(Update 04-25) DFI DT122 (AMD RX-427BB) Industrial ITX T730-a-like; $99 shipped w/ 8GB

[arglebargle]

Oh, you're good. When I said "shutdown" I just meant powering off. DOS isn't modern enough to really know anything about shutting down properly, you just kind of wait for the disk access lights to stop flashing and then hit power.

Also, yeah, these are a phenomenal value. If you look at Passmark scores they're on par with an i7 920 which is quite a lot of processing power for $75-99 and <20W.

 

[rj1]

Oh, you're good. When I said "shutdown" I just meant powering off. DOS isn't modern enough to really know anything about shutting down properly, you just kind of wait for the disk access lights to stop flashing and then hit power.

Also, yeah, these are a phenomenal value. If you look at Passmark scores they're on par with an i7 920 which is quite a lot of processing power for $75-99 and <20W.

I'll give it a try again tomorrow. Family got home and I already had put pfSense in a VM and using it now.

I have 1Gbit/s up/down Internet and my speeds dropped to 800Mbit/s on speed tests giving pfSense only 2 cores. I may look at running esxi or virtualbox instead. I've never used either of those - so not really sure yet.

My wife joked asking what I was vacuuming.

 

[rj1]

I tried again and got 2 more md5's. I got to thinking about it - maybe it is writing a date/time in a header for when it created the backup? I don't know what tools you were using to open these with. I uploaded the two I did from today, maybe you can compare them and see what's going on? Maybe try backing up your current one and see if you get the same md5 to what you actually flashed?

Dropbox - oldrom.zip - Simplify your life

MD5 (oldrom.four) = 5cbf1e1bc94116e62a194fd73be18e49
MD5 (oldrom.five) = eb8327a99acf8a30523ca784561083e0

 

[jackfrost]

Interesting.. I thought the DFIs supported up to 16GB. So to confirm again.. 32GB works?

Yup:

 

[rj1]

One thing you could try for airflow is attaching a pair of 40 or 50mm x10mm fans to the intake vents. I thought about that as a replacement for the somewhat noisy exhaust fan. Also, once you drop to a certain sound level by replacing the exhaust fan you'll want to look at replacing the CPU fan too, it's louder than you'd expect.

What CPU fan did you replace with? I swapped the exhaust fan, which made it a lot quieter, but now I see what you mean about the CPU fan being loud.

 

[arglebargle]

What CPU fan did you replace with? I swapped the exhaust fan, which made it a lot quieter, but now I see what you mean about the CPU fan being loud.

Sunon MB50101V2-000U-G99. It's the 4300RPM maglev 50x50x10mm.

Edit: You might want to order a V1 or a VX too, I haven't been keeping a close eye on temps in that machine and it might be running hot. In any event nothing has caught on fire or exploded and it's been running for about 10 days.

 

[aluo]

Does this CPU run hot? Does it make sense to replace the CPU thermal paste as well?

 

[arglebargle]

Does this CPU run hot? Does it make sense to replace the CPU thermal paste as well?

With the stock CPU fan? No, mine idled in the low 30's. I've been fighting with network cards so I can't really boot and give you reasonable temps readings at the moment, that was my next project after I got a NIC with a normal level of heat production working. The Chelsio T420 I have in my test box right now so stupidly hot without direct airflow that it throws temps for the whole machine off..

Honestly you can do as much, or as little, thermal and noise-level tweaking as you want. Personally I don't think it's worth taking the heatsink off to swap thermal pastes for a 2-4C change in temp. It doesn't run hot enough normally to warrant that. If you're going to load it 24/7 and run OpenVPN or something then you might want to just stick with the stock fan, it's chosen to match the heat output from this CPU after all.

Just for you:

FWIW I've had Stress hammering three cores in my test box for the last 45 minutes and CPU temps have stabilized at ~57-58C. Ambient is ~21C.

This is with Sunon V2 fans on both the exhaust port and the CPU heatsink, a couple of old (hot) 2011 era enterprise SSDs in the case and a really, really hot Chelsio T420 with no direct airflow across it.

I don't think you have to worry much about temps on this platform.

 

[Dhiru]

What's the weight of this units? I am planning to have one shipped internationally.

 

[oxynazin]

What's the weight of this units? I am planning to have one shipped internationally.

Dimensions (W x H x D)
300mm x 75mm x 217mm (W x H x D)
Weight 3.7 kg

With packaging my parcel weights about 4.5kg.

 

[arglebargle]

FWIW I've had Stress hammering three cores in my test box for the last 45 minutes and CPU temps have stabilized at ~57-58C. Ambient is ~21C.

This is with Sunon V2 fans on both the exhaust port and the CPU heatsink, a couple of old (hot) 2011 era enterprise SSDs in the case and a really, really hot Chelsio T420 with no direct airflow across it.

I don't think you have to worry much about temps on this platform.

 

[Fritz]

So what's the best replacement for the CPU fan ?

 

[arglebargle]

So what's the best replacement for the CPU fan ?

What I'm comfortable using and what you're comfortable using are probably going to be different things.

If you can tolerate 60C temps under full load this isn't a bad option:
Sunon 50mm x 10mm 12v MagLev Fan Vapo Bearing MB50101V2-000U-G99 | eBay

That's what I'm using in my two machines anyway.

4300RPM, 11CFM, ~1.3W. I don't have dBa off-hand, it's quiet enough for me.

 

[Fritz]

What I'm comfortable using and what you're comfortable using are probably going to be different things.

If you can tolerate 60C temps under full load this isn't a bad option:
Sunon 50mm x 10mm 12v MagLev Fan Vapo Bearing MB50101V2-000U-G99 | eBay

That's what I'm using in my two machines anyway.

4300RPM, 11CFM, ~1.3W. I don't have dBa off-hand, it's quiet enough for me.

Thank you sir. This completes my dress out of this little box. Now to wait for the goodies to arrive.

 

[rj1]

Oh, you're good. When I said "shutdown" I just meant powering off. DOS isn't modern enough to really know anything about shutting down properly, you just kind of wait for the disk access lights to stop flashing and then hit power.

Also, yeah, these are a phenomenal value. If you look at Passmark scores they're on par with an i7 920 which is quite a lot of processing power for $75-99 and <20W.

I found there is an option (/CAF) to verify what the system has and the file matches. I backed up the system twice (again new md5's). I then ran with /CAF and it verified it matched the system. I am pretty convinced that /O must be writing something unique each time that doesn't matter. I upgraded to the version you posted and then downgraded to the one I'm linking here.

Dropbox - OLD.ONE - Simplify your life
MD5 (OLD.ONE) = df5758b3a12b5f8dfb72d78b93a41977

The only issue I had with the new version is that the setting for Always On after power is restored no longer works. I really wanted this on since I have pfSense in a VM on this machine. Luckily, there is a jumper you can set on the motherboard. I changed it and Always On works again.

 

[arglebargle]

Thank you sir. This completes my dress out of this little box. Now to wait for the goodies to arrive.

Any time. I was hoping to put together some ready to click packages for fans and such this week but instead I spent that time fruitlessly trying to get NICs working.

I found there is an option (/CAF) to verify what the system has and the file matches. I backed up the system twice (again new md5's). I then ran with /CAF and it verified it matched the system. I am pretty convinced that /O must be writing something unique each time that doesn't matter. I upgraded to the version you posted and then downgraded to the one I'm linking here.

Dropbox - OLD.ONE - Simplify your life
MD5 (OLD.ONE) = df5758b3a12b5f8dfb72d78b93a41977

The only issue I had with the new version is that the setting for Always On after power is restored no longer works. I really wanted this on since I have pfSense in a VM on this machine. Luckily, there is a jumper you can set on the motherboard. I changed it and Always On works again.

Awesome, thanks! Just to confirm: this is the original un-molested BIOS that shipped with the machine right?

 

[rj1]

Awesome, thanks! Just to confirm: this is the original un-molested BIOS that shipped with the machine right?

Correct. It shows up as version 56.16A in the BIOS.

As part of my tests, I was going to do /O on the one I flashed to confirm my theory. In my excitement of finding the /CAF option, I forgot to test /O on it. Now, my family is home and they will kill me if I take the Internet down again

 

[canta]

Sunon MB50101V2-000U-G99. It's the 4300RPM maglev 50x50x10mm.

Edit: You might want to order a V1 or a VX too, I haven't been keeping a close eye on temps in that machine and it might be running hot. In any event nothing has caught on fire or exploded and it's been running for about 10 days.

I guess the fan hovering at full speed....
4300rpm on 50mm fan is still generate enough noise for me.


Just to share my experience:
If you running 24/7 and rely on this machine to run with medium Load. It would has issues with the heat .

When it overheat. It will not exploded. It shutdown due on protection. But if you expose kind near overheat, this will reduce motherboard components life. This is the reason why they put the high rpm fans.

It is not about 10 days but for months and years running 24/7.

Those are my understanding. In Taming noisy fans. The good solution for me is always install bigger fan if possible with lowest rpm possible. Or install bigger heatsink as hp t6xx/7xx did

 

[Fritz]

Is there some magic spell I have to know to get the msata slot working. I've done everything I can think of and no joy. Even tried a second msata SSD and still nothing.

HALP !!!!!

Scratch that. The fat jumper next to the mSATA slot was set incorrectly. It was only on one row of pins. Had to squench to see it. It came like that. I suspect this wasn't a brand new box.

 

[arglebargle]

Is there some magic spell I have to know to get the msata slot working. I've done everything I can think of and no joy. Even tried a second msata SSD and still nothing.

HALP !!!!!

Scratch that. The fat jumper next to the mSATA slot was set incorrectly. It was only on one row of pins. Had to squench to see it. It came like that. I suspect this wasn't a brand new box.

I think I had to set that jumper properly too, and mine was brand new in box. There's also a power jumper next to the big block that sets mSATA and mPCIe power levels, it's worth verifying that it's set properly too.