterday, and I found myself frustrated by a lack of User Manual and/or other documentation indicating how to access the BIOS.

Searching the Minisforum Support page minisforum fails to mention the MS-01.
On the "New" support page minisforum on the How To Turn Off RGB page minisforum, I did find a clue: After booting, press [Delete] to enter Bios.

Minisforum's support forum appears unconfigured at this time: https://bbs.minisforum.com/

E-mail addressed to support@minisforum.com goes unanswered.

I find this lack of support concerning.

Larry

Press DELETE key when boot up.

 

[FingerBlaster]

After a research i think this is the cheapest solution for egpu... i plan to buy one for the sake of testing..

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002802776587.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.30895532f7WKtp&mp=1

I'm curious if it would work with other pcie cards? Or egpu only?

 

[chingkt72]

Guys i never had usb-c as monitor output so i bought this to get also some other outputs but now that i bought it, i thought to ask after to be sure that it will work with my Displayport monitor.

It worked for my setup, display port over usb c. From MS-01 usb c to usb c monitor.

 

[GreenAvacado]

Anybody know if eGPU passthrough is something that works on Proxmox?

Still waiting for my MS-01 to arrived, in for a long haul it seems. Just saw this new updated on their website.

Purchase by Feb 3 for Mar 29 shipment

Purchase after Feb 3 for Apr 20 shipment

 

[PigLover]

Anybody know if eGPU passthrough is something that works on Proxmox?

Yes, eGPU pass through is supported on Proxmox.

 

[spuwho]

My Minisfourm MS-01 arrived yesterday, and I found myself frustrated by a lack of User Manual and/or other documentation indicating how to access the BIOS.

Searching the Minisforum Support page minisforum fails to mention the MS-01.
On the "New" support page minisforum on the How To Turn Off RGB page minisforum, I did find a clue: After booting, press [Delete] to enter Bios.

Minisforum's support forum appears unconfigured at this time: https://bbs.minisforum.com/

E-mail addressed to support@minisforum.com goes unanswered.

I find this lack of support concerning.

Larry

Chinese New Year. You shouldn't expect any response at all during this time.

Also at the price point Minis Forum sells at, what kind of support were you expecting?

Minis Forum is a very small company that contracts out manufacturing to meet a design and price.

They have set up a distribution center (I think in Texas) to support their US customer orders without having to ship direct from overseas.

Yes, the "bbs" does not get very regular refreshes for new products and for some time getting a BIOS update was word of mouth and a link.

The responsiveness is mostly focused on sales issues like shipping and DOA's.

I am not slamming them in the least, they are essentially a start up. (they began in 2017) I was shocked they even had a booth @ CES last month.

If you or anyone else are disturbed at this, then probably Minis Forum shouldn't be on your short list.

They are run by BESSTAR TECH LTD. based in Shenzen but registered in Hong Kong.

The registration shows them in HK which is probably their filing attorney's office.

7/F, SPA CENTRE, 53-55 LOCKHART, ROAD, WANCHAI HONG KONG HONG KONG

Their name, logos and marks are registered globally.

 

[ms264556]

I see on their Facebook page someone asked about compatible video cards and the response was "We're working on a version that comes with a GPU, and it will be available soon."

Be interesting to see what they shoehorn in there, whether this has an impact on the CPU options, and whether this consumes the PCIE slot.

 

[Tidbit5061]

So in the video, and on this page, they said it worked with a TL-D800S qnap but yet the PCIe card that comes with it, is not listed on the" PCIe Cards Tested " area. Can someone confirm it works?

I hooked up a QXP-1600eS-A1164 to it (it comes with TL-D1600S), which is a 4 port version of what comes in TL-D800S.

Works perfectly. Do note that I needed to take off the back plate to install it. Then the back plate goes back on OK.

The small fan on the PCIe card does produce an unpleasant high-pitched whine. But if you shut the unit behind a door it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Tidbit5061]

Also worth noting that QNAP replaced the Marvell chipset on the HBA card with Asmedia 1164 for TL-D1600S shipped after Feb 2022. This should've improved compatibility with Unraid and TrueNAS.

I tried it on both OSes with no problems.

 

[MetalPhreak]

I hooked up a QXP-1600eS-A1164 to it (it comes with TL-D1600S), which is a 4 port version of what comes in TL-D800S.

Works perfectly. Do note that I needed to take off the back plate to install it. Then the back plate goes back on OK.

The small fan on the PCIe card does produce an unpleasant high-pitched whine. But if you shut the unit behind a door it shouldn't be a problem.

View attachment 34300

Thanks for confirming. Still waiting for my unit to ship, that was the last bit of the puzzle to confirm.

I was actually contacted by minisforum recently. I almost missed the Fedex guy but i managed to get outside in my bathrobe before he left in his truck. Something mustve gone wrong with booking in the delivery because the tracking never updated to delivered even though I signed for it. Both Fedex and Minisforum contacted me to see if all was OK. I have an email address for their customer care but I won't paste it here publicly. If you need it PM me. They will probably be away for CNY for ~2 weeks as does most of china's manufacturing workforce. They are clearly being proactive with deliveries though, so I'm sure they're working as fast as they can.

 

[BlueChris]

I'm curious if it would work with other pcie cards? Or egpu only?

Why not? if the hypervisor reads correclty the slot then anything will work. The egpu is a name to sell this kind of external enclosures but i strongly believe you can put anything in there. As for the final speed of this, i haven't tested any of this things yet.

But as i think it... with just a PCI extender cable, you can connect anything in the original pci slot of the machine.. you just need extra power if it is a graphic card.

 

[spuwho]

I see on their Facebook page someone asked about compatible video cards and the response was "We're working on a version that comes with a GPU, and it will be available soon."

Be interesting to see what they shoehorn in there, whether this has an impact on the CPU options, and whether this consumes the PCIE slot.

I would rather get the MS-02 with the Ryzen 7945HX than the Intel version and a GPU.

 

[shmokey629]

For the IcyDock I was going to use Sata to Molex then Molex to usb, from there i could either go to PC, HUB, or wall wart. Don't know if it'll work but i don't mind experimenting for science or until someone explains why it wont work.

You're not going to get enough juice out of one USB port to support a whole enclosure, though that depends on how many SATA power sockets the enclosure has and how many and what kind of disks you're going to use. Regardless, I find that IcyDock enclosures typically have 12V fans, so clearly they require 12V in addition to 5V. It's unclear whether the rest of the electronics in the enclosure use 12V or 5V. Perhaps you'd find that it's just the fan that doesn't work. Or perhaps it just won't work at all. Even if you find a USB to molex adapter that has both 5V and 12V lines, it's going to be even more power hungry. You are free to experiment of course but I don't think this idea of powering the enclosure over USB has any merit.

 

[Elzeard]

For the IcyDock I was going to use Sata to Molex then Molex to usb, from there i could either go to PC, HUB, or wall wart. Don't know if it'll work but i don't mind experimenting for science or until someone explains why it wont work.

For the 4090 i was going to mount it into an ITX case, then run the rizer cable to MS-01, The new NCORE 100 MAX is the best looking one that can accommodate mine.

I think a better option is to buy this kind of alimentation and a 12v adapter :

https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005002804391077.html?spm=a2g0o.home.0.0.1a6a7065s0M26c&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2fra

Derivate the 19v input to 12v must be perfect. I will seach

 

[GreenAvacado]

To those running Proxmox on i9-13900H version of MS-01, how has the stability been so far?

Craft Computing did this video highlighting some tweaks like microcode update.

 

[MetalPhreak]

How the heck are you guys removing the black plastic trim to install cards? It’s got little plastic rivets to the metal chassis. I ended up trimming the pcie card near where a screw normally holds it in? So it clears the metal c but that holds screw into the plastic clip thing. That and some percussive persuasion to get this qnap card in. But now it’s in, it works, and four individual asmedia devices in their own individual iommu groups show up and pass through fine. So i could do groups of four drivers to different vms if i wanted to.

Pcie card is QXP-1600eS-A1164 and jbod is TL-D1600S

Uses an ASMedia ASM2824 x8 3.0 switch chip that has 4 downstream ASM1164 4-port SATA controllers connecting as 3.0 x2 links each. So each controller is getting full bandwidth through the x8 slot.

 

[vxspiritxv]

To those running Proxmox on i9-13900H version of MS-01, how has the stability been so far?

Craft Computing did this video highlighting some tweaks like microcode update.

I've only had one crash.
I just did the microcode in the youtube video, changed from 0x410c to 0x411c.