Question 1

The faceplate I received covers two USB ports on the motherboard. Why is that the case and what can I do to use these ports?

Accepted Answer

I did not have that problem;  sounds like a mistake when it was packaged, or they changed the layout of the board.  Probably you could order the right one or something, or return it as defective, or something like that.  Or leave it off.

Question 2

Specs say it has usb 2.0, but the picture of the underside of the board says 3.0. Too good to be true?

Accepted Answer

I saw those specs myself and had the same thought. Although all my devices use USB 2.0, I didn't mind if the board had 3's but needed 2's. Anyway, in reading the manual and going through the website, I did see where you should be able to tweak the board and update a driver to enable the board headers to USB 3.0. I haven't done so and don't know if I will since I'm only running Celeron 1620. However, the board is a very great product with many bells and whistles and many USB ports to start with and a full audio set. I hope I was able to help you out somewhat. Good luck and happy computing.

Question 3

Can you use the mini PCIe slot for an mSATA SSD?  Can't find such details anywhere, including the manual.  Thanks!

Accepted Answer

I don't see why not.  I used mine for a second ethernet card.  I had one issue:  My card was shorter than the position of the screw posts to hold down the card, and things in the slot want to flip up and come out unless something is holding it down.  I wound up using a slice of an expired credit card wedged against the drive cage in my case to hold it in place.

Question 4

Will this motherboard support and run a Xeon E3 1225 v2 fine?

Accepted Answer

I looked at the site again and its not list the cpu you wish to use. Only Pentiums, Celerons and Core i3, i5 and i7 processors are listed. Not one Xenon is on the lists.
I suggest you contact ECS directly and query them.

I have a Gigabyte H61N-USB3 and your Xenon E3 1225 is on the hardware cpu list . If you purchase it you will have to use another cpu so you can flash the bios  to version F7.

If you want to try the ecs motherboard I think the most it will do is that the board will either post or not. It will post and state unknown cpu or it will try to post with some similar cpu config that works.

The ECS board has a UEFI like bios so it may work with your Xenon while the Gigabyte has a older bios. It may too take you cpu out of the box.

Sorry, I can't help much further since I don't own or have access to any Xenons to see if it will work...

Question 5

I am back with another mSATA question...  I bought the board based on users saying mSATA worked, but I have now tried to use two different mSATA SSDs and neither is recognized by the BIOS.  I am not sure if there is a jumper, driver, trick, etc to get an mSATA drive to be the boot drive, but I can't find a way yet.  Manual doesn't mention a thing, and my request to ECS support for help is two days old without any suggestions.  Booting from SATA, USB, optical, etc are all possible - just can't find a way to get the mSATA to pop up in the BIOS.  Is there a trick?  Thanks.

Accepted Answer

According to ECS support, this board DOES NOT support mSATA...  Their response:

Unfortunately, the SCN slot does not support mSATA.

If your box states that it does, this is an error and should have been corrected.

Manual is correct on page 15.
"The SCN slot is used to install mini PCI express x1 card."

The connector is similar in appearance to a mSATA interface and is electrically compatible; however, the data signals need a connection to the SATA host controller instead of the PCI Express host controller.  This is a hardware design and cannot be fixed by BIOS update.

Question 6

I have CPU intel i3 taken from my Dell Laptop XPS M1330. Can I use it on this motherboard?

Accepted Answer

Most probably not. Laptops have different sockets from dekstop motherboards. The mobile processors are thinner unlike the LGA1155 dekstop processors.

Question 7

Does this board support raid 1?

Accepted Answer

No, it has a plain SATA controller.  You could put a RAID card in the PCI-E slot though.

Seriously, consider a filesystem with built-in RAID such as ZFS with RAID-z if possible - modern CPUs are plenty fast to do what RAID cards do in hardware, and you get the benefits of
 - Never losing your data because your RAID card died and is no longer manufactured (been there, done that)
 - Being able to diagnose what's wrong when something goes wrong (as opposed to hardware problems being hidden behind an opaque layer of RAID firmware that just tells you "something's wrong" [been there, done that too]).

Question 8

I'm interested in this product, but I would like to know if this motherboard will boot with an Ivy-Bridge processor without a BIOS upgrade?

I understand that it is LGA 1155 compatible, but due to the age of the board, I wonder if BIOS compatibility extends only to Sandy-Bridge processors.

I would hate to order this board and an Ivy Bridge processor only to find that it requires a BIOS upgrade, as I would then have no way to upgrade the MB without an older processor.

Accepted Answer

I also installed a used Celeron G1610 onto the board and it worked.  No BIOS update was required.

Brand	ECS
Model	H61H2-I v1.1

CPU Socket Type	LGA 1155
CPU Type	Core i7 / i5 / i3 / Pentium / Celeron (LGA1155)
Supported CPU Technologies	Hyper-Threading Technology

Number of Memory Slots	2x240pin
Memory Standard	DDR3 1333/1066
Maximum Memory Supported	16GB
Channel Supported	Dual Channel

PCI Express 2.0 x16	1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16
Other Slots	1 x Mini PCI Express x1

Audio Chipset	Realtek ALC892
Audio Channels	8 Channels

ECS H61H2-I v1.1 LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

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Video Ports	D-Sub + DVI
HDMI	1 x HDMI
USB 1.1/2.0	8 x USB 2.0
S/PDIF Out	1 x Optical
Audio Ports	2 Ports

Onboard USB	4 x USB 2.0
Other Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector 1 x 4-pin CPU_FAN connector 1 x 3-pin SYS_FAN connector 1 x Front panel switch/LED header 1 x Front panel audio header 1 x Chassis intrusion header 1 x Speaker header

Form Factor	Mini ITX
Dimensions (W x L)	6.7" x 6.7"
Power Pin	24 Pin

Onboard LAN
LAN Chipset	Realtek 8111E
Max LAN Speed	1Gbps

Item#: N82E16813135341