BUILD Mini-ITX C226 Haswell build

[underpickled]

My build parts are in the OP, so I won't bother listing them here. Serial port, USB 3.0 support, and one of the LANs are turned off, otherwise system is as normal with the latest BIOS (1.60). All drives are plugged in, case fans set on medium, CPU fan on SmartFan setting.

Server off - power plugged in: 4W
Turn on peak power: 111W (6x drives spinning up)
FreeNAS booted, system idle: 49W
Large file continuous read: 61W
Large file continuous write (compression on): 72W
2x HD transcode streams via ffpeg over Subsonic (CPU railed): 80W
2x HD transcode + large file read + write: 84W

Railing the CPU and reading and writing as fast as the system could manage, everything I saw was <85W. Idling with 6 drives (I have them set to max power savings without spin down), under 50W average.

Looks pretty damn good if you ask me.

 

[ASRockRack]

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?

Dear Gonzo,

Thanks for you purchase ASRock E3C226D2I and interested about IPMI feature.
We try to did a "IPMI Configuration Guide", where you can download from http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EP2C602-2T2OS6/D16#Manual.
Hope this can help you to quick setup by IPMI and please contact us if you have any technical questions.

Thanks you.
ASRockRack

 

[jonnn]

Dear Gonzo,

Thanks for you purchase ASRock E3C226D2I and interested about IPMI feature.
We try to did a "IPMI Configuration Guide", where you can download from http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EP2C602-2T2OS6/D16#Manual.
Hope this can help you to quick setup by IPMI and please contact us if you have any technical questions.

Thanks you.
ASRockRack

Mr. ASRock,

Please consider HDMI on similar boards in the future. This board is really missing HDMI (The C226 version)

 

[ASRockRack]

Mr. ASRock,

Please consider HDMI on similar boards in the future. This board is really missing HDMI (The C226 version)

Dear jonnn,
Thanks for your suggestion and ideas, actually, Mini-ITX C226 with HDMI is in our product road-map.
In the beginning, we though C226 with HDMI more close to customer product so we publish w/0 HDMI to market firstly. (Since ASRockRack focus on server/storage product line)
Very appreciate of your suggestion and I will back to ASRockRack internal PM/RD team to push the develop schedule.

regard,
ASRockRack

 

[enemy85]

Mr ASRock,

why it's so hard to find this kind of board in Italy? Even your official dealers seems not selling it

 

[jonnn]

Mr ASRock,

why it's so hard to find this kind of board in Italy? Even your official dealers seems not selling it

I'll sell you my board if ASRock releases another board (with all same features (6x SATA)) with HDMI :-D

 

[underpickled]

Dear jonnn,
Thanks for your suggestion and ideas, actually, Mini-ITX C226 with HDMI is in our product road-map.
In the beginning, we though C226 with HDMI more close to customer product so we publish w/0 HDMI to market firstly. (Since ASRockRack focus on server/storage product line)
Very appreciate of your suggestion and I will back to ASRockRack internal PM/RD team to push the develop schedule.

regard,
ASRockRack

Now if there were a trade-in program for us early adopters...

 

[SmallGuy]

Mr ASRock,

why it's so hard to find this kind of board in Italy? Even your official dealers seems not selling it

Same In France. Only available through few UK dealers. Find at 241 Euros on one of the big Web dealer. Think this is much more expensive than in US, which made this board less attractive in EU compared with "professional" server class mobo. Disappointed!
I hope this is the beginning of the release, and competition will reduce prices...

 

[cyberjock]

@Asrockrack

Honestly, the best bet would have been to have DVI out. Then you could use DVI -> HDMI or DVI -> VGA. Instantly able to convert to all 3 common video outputs.

 

[jonnn]

@Asrockrack

Honestly, the best bet would have been to have DVI out. Then you could use DVI -> HDMI or DVI -> VGA. Instantly able to convert to all 3 common video outputs.

I would only be interested in a native HDMI port. My killer app is HTPC and NAS via virtualization and HDMI audio is critical.

edit: there IS room to put both, hell all three if necessary.

 

[cyberjock]

I agree. But I was thinking if you are limited to only one connector DVI would have been the ideal way to go. If you do HDMI to VGA you can't just do signal passthrough so there's more complexity involved. DVI is the most preferred for that reason. ;)

I'd much rather have DVI with a converter to HDMI than HDMI with active converters for DVI or VGA.

 

[ASRockRack]

There are no options in the BIOS to set ECC on or off... I just assumed it would be on, since the board only supports ECC RAM.



I do think the newest version of memtest at least detects ECC on Haswell... they might even have put in ECC checks as well.

Dear the-tox,
Thanks for purchase ASRock E3C226D2I, finial our BIOS RD engineer updated BIOS P.170 which can check if ECC DIMMs work under UEFI Menu.
Please check the link http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E3C226D2I#Download where to download the BIOS P1.70 then you can verify if the feature is what you want.
Any issues please feel free to let us know.

Thanks and regard,
ASRockRack

 

[ASRockRack]

Mr ASRock,

why it's so hard to find this kind of board in Italy? Even your official dealers seems not selling it

Dear enemy85,
I will check our headquarter sales team and will back to you soon.

Thanks!
ASRockRack

 

[underpickled]

Dear the-tox,
Thanks for purchase ASRock E3C226D2I, finial our BIOS RD engineer updated BIOS P.170 which can check if ECC DIMMs work under UEFI Menu.
Please check the link http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E3C226D2I#Download where to download the BIOS P1.70 then you can verify if the feature is what you want.
Any issues please feel free to let us know.

Thanks and regard,
ASRockRack

I've already been in touch with support about ECC. I did verify that ECC works with my setup (via memtest), so I'm not concerned. I don't want to turn it off... Just wanted to make sure it was on. But I'll check out the new BIOS anyway. At the moment I'm waiting on a fix for the BMC software since I get an error when trying to get KVM. I'm in touch with a William.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[ASRockRack]

Mr ASRock,

why it's so hard to find this kind of board in Italy? Even your official dealers seems not selling it

Same In France. Only available through few UK dealers. Find at 241 Euros on one of the big Web dealer. Think this is much more expensive than in US, which made this board less attractive in EU compared with "professional" server class mobo. Disappointed!
I hope this is the beginning of the release, and competition will reduce prices...

Dear enemy85 and SmallGuy,
Firstly of all, thanks for your interest in our server motherboard.
Actually, ASRock server team is an affiliated company of ASRock, called ASRock Rack http://www.asrockrack.com/
We work closely with ASRock, but operate independently.
To us, server components brand /channel market is different from PC motherboard.
We hope our customers can buy our server motherboards/ barebones from server business professionals.

As a young company established for just months, we now are aggressively finding partners globally.
Please do kindly let us know, if you have any recommended Italian distributors/web-shops.
We would love to hear and approach them ASAP.
If you require B2B services, please also kindly advise, we will try our best to support.

At current stage, our official distributors are located in Germany, Sweden and the UK.
Therefore, our products will be delivered from these three countries.
For web shop with international delivery ability, please go tohttp://www.amazon.co.uk/
Right now, the price of E3C226D2I is at £164.99
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...-keywords=e3c226d2i&sprefix=e3c226d2i,aps,443
Much appreciated for your support and understanding.

We will keep putting our effort in channel development.

Regard,
ASRockRack

 

[Gonzo]

I've already been in touch with support about ECC. I did verify that ECC works with my setup (via memtest), so I'm not concerned. I don't want to turn it off... Just wanted to make sure it was on. But I'll check out the new BIOS anyway. At the moment I'm waiting on a fix for the BMC software since I get an error when trying to get KVM. I'm in touch with a William.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

I am wondering if you are having the same issue I am having, I can get KVM work from my laptop, Windows XP and Jave version 1.6, but remote control do not work from Win 7 and jave vesion 1.7

 

[underpickled]

I am wondering if you are having the same issue I am having, I can get KVM work from my laptop, Windows XP and Jave version 1.6, but remote control do not work from Win 7 and jave vesion 1.7

When i first built and setup this machine, KVM worked. Then it stopped working one day... I updated to the latest BMC version and it didn't help. My first guess would be that it's not compatible with a recent Java update. If you're having the same issue then there might be more credence to that claim. In any case, they're aware of my issue... in the meantime I'll just use a keyboard and monitor (since it's next to my main computer anyway).

 

[enemy85]

Dear enemy85 and SmallGuy,
Firstly of all, thanks for your interest in our server motherboard.
Actually, ASRock server team is an affiliated company of ASRock, called ASRock Rack http://www.asrockrack.com/
We work closely with ASRock, but operate independently.
To us, server components brand /channel market is different from PC motherboard.
We hope our customers can buy our server motherboards/ barebones from server business professionals.

As a young company established for just months, we now are aggressively finding partners globally.
Please do kindly let us know, if you have any recommended Italian distributors/web-shops.
[....]

Regard,
ASRockRack

sorry for the late reply, concerning the web-shops, well you can just have a look on these search engine (is the most used i know) and see the most reliable. For what is my personal experience, I bought from
E-KEY
BPM POWER
EPRICE
and of course AMAZON.IT

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

If you are using XBMC why would you ever use DLNA? Simply, map a share, NFS or CIFS, and save yourself the joy of the DLNA protocol.

Yeap, I'm doing the same with my config, running FreeNAS on the server and XBMC on my Win7 HTPC. As I have my shares set as Music, Video, etc anyway it's easy as cake

 

[underpickled]

If you are using XBMC why would you ever use DLNA? Simply, map a share, NFS or CIFS, and save yourself the joy of the DLNA protocol.

Fun fact about the current XBMC build... it won't buffer the video unless the network share is FTP.