Question 1

Does this motherboard come with the CPU?

Accepted Answer

Intel Quad-Core Processor J1900 (2 GHz)
It's under the big heat sink in the picture.

Question 2

Does this board produce any noticeable wines or hums while running?

Accepted Answer

Hi actually the motherboard is extremely quiet, it does not make any hums at all, I just bought 3 of them and I can strongly suggest you to get one especially if you want to avoid complains from the girlfriend or wife.

Regards !

Question 3

Having difficulty finding an appropriate power supply from NE. Suggestions?

Accepted Answer

An old dell , hp,  ibm, or lenovo laptop charger should work, but unless you check plug sizes carefully you might not be lucky to blindly order something on your first try. (the manual from their website says: This jack accepts dual barrel plugs with an inner diameter of 2.5 mm and an outer diameter of 5.5 mm, where the inner contact is +19 (±10%) VDC and the shell is GND.)

A 24pin ATX PSU will work fine, if you want something smaller, look/search for a PicoPSU. Most of them are only 20pins but they still work.

Question 4

I've never worked with mini-ITX servers before. Would you say that this would work well as a reporting server say with Jasper Reporting server and MySQL and PostgreSQL?

Accepted Answer

Hi,

These embedded platforms are really meant for custom firewall/LB solution more than handling any server side workloads.

Personally, I would not buy for the purpose you mentioned in your question. Look into x99 architecture or LGA2011-3 for this purpose and there are very few choices as far as mini-itx mobos are concerned in that category. Cheap E5-2600-v3 or v4 should be great for SQL.

Question 5

Is anyone using this for Vmware ESXi? IF so, your experience with it?

Accepted Answer

No, sorry, but it makes a great pfSense box.

I would guess the weak CPU and limited memory would make this a poor choice for a VM platform however.

Question 6

According to the product description, the motherboard supports 240-pin DDR3 ram, but under the specifications, it says it takes 204-pin DDR3 ram. Can you please correct the product description to reflect what the device supports?

Accepted Answer

That is correct this product uses a 204 pin sodium

Question 7

Can I use a 16v power supply instead of 12v or 19v?

Accepted Answer

I used a case with an integrated 12volt power supply in it (SilverStone Milo Series ML08B). Per the description you can use either a 12v or 19v. I'd ask the manufacturer if you can use a 16volt power supply.

Question 8

Can this be used for PFsense with gigabit internet?

Accepted Answer

It can be used for pfsense. Bought also the purpose for using as a router. Works good. 
Just advice the power supply that dc jack on the manual do not match. Have to be a smaller plug. 2.5mm x 5mm
Can use 19.5v power brick.

Questions & Answers