intel atom motherboard review

[darmock]

Hi Folks

I thought I would share my experiences with this new motherboard.

link here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121342&Tpk=intel+atom

This is the new Intel Atom processor on a mini itx form factor motherboard. I have been reading about this and decided to buy one and give it a try. To say I was impressed would be an understatement!

Excellent board and runs PIAF with no problems. It is supposed to be able to run 64 bit but that will have to wait till another one arrives to test that out.

This also has dual cores as per the cat /proc/cpuinfo and is fast. Below is the spec from the first processor

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 28
model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1596.155
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 3193.99

(The Everex TC2502 is 3002.29 bogomips)

Installation

When I got the board I installed 1 gb of ram and it will take up to 2 gb of ram. It uses DDR2 667 ram and the cheapy generic I had in the parts box worked just fine. It has a single pata connector (2 devices), 2 sata II connectors, and a single pci slot.

I placed the board into an empty WalMart special case. (Used the walmart MB for another project) and it just plugged in using the existing connectors no muss or fuss. The case still had the existing hd drive and I used that. I ordered a new sata CD as new egg had them on special, however the walmart case only had a single sata power connector! So trip to local comp store fixed that. I also plugged in an 8 gb CF card into the pata connector to test out booting off that. That also works great


Installed piaf 14 in about half the time of the walmart special! The only down side is the onboard realtek 8101E NIC is not supported by Centos 5.1 out of the box. Found a driver and got it installed just fine.

I tested out both a TDM400 and A1200P in the system and both seemed to work just fine. I have put this system up as my office PBX to see what the real performance is.

I also installed piaf onto the 8gb CF card to see how well that worked. Performace was also good and the system boots just fine and somewhat quicker than the walmart special.

Xwindows runs fast and there is native support for the Intel 845 video.

So far two thumbs up for this MB

Tom

 

[ipiera]

Thanks for the very useful review. Was just looking at buying this motherboard. Where did you find the realtek 8101E NIC driver? Since the normal install will fail without a working NIC, which script do I need to run to restart the install process?

Paul

 

[darmock]

do the following

1. download the driver from

wget http://www.pbxinaflash.org/drivers/r8101-1.007.00.tar.bz2

2. Put it on some media such as a flash drive or burn it to a cd

3. There is a readme file contained within the archive which outlines the steps you need to add the driver.

4. Install PIAF version 1.2/ast1.4/32 bit. Use the ksalt choice as you don't need the overhead of LVM

5. On reboot you will be presented with the download screen simply choose A. The program will go thru various options and fail (this is good) then you will be at the linux cli. Log in as root

6. Put the cd you burned or mount the other media and copy the file to /usr/src

7. untar the archive

8. Follow the directions in the readme.

9. reboot and then continue with your installation by choosing A


I tried a number of drivers before I found this one that worked. It came from the realtek.tw website.

hope this helps.... still rock solid. I am replacing my main server with this board (currently it is running on a walmart special board)


Tom

 

[noblenull]

I placed the board into an empty WalMart special case. (Used the walmart MB for another project) and it just plugged in using the existing connectors no muss or fuss. The case still had the existing hd drive and I used that. I ordered a new sata CD as new egg had them on special, however the walmart case only had a single sata power connector! So trip to local comp store fixed that.

Does anyone know the specs of the power supply in the gPC? I'm looking at this case, which comes with a 80W.

Intel Says:
For example, for a system consisting of a D945GCLF board (with integrated Intel Atom processor at 4 W), 2 GB DDR2 RAM, one hard disk drive, one optical drive, and all board peripherals enabled, the minimum recommended power supply is 75 W.

 

[darmock]

it is 300 watts just looked in the case. Nice case should fit. My only concerns with an 80 watt supply is if you are using pots cards that you will hook up old style analog phones to as these cards need to be hooked up to the 4 pin connector to generate the ringing voltage. There will be a definite current draw there.

Tom

 

[wardmundy]

How 'bout this little Atom puppy...

 

[carlosmp]

Atom 220 is single core...

Tom,

I think you have a bit of a typo...The Atom 230 is a single core CPU. Your own cpustats says "cpu cores : 1" The Atom 3xx is going to be the dual core version, which apparently is going to be delayed a bit.

http://gizmodo.com/5019539/dual-core-atoms-delayed-world-weeps

Carlos.

 

[darmock]

Your right I guess in my excitement I had misread the full cpuinfo So it appears to be a dual processor single core based on the cpuinfo 8^)

root@pbx:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 28
model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1596.159
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 3193.99

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 28
model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1596.159
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 3191.76

 

[Bart]

Well, I'm going to try the ATOM. Pickup this one off ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130231526488

My plan is to build a T1 to SIP Gateway

Bart

 

[jroper]

Hi

I need something similar in the next six weeks, or more accurately, a SIP to E1 gateway - or better still, an IAX to E1 gateway, so we can get some real bandwidth efficiency savings with IAX trunking.

Joe

 

[jeffmac]

Just switched to Atom

I wanted to repurpose the Via C7 board I was running PIAF on (it has the video-out and I want to try some video processing). I saw the Atom was 35USD cheaper than another C7 board and impressions here were good - so I ordered from Newegg. I saw the discussion about needing the Ethernet driver so I did that before shutting down the C7. Then I just shut down and switched boards, and started back up. No issues, everything came back up running fine - the Atom looks good. By the way, I thought I understood that the Atom was a hyperthreading chip - and that;s why it looks like multiple processors in /proc/cpuinfo.

Jeff

 

[darmock]

 

[carlosmp]

Tom, have you had a chance to test any analog/digital cards to see what the zttest numbers look like?

 

[darmock]

Best: 99.997 -- Worst: 99.990 -- Average: 99.993916, Difference: 99.993915

ztspeed = Count: 862030


This is with a genuine tdm400

 

[Slamby]

Just having a play with one of these now. Couple of comments:

After adding the R8101E driver for the NIC, an update-source leads mine to a kernel panic, I think because Centos 5.2 has the r8169 driver included (for r8101E support), and it has a problem deciding which driver to use, though I'm not clever enough to figure out what to do about it, or to be sure (I'm very new to Linux and Asterisk).

Also, my zttest results are rubbish compared to Darmock's, but again this may be down to my setup and inexperience. I've noticed the Digium 410 card is sharing resources with 2 of the USB slots, so this may have something to do with it. I'm going to have a play around with different settings and see if I can improve things. Don't really know what affects zttests results, so will go and have a read.

Edit: After having a play around, my zttest comes back Best:100.000 - Worst: 99.996 - Average: 99.999153 - Difference 99.999376, so much better. Put it down to the user being an idiot

Hello btw, been playing around with Asterisk, Trixbox and Eastix for a few weeks to replace our ageing Pana analog PBX. Found most of the help for TB (which I started with) on Nerd Vittles, which led me to PIAF. Very impressed, so thanks for all the help.

 

[jroper]

Hi

IRQ sharing will definitely have a very bad effect on the zttest results, and cause other issues such as echo. Make sure you have the TDM card on its own IRQ, this is very important.

In respect of loading multiple drivers, lsmod will show you what is loaded, and rmmod will remove drivers.

Use --help to get more information or man lsmod or man rmmod to get a write up on each command, and of course - google.

Joe

 

[Slamby]

Hi

IRQ sharing will definitely have a very bad effect on the zttest results, and cause other issues such as echo. Make sure you have the TDM card on its own IRQ, this is very important.

In respect of loading multiple drivers, lsmod will show you what is loaded, and rmmod will remove drivers.

Use --help to get more information or man lsmod or man rmmod to get a write up on each command, and of course - google.

Joe

Thanks Joe, definitely got more reading to do. Further to the above, I get the kernel panic regardless of whether the 8101 driver is loaded or not. Will see what I can do to sort it out.

 

[darmock]

Currently when installing the 8101 driver you must remove the 8169 driver first.... The method is contained in the 8101 driver tar file from realtek. I had been writing an rpm for the 8101 to automate the process but don't have the time at the moment.

I had some problems with the irq settings but eventually turned most everything off in the bios and that seemed to do the trick.

Tom

 

[klingon888]

For those using the Atom, are you able to measure the power consumption for this? Just wondering which is more power friendly, compared to the Via C7. Thx.

 

[Slamby]

For those using the Atom, are you able to measure the power consumption for this? Just wondering which is more power friendly, compared to the Via C7. Thx.

Just measured it now for you. 33 Watts according to the UPS I plugged it into. That's with a CF to SATA adaptor, no HD, no CDROM, and a Digium 410 with 3 FXO, all running off an 80W pico PSU.