Question 1

How loud can the fan get during 1080p playback?

Accepted Answer

I can barely hear mine. No high pitched whine or anything. However, if you notice a noise you dislike (not all fans come out of the factory the same) you can always install a custom fan mod. Should be simple enough. I love this combo and the price cannot be beat for what it is.

Question 2

is server ram compatible with this board while using it as a desktop ?

Accepted Answer

You better check that Asrock, their website is very straightforward, you easily find it on the boards page or inside the manual.

Just on a note, I gave up on mine when I tried installing  two PCIe SATA/RAID boards (one at a time, o'course) and reading/writing speeds were so awful that download speeds (20mbit, 2.4MB/s) couldn't be sustained by the 3x3TB RAID and watching 720p stored on it was beyond impossible. Now I'm using a cheap Z87 Asus board that I had laying around and got myself a Pontiac G3240. Now it's rocking hard. I know it's not energy efficient as this Lil baby, but it was well worth the upgrade.

Question 3

Hello, Has anyone out there used this motherboard combo for an "openelec" HTPC build? I'm building my friends HTPC's for Christmas Hopefully without breaking the bank. I'm currently using an AMD A6 6400k, 4gig ram, SSD, x88 motherboard this build works so good I've cut cable, Hulu & netflix. Sadly my build was close to $400. I tried Raspberry Pi, little thing plays all videos incredibly well but is wicked slow when navigating through openelec menus, "even over clocked". I need something better than the Pi but without the price of an AMD A6 setup. Please NewEgg customers your my only hope!!!

Accepted Answer

I don't know if I can specific answer your question, but I am using it as NAS/HTPC. I am using Windows 7 64-bit.

XBMC works ok, I have some plugins, for YouTube and other streaming services, but I only go as higher as 720p, even for YouTube. Netflix is a huge pain though. It simply doesn't work. When it reaches FullHD status, the audio completely desyncs from the video, it's really impossible to watch.

To be honest, overall, it's performance isn't that great. I can't imagine this combo running 4K, as advertised on the box. I have 8GB DDR3-1333MHz, and an old ADATA SSD SATA II installed on it, and 3x3TB WD NAS Red for storage. All drivers updated for graphics and chipsets.

And if I'm wrong, by all means, please, someone correct me and let me know what must I do to get outstanding performance from it. I don't mind running linux as long as I can (easily) run XBMC and Netflix.

Question 4

Hello, where can I take drivers for debian or openmediavault for that motherboards?

Accepted Answer

The Debian installer took care of all the drivers I needed.  I set the computer up as a file server, though, so I did not need to worry much about graphics, sound, etc.  Basic graphics, network and other onboard chipsets work fine with the stock drivers.

Question 5

what can the cpu overclock to without dying ?

Accepted Answer

I have not personally tried to over-clock the CPU (CPU in this mobo isn't removable) myself, and wouldn't really know the answer to this question.  In fact, the CPU may not be overclockable via the system BIOS... and may not be possible or require other means.  Aside from that, it's a good motherboard for a second computer or small server since it has pretty much everything you could want feature-wise.  I wouldn't recommend it for a main computer, since some speed is lacking.

Question 6

will this run duel screens? as in one screeen on hdmi and the other on display port??

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can output to HDMI and the display port. But, be aware that both outputs will display the same video all the time. So you can connect this to your HDTV through the HDMI port and to a computer monitor at the same time. Both will be showing the same content at the same time.

Question 7

Is the MB Windows 8.1 certified?

Accepted Answer

I don't know if it is windows 8.1 certified but I have installed windows 8.1 x64 PRO on a computer I made with this boards and it works flawlessly.

Question 8

Can the heatsink be removed to use a fanless case? I am looking at a Streacom FC9.

Accepted Answer

NO, do not remove the heatsink. The heatsink and fan are necessary to precent this CPU from overheating. Removing the heatsink/fan will fry the CPU and VOID THE WARRANTY. I have never seen any cpu that will not self destruct without a heat sink other than a Raspberry Pi.

Question 9

How well does it stream standard movies with 5.1 surround sound?

REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE.
Thanks

Accepted Answer

It is a very capable board for it's size & price.
To answer your question: It does it quite well as long as you have a good, high speed internet connection. (I have DSL & don't have a problem with it at all).

Question 10

Hi guys. Here are the other parts I'm currently using on this motherboard: IMATION-MAC25-064 SATA II SSD 64GB (Windows 7 64-bit); 2X Kingston HyperX Blu HS 4GB DDR3-1333MHz 9-9-27; 3X WD Red 3 TB NAS 3.5 SATA III WD30EFRX, inside a Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced. I upgraded from a Gigabyte GA-E350N mini ITX AMD E-350 AMD A45 AMD Radeon HD 6310, with all the parts listed above. To be honest, I don't see much of a difference. I mean, the motherboard itself is way better, USB3, PCI-E (even if it's 4X), integrated WiFi... But the performance itself, I don't see all that difference that I expected. The motherboard is advertised as capable of 4K video playback, but I can't run Netflix at FullHD. I don't know if it's flash fault, even though I believe Netflix uses Microsoft's Silverlight, anyways, Netflix is a no go (using chrome, my default browser), when the video reaches FullHD status, it get stuck very often and the audio completely de-sync from the video, really impossible to watch, I'm talking about seconds of delay, like Mexican translated to English TV Shows. 720p playback isn't a problem with XBMC, it run flawlessly to be honest, even when it's a video plugin for YouTube or other Streaming site, up to 720p there is no problem at all, no matter what the source is, but 1080p is not that great. Video get stuck sometimes. Are you guys getting expected performance from it, or am I getting the right performance and expecting more then what it can deliver? If you guys can help me with performance, I'm all ears. If you need more information, let me know and I can run tests and provide what you guys need. Thank you.

Accepted Answer

I ran into this on my first ITX build.  Your problem is actually caused by Netflix.  They do not use GPU hardware acceleration in their streaming.  This means that the CPU is handling all of the processes.  It would do perfectly fine playing a blu-ray disk or watching youtube, actually any video streaming program that uses GPU hardware will work at full HD.  Unfortunately this is just the problem I have experienced with all of my ITX builds.  Netflix has to improve their streaming service for APU PC support.  Netflix HD should have been capable with this APU with enough RAM.  I would first upgrade to at least 8Gb DDR3 RAM.  That should alleviate the slowdown problems that the CPU is having.  APUs require more RAM than Intel to make the most of their architecture.  I used 8GB with this motherboard in a build for my grandfather and it ran Netflix very well.

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