BUILD Mini-ITX C226 Haswell build

[Nomad]

It's not the same board as it's not a mini-ITX board. However I am now interested to know how we can confirm ECC is indeed working on our E3C226D2I boards.

No, i thought it was, but it's the same Chipset, NorthBridge, South Bridge, etc etc, et al.

 

[underpickled]

So I guess the question is if there's a difference between supporting ECC and reporting the errors. It's possible some BIOS might report corrected errors and others might not. Would ECC RAM even work if ECC wasn't enabled?

 

[cyberjock]

So I guess the question is if there's a difference between supporting ECC and reporting the errors.

There is a difference. For most types of errors(especially the silent pool killing ones) you either know you had an error(and corrected it because you have ECC RAM and ECC is working) or you didn't. There is no "find stuck bits with non-ECC".

It's possible some BIOS might report corrected errors and others might not.

That should not be happening. The whole point of ECC RAM was to allow you to replace the missing RAM. If its not going to tell you, that's a very crappy motherboard manufacturer. If I had a spare stick of ECC RAM that had failed i'd certainly test it on my system as I like to have that kind of validation.

Would ECC RAM even work if ECC wasn't enabled?

For most situations its a yes, it will just work as non-ECC RAM. But, for some situations you can't drop ECC RAM in a system that uses non-ECC RAM and it won't boot. If you just make sure you don't mix them up then you should have no problems.

 

[underpickled]

Just to update you all... I contacted ASRock tech support, who recommended some tools to check (including Memtestx86, which I was planning on doing anyway). I tried the latest version of memtest (5.0 beta 7) and it shows ECC being enabled. The memtest changelog mentioned that Haswell ECC detection was implemented, so it seems to gel. Anyway, curious minds... I'm also almost finished with 2 out of 3 passes through memtest. No errors so far. Hallelujah.

 

[Nomad]

Just to update you all... Hallelujah.

Indeed. ThanksForThe Update, Watching This closely

 

[Bairesman]

Hi there, just wondering if you have any updates on the build as I am considering the same mobo myself. Thanks in advance, Martin

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[underpickled]

Hi there, just wondering if you have any updates on the build as I am considering the same mobo myself. Thanks in advance, Martin

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Everything works fine as far as the hardware goes. All of my woes are purely software now ;)

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[enemy85]

Everything works fine as far as the hardware goes. All of my woes are purely software now ;)

so the only thing to do is to disable from bios USB3 and everything works perfectly right? even the 2 LAN and IPMI are ok? sorry for all these questions but i'm thinking to build a similar config of your

 

[engmsf]

Hey the_tox, thanks for all the information so far. Have you tested Plex and the cpu i3-4130 you mentioned in the first page? How does it run for 1080P source? Or even 4K?

For the Asrock E3C226D2I, does it come with the C2 stepping of the C226 chipset?

 

[underpickled]

so the only thing to do is to disable from bios USB3 and everything works perfectly right? even the 2 LAN and IPMI are ok? sorry for all these questions but i'm thinking to build a similar config of your

Yep, that's right. I haven't rigorously tested BOTH LAN ports, but they're the same chipset so unless you've got a bum board they should work the same. IPMI is not the most elegant, but it's easy enough to do what you need to do. I haven't tapped all of the features yet.

Hey the_tox, thanks for all the information so far. Have you tested Plex and the cpu i3-4130 you mentioned in the first page? How does it run for 1080P source? Or even 4K?
So I haven't run plex, but I did get subsonic 4.8 installed on it (there's a fantastic how-to here). The i3 performs excellently with ffmpeg, which takes advantage of the hyperthreading. There are no issues with streaming blu-ray rips. For instance, a Game of Thrones episode at 1080p and roughly 5GB reached peak stream rates of 20 Mbps. As somewhat of a stress test I had two computers in my apartment stream two different HD shows, and a third computer (outside of the LAN) stream a third video and it didn't skip a beat.
I don't know much about plex, but I strongly recommend subsonic for media streaming. Of course, now I use subsonic only for remote streaming and just connect XBMC to FTP on the LAN.

For the Asrock E3C226D2I, does it come with the C2 stepping of the C226 chipset?

I don't know for sure... searching around led me to some forum posts suggesting that this board was delayed (back in July) because ASRock was waiting for a fixed C2 chipset. Others say that this board "supposedly would have" C2 back before it was released. Is there a way for me to check that?

 

[enemy85]

Thank you for the reply....I just discovered it's really hard to find this mobo (or the c224 version) here in italy... :(

 

[underpickled]

Thank you for the reply....I just discovered it's really hard to find this mobo (or the c224 version) here in italy... :(

I could only find it on superbiiz.com. Find ASRock's product page for this board and then go to their distributors and maybe you'll find something else.

 

[engmsf]

I don't know for sure... searching around led me to some forum posts suggesting that this board was delayed (back in July) because ASRock was waiting for a fixed C2 chipset. Others say that this board "supposedly would have" C2 back before it was released. Is there a way for me to check that?

I saw posting from other sites with people running CPU-Z. It will show you the wether you have the C1 or C2 revision.

Enemy85, yeah I agree it seems like the board is only available in the US and you will have to pay quite a bit to get it to your country. I am not sure that is worth it as you can probably get a Supermicro for much cheaper. The only thing that makes this motherboard enticing is the ITX form factor.

 

[Gonzo]

I finally got my mother board ASRock E3C226D2I LGA 1150 Mini-ITX , but I am having an issue booting from a remote DVD Rom using IPMI, Does anybody knows how to setup this in order to install FreeNAS?

 

[underpickled]

I finally got my mother board ASRock E3C226D2I LGA 1150 Mini-ITX , but I am having an issue booting from a remote DVD Rom using IPMI, Does anybody knows how to setup this in order to install FreeNAS?

I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific. Are you successfully getting KVM over IPMI? Can you get into BIOS? What have you done and what exact issues are you having?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[gpsguy]

Assuming you will be installing FreeNAS on a flash drive, I'd just use another computer to install the OS on the target device.


Sent from my phone

 

[underpickled]

Yeah... and besides, don't waste a SATA port on an optical drive. Just get one of those tiny SanDisk Cruzer drives. It's super easy to install FreeNAS to a USB stick (instructions are in the manual).

 

[jonnn]

The_tox,

How is freenas running on the board? Any issues ?

Have you checked power consumption?

 

[Gonzo]

I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific. Are you successfully getting KVM over IPMI? Can you get into BIOS? What have you done and what exact issues are you having?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Yes I am getting KVM over IPMI, but is very new to me. I though one of the advantage is, that you can access a CD Rom from another computer in the same network, but I may be wrong. I will try installing FreeNas from a USB stick.

 

[SmallGuy]

Yes I am getting KVM over IPMI, but is very new to me. I though one of the advantage is, that you can access a CD Rom from another computer in the same network, but I may be wrong. I will try installing FreeNas from a USB stick.

Think you need a tftp server with the Freenas image file available on your network and activate PXE preboot environement on the BIOS board to accomplish this.
If Freenas is accessible, forget that, just create your usb stick, you'll save your time.