PIAF on a Dual-Core Atom Intel board

[jmullinix]

The motherboard is a D945GCLF2 with a soldered on Dual-Core Atom processor. The case is a Jetway with a PCI riser card and includes the power supply and an 80 watt brick. I install 2 Gigabytes of RAM and a 160 Gig Laptop Sata Hard drive. This machine will hold a laptop (slim) CD drive, but I do not install one. Make sure you get one of those silly four-prong power connectors for Intel Motherboards. The Jetway power supply does not include one and the damn thing will not run without it.

Installation:

After assembly, I plug a regular CD drive into the IDE cable that comes with the machine and leave the top off. Place you PIAF 1.3 CD in this drive and boot the machine. After the first reboot, you will need to choose Q from Tom's script to load an additional driver. The onboard NIC does not work out-of-the-box with Centos. Download r8168-8.009.00.tar.bz2 onto your desktop machine (Google is your friend here). I decompress it and then burn it to a CD or copy it to a USB stick. Place the CD in the drive on the soon to be PIAF server. From the command line issue the following commands

cd /
mkdir /cdromdev
mount /dev/hda /cdromdev
cd /usr/src/
cp -r /cdromdev/r8168-8.009.00 /usr/src/
cd r8168-8.009.00

lsmod | grep r8169

If the above command returns anything, issue this command.

rmmod r8169

note: If the built-in driver cannot removed by rmmod, please edit /etc/modprobe.conf and comment 'alias eth0 r8169'. Then, remove it again or reboot your computer.

Now run the following commands:

make clean modules
make install
depmod -a
insmod ./src/r8168.ko (or r8168.o in linux kernel 2.4.x)

This last command threw an error message on mine, but it worked.

Now bounce the box (reboot) and continue the normal PIAF installation. Once the installation is finished, shut it down, remove the CD drive and the IDE ribbon cable, put the lid on and you have a phone server.

This box has room for a Sangoma A200 card with one additional remora, for a total of 8 PSTN ports. From what I have read about it, it should handle 30 to 40 simultaneous calls without transcoding. I think it will handle a Sangoma A101 card, but I haven't tested it with that. The Digium TDM-410 card will not fit in the box and the Openbox 4-port card will just fit. I have not tested this with any Rhino hardware.

I have one of these in production with a Sangoma USB-FXO adapter on it and voip trunks. I am installing the second next week with a Sangoma A200002D, 4-port FXO card in it.

It has a very small power footprint and the Jetway case comes with wall mounting brackets. For the smaller installation, this is a neat box.

Ya'll have a Happy New Year,

 

[darmock]

Good writeup. I have included the driver for the dual core on the next release of PIAF so you will type q and then install it from the PIAFxtras menu. 8^) Let me know if there are any other drivers that need to be placed on the new ISO prior to it coming out..

We are using the M3 case from carpc and have had similar results. I actually use the dual core system as my office PBX and it works flawlessly.

Tom

 

[wardmundy]

We also plan to have a bootable flash drive installer for almost any machine with a SATA hard disk by early next year.

 

[thunderheart]

Now THAT ...

... would be cool.

Dallas

 

[jmullinix]

I was thinking PXE boot also, but I don't know a thing about it. The NIC on these will PXE boot.

 

[carlosmp]

John,

I used the Jetway case since the price was right on target, and it's ok, the Sangoma cards are a bit of fun to get in there. If you want a cleaner looking/fitting box, check out the Casetronic C137. It's about $40 more (with the wall bracket and CF adapter $80more), but the cards slip right in. It's a much better overall case. No need to practically disassemble the entire case to get cards in/out.

 

[rick]

poor warranty

My experience with the Jetway case: after building the case and loading PIAF the power supply died. Mini-box requires sending the whole unit back instead of swapping out the power supply thus alot of downtime(2-weeks). Mini-box has poor customer support. Update: sent whole box back to mini-box, a week later called to check on it and found out they sent the box to Jetway and I will receive it back when mini-box gets it back and ships it to me, 2-3 weeks more.

 

[foneman]

Casetronic

I agree with the casetronics. I just built one with the dual core as well. Works nice and wall mount makes it appealing as a "telephone system". Also, works very well in a demo case for my reps and dealers.
Overall, I like the atom itx platform for smaller installs.

 

[foneman]

Casetronic

Just got in the C159 1u rackmount with intel atom. Very sweet unit with very small footprint. Installed a quad T1 and is humming alone nicely.
I ordered 10 more of the other casetronic that i talked about earlier as well. Really liking these boxes.

 

[cjkeeme]

This is very close to what I do. I only use a different case. That box runs 40+ extensions in one office without issue.

 

[euser4life]

Cjkeeme - which case do you use? I have been thinking about trying out this barebone from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107043

It comes with the case and atom MB for $189.00 (less work ). Just need to add RAM and HD. It also has the Wall mounting brackets (real pbx look and feel factor). Only concerns are how tight a fit an FXO card would be....

 

[hraynor]

I was considering that bundle as well - primarily due to being able to support 2 PCI slots with the included riser.

However, I would prefer the NC92 motherboard as opposed to the NC91 here, as the 92 supports the daughter cards. Would be nice to have the option to add the 3 port GB card Jetway has.

Anyone know of a GOOD MiniITX case (preferably with EXTERNAL power supply) that supports 2 slots and PROVIDES the 2 slot riser card (to work with either the Intel 330 board or one of the Jetways)?

The $50 premium of this bundle over an Intel board and single slot case isn't justified for me if all I'm going to get is one extra slot (one extra slot and ability to use the Jetway daughter cards, now I'd gladly pay the $50 for that).

So I'm deciding between going cheap for now or getting something a bit more upgradeable for more $$$.

 

[psetti1]

If you have no need for PCI slots, this barebones system is great: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167032

Only $139.99