ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi

Just the Zotac 9300, E5200, 4GB Ram, Pico-PSU 150xt, 250GB Hitachi 2.5" drive...

Originally Posted by Blazestorm

Just the Zotac 9300, E5200, 4GB Ram, Pico-PSU 150xt, 250GB Hitachi 2.5" drive...

What case?

Originally Posted by Blazestorm

Just the Zotac 9300, E5200, 4GB Ram, Pico-PSU 150xt, 250GB Hitachi 2.5" drive...

How does your M350 case run with E5200? Any heat issues?

I have M350, Antec ISK300 and Morex T3500. Right now I'm using ISK300 b/c I have to add a low-profile ATI card to drive my 30" Dell monitor. I used T3500 and liked it a lot, but I haven't tried M350 yet.

I looked at M350 and although the case looks nice and small, I'm not sure whether it can handle the heat of Q9550S. Also the HD is mounted right above the GPU heatsink and I wonder the HD will be literally baked by the GPU. It looks like M350 is mostly designed for very low power systems.

Anyway, would love to hear your experience about M350. Once the new Zotac 9300 board released I can get rid of the ATI card and put the whole thing either back to T3500 or try M350.

No problems with the CPU heat, idles a little warm, but not a problem since it really isn't used much with the GPU doing the decoding, even under load it doesn't get past 60c. But you are right the laptop / GPU are getting hot. mid 40's for idle, and hasn't gone above 60c and I've seen 100% CPU usage at times.

I'm looking into getting an SSD and a couple of 40mm fan's to exhaust heat from the GPU out the side.

I added 1 small 40mm fan and it helped a lot. dropped GPU temps by 15c, and HDD by 5c

So I'm thinking 2 slightly thicker fan's exhausting out the side should take care of those temps, and getting an SSD would negate the problem with the HDD heat.I could also mount the SSD elsewhere and use the bracket to exhaust 2 x 40mm fan's straight up. A few options with this case

For those of you that haven't bought this board yet and intend to not use the wireless G card:
It does NOT come installed out of the box. You have to screw it in yourself with 2 small screws.

For a wireless N alternative I'd recommend something with a real antenna like these 2 adapters.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833124328
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833166027
You can buy or build a header adapter for the internal USB ports.
You could easily re-route the rosewill card's antennas to the spot where the included card's antenna's go. (or somewhere else in your case)

Does the included G card take up a full 9-pin USB header?

Yea, I think so... it's weird it should only use 4 pins...

What case is that?

How have everyone put their internal USBs to use?

I got a slim blu ray writer on ebay for $80 :-D and turns out it has an IDE connector so I will be using the USB to ATAPI bridge to power this up but it will take up a whole 9pin header (data + power) allowing the internal satas to go RAID0 :-D. Another pin's gone for connecting the SG05'sfront USBs leaving only the wifi USB header. I'm adding a double headed female USB socket and to that to add a the wireless N and the nano wireless k/m receiver. I also have a nano bluetooth and nano TV tuner so I could either leave the nanos dongles on the outer USBs or use a USB hub on the female header for the nanos to keep everything internal.

How has everyone else been configging their internal USBs?

Edit: What do you guys think of this http://www.modem-help.co.uk/D-Link/D...B-Adapter.html - it looks a little too good to be true!

There are these too if you can't find adapters:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815201028



http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8769/ele-418/

Originally Posted by IsLNdbOi

There are these too if you can't find adapters:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815201028

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8769/ele-418/

Thanks! That's just the thing I needed.

Originally Posted by Blazestorm

Just the Zotac 9300, E5200, 4GB Ram, Pico-PSU 150xt, 250GB Hitachi 2.5" drive...

What AC-DC adaptor are you using?

What fsb am I to expect when OC?

Originally Posted by IsLNdbOi

There are these too if you can't find adapters:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815201028

I have one of those newegg adapters and while it is useful the cables get really crowded and the adapter is very tall. If you have a thin case it won't fit without modification.
It is 2 inches long which is taller than any component on the Zotac board. (even my quad core's 1U fan+heatsink)

I'd recommend instead that you just get 4 header pins per port and solder them to a 4-6 inch wire with a female USB socket on the end.. (6 pins for double power usb optical drives)

I'm in the process of soldering some extra header adapters that are cables instead of boards, which will route easier in the case.

I can post up a pic later showing the newegg adapter's height on the board.

If I get good at this I could sell you guys some. Does anybody know of a good source for the female connectors?
I never thought of this before but I bet I could buy some from digikey and newark. So far I've just cut up usb extension cords.

If you buy the connectors in bulk you could probably sell a double usb adapter for $5.

Originally Posted by leifeinar

What fsb am I to expect when OC?

With the quad cores at around 1470-1480 (Quad FSB) it becomes unstable, at least with the older boards and BIOS's.
I've read (in previous posts) that people with dual cores got higher if they used certain settings and kept the north-bridge chip cool enough.
I haven't heard of anyone getting a quad core stable above that. I'll test the new BIOS soon and compare. Not too many quad owners have tried pushing the OCing much and posted about it here. (so we have little info on this end)
The dual core owners have gotten higher numbers like around 400-420. (FSB)
A revised mobo might handle more especially with voltage tweaks and maybe GPU under-clocking to reduce the heat. (in combination with a fan)

I think it might be time to post a OC thread pertaining to this board or mini-ITX boards in general. (maybe have one for each socket type, plus atom boards)

Edit: I posted an OC thread here. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1447166

TNX, i tried OC with my quad, and it didnt like it at all...

but I ordered a E8600, hopefully it will go to 380 fsb+++

Originally Posted by Blazestorm

I sleeved my pico-PSU and other stuff for fun... I think it looks pretty good

Nice job! I didn't know it was possible to sleeve cables yourself. Awesome. How do you do it?

Originally Posted by BertFTA

Nice job! I didn't know it was possible to sleeve cables yourself. Awesome. How do you do it?

It's not a very usual thing to see, but yes, you can actually sleeve your own cables.

All you need is the sleeving cable itself, plus shrinktube (special rubber tubes that shrink when heated) for the ends (or else the sleeving cable will move freely, or shed), plus tools to disconnect and reconnect the power leads from the connectors (though sometimes you can get away with household items like nails, tweezers, paper clips and such.

Or, if you don't have the time to go to all those loops or you're not in the mood to disconnect and reconnect the power leads (and the connectors are small enough or the cables to sleeve are big enough), just shrink-wrap the whole cable, top to bottom... hehehe

Cheers.

Miguel

Originally Posted by BertFTA

Nice job! I didn't know it was possible to sleeve cables yourself. Awesome. How do you do it?

Here's a cable sleeving guide

How is the raid 0 on this board? i got my self a 80gig intel SSD. planing for another one in a while. it works ok? i can run dvd on the e-sata?

3 drive RAID0 with seagate momentus 7200.4 500 GB laptop drives (average 87 MB/s each in single mode).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...AID0x3long.png (At this low speed I wouldn't bother with 3 drives)
RAID5 with same drives.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...AID5x3long.png (Again, the speed is slower than the average speed of using a single hard drive, windows dynamic disk RAID5 would probably run faster)
You won't get any real performance benefit using more than 2 drvies in RAID0. Maybe no 2 drive RAID0 benefit for a decent SSD.
Yes a dvd drive should work fine over esata or sata. (I have tested a blu ray drive)