Low watt x86 motherboard recommendations

N

newbie32

So I found an olderish HP full-sized tower with a burned out motherboard in my basement. Thinking of turning it into a NAS or other low powered server for the house (we could totally use yet another one for something, I'm sure). As I already have a selection of drives, RAM, power supplies and cables hanging about that'll work in just about anything 2008 and up, I was wondering what motherboards others have purchased recently in the low powered x86 arena (running total of under 30 watts should be more than enough for anything I might do)? Any must haves, don't touches or "shoulda worked" horror stories when penny pinching something about twice as powerful as a Pi?
 
The Asrock atom boards should fit the bill. They are 17 (4-core) and 20 (8 core) watts respectively if I am not mistaken.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7970/asrock-rack-c2750d4i-review-a-storage-motherboard-with-management

This is assuming your case can fit a mini-itx board. These boards are excellent. The octa core version is being used in the FreeNAS Mini from ixsystems.

Quite many of the Haswell based boards also clock down to about 0.5 watts when idle. But you'll want to have a power supply that is guaranteed to work with a Haswell CPU.
 
The challenge in this is matching the HD's, Ram, Power supplies you already have to the motherboard. This vendor has new "old" stock of some atom motherboards.

I've purchased an Atom330 board from them and it came without the heat shield. The first replacement they sent was mis-matched but the second one fit. You can still order by phone and if you do, I would extract a promise that the MB will come with a heat shield. A refurb'd MB I purchased from NewEgg come sans heat shield and I ended up purchasing direct from the MB manufacturer at a hefty price.
 
That Asrock could combine a ton of things I've got in the house but I get wary of leaving it all to one machine. Maybe something to pick up when taxes come in given the price tag.

shepper: Thanks for the tip about them. I always purchase new and on anything over $200, always talk with the vendors when it comes out of my pocket just to make sure it's not a "certified new" item (had that happen twice with NewEgg and once with Amazon) and that anything that is expected but not listed will be in the box (Amazon, twice).
 
With NewEgg it was a "new" computer and "new" hdd. The drive had arrived scratched along one side and when I ran recovery/checks, had a bunch of old windows data. I contacted the vendor and got told that since they where a certified repair provider for the manufacturer and the drive had been in use less than some amount of time, the drive was not refurbished but in fact "certified" to be in "new" condition. I sent it back and with some arguing paid no fees. I recovered pictures and things from the "new" computer and found things like gum on the dvd burner, which was missing the SATA cable, clearly indicating a refurb of a family trade-in. I got roughly the same "We're certified partners" speech but got a pretty steep discount for just shutting up and keeping it. The amazon issue was on a vacuum that apparently had been used to clean the resellers warehouse but never sold before. That was a new one. They sent me a replacement and let me keep the first one. Again, I now check on orders over $200 ;)
 
There are pro's and con's with new vs recertified. In the past Dell used to run newly assembled computers 48 hours as a "burn in". It may have been less of a "burn in" and more a viability trial. At that time, if a component was going to fail, there was a high likelyhood it fail in the first 48 hours.

Some motherboards are returned for BIOS issues. Either the recertification involves upgrading the bios or you do it. So if I have some older, already used components, I can rationalize a recertified, "burned in" motherboard at a lower price.
 
I'm just not one of those people that can justify refurbs having no luck with them (the "new" computer in my previous post had burned itself out in sixish months). More power and ducats to those that can win with them though. At least with new items, I can rip the vendor a new one if something unsavory happens out of the box.
 
I've purchased "new" HD's from Newegg that were obviously not (critical sticker missing in one case). Also purchased a couple of "new" SCSI's that were dated 2009, I forget. I made the mistake of shelving them immediately I received them. When I needed one 2yrs later, it failed within weeks; when I tried the 2nd it wouldn't even format. I now open them up as soon as I get them and at least visually inspect them.
 
My Atom 330 from 2008 is still running happily as my home server ;-)

The ASrock C2750D4I seems like overkill for me, and intended more for really professional server usage. There seem to be plenty of cheaper boards with four SATA ports out there that'll do fine for a home server.

I already have a selection of drives, RAM, power supplies and cables hanging about that'll work in just about anything 2008 and up
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Are you sure that's DDR3 memory? Because it could also be DDR2; and DDR4 boards are being sold now. I would double-check!
 
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