My Zacate E-350 build (with pics!)

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I finally got all of my parts tonight, and I put together a SFF Zacate E-350 build.

 

[VirtualLarry]

 

[fffblackmage]

Nice!

I'm considering an E350 build as well, since I found an excellent deal on an Antec ISK-300. I was looking for a fanless E350, but how's the tiny fan on that ASRock combo?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Unobtrusively quiet. The small fans on all of the Zacate boards I've used (and that's all of them) have worked fine, and produce little noise. Never had any problem with any of the tiny fans on Atom mini-ITX boards save one (and that was a nearly two year old first gen single core Atom 230 board).

 

[fffblackmage]

^ That's good to hear. The fanless ones on newegg I've looked at are either expensive or they're missing some IO ports compared to that ASRock combo.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah. The fan spins at ~5000 RPM, but I don't hear it.

Edit: Some power numbers with a P4600.

Prime95 25.11 64-bit load on both cores: 40W / 61VA
Idle on desktop: 31W / 48VA
Watching a 1080P YouTube video: 39-40W / 60-61VA
3dMark11 - Combined Test: 39-45W

Clearly, the PSU in this rosewill case, is non-PFC. Too bad. It was a cheap case ($50 with 150W PSU).

3dMark11 scores:

3DMark Score
P285
Graphics Score
257
Physics Score
680
Combined Score
277
GraphicsTest1
1 FPS
GraphicsTest2
1 FPS
GraphicsTest3
1 FPS
PhysicsTest
2 FPS
CombinedTest
1 FPS

Not great, but hey, it runs.
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/1322458

 

[Zap]

Nice little rig. I should get off my ass and put together my own E-350 build. The Sapphire mobo I bought has been collecting dust for a number of weeks/months.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Weird, I just resumed my Zacate rig from sleep, for the umpteen time, and the keyboard was totally non-responsive. Had to shut it down and power it up again.

 

[corkyg]

Zacate means forage in Mexico, Central America, and Phillipines. That is usually dried grass or hay. Strange name for a mobo.

Anyway, nice photos and work! I have never found "Sleep" to be trusted.

 

[dfuze]

Weird, I just resumed my Zacate rig from sleep, for the umpteen time, and the keyboard was totally non-responsive. Had to shut it down and power it up again.

This happens to my desktop every so often, not sure why. I did recently figure out that unplugging and replugging my usb keyboard in got it working instead of having to reboot. Luckily it's plugged in the front of the case so it's easy access, but something worth trying the next time it happens.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, just got a blue-screen and a reboot. Strange. I thought that this rig was stable. I was listening to internet radio, and the screen was turned off. I moved the mouse, the screen came on, sort of, and then BAM, blue-screen.

 

[roguerower]

How would one of these handle watching ripped DVDs and Bluray discs with no gaming thrown in?

How much for the entire setup?

 

[mnewsham]

How would one of these handle watching ripped DVDs and Bluray discs with no gaming thrown in?

How much for the entire setup?

Bluray is fairly good on the E-350, CPU utilization in high action 1080p blurays is about 40% (leaves you enough CPU power to have other things running)

Motherboard/CPU
RAM
HDD
OS
Case/PSU


CD/DVD
Or
Bluray

Total without Bluray drive: $359.94

Total with Bluray: $394.94

 

[Tinymacrocosm]

I've recently built my own e-350 setup too.

I used a fanless Asus mini ITX with a Lian Li case. I also put 5 WD 2TB Green drives inside running WHS 2011 with software RAID 5.

The PSU has a fan and i placed a Noctua 140MM case fan at the lowest speed settings. Its not inaudible, but very quiet. Silent beyond 1.5 meters.

The drives average around 35 C degrees and the CPU is around 42 C idle and 67 C under load after a few hours encoding videos.

It was a relatively costly setup with 5 drives + the lian li case, but im happy with it.

 

[Arg Clin]

Very nice. Did a very similar build recently, but using the Asus board, and the case was called Polly Black, but appears visually to be identical.

How is the front plate for the optical drive working for you? (the one that is pushed open by the tray). I'm asking because mine tends to get stuck, so I'm starting to think I have to modify it, or maybe I did something wrong...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Got a blue-screen again, just while web browsing. Unsure what is screwed up here.

Stop code 0x124.

Not sure how to download drivers for Zacate rigs, there's no selection for "E-350" under "Motherboard graphics" on AMD's site.

Edit: Updated VGA driver on Asrock's site (couldn't find Zacate drivers on AMD's site), to 8.86 WHQL.

 

[fffblackmage]

I'm not sure what kind of driver the Zacate mobo needs, but there is a video driver on the AMD site, at least. It's under "Desktop Graphics" > "E-series APU" > "E350 APU."