Repurposing AMD Phenom 940 build as NAS Box

[ipown1337]

Hello Forum. I have a Phenom 940 that i was going to decommission until i gave it a way or some other purpose for it came along, i have since decided to use it as a NAS Box (free nas). I am looking for suggestions on using the least amount of power possible while still severing it's new purpose (reliably).

Systems Specs:

Phenom 940
DFI 790FX Mobo
Ati 5450 (i believe) passively cooled video card
two sticks of ram 2gb each, i plan on only running one.
Silverstone ST75ZF, 750 watt power supply, purchased in late 2005/early 2006.

 

[NTMBK]

You're going to use a 125W processor to run a NAS? Most people use an Atom! D: I really hope electricity is cheap where you live...

 

[EightySix Four]

Take a look at its power usage underclocked/undervolted at idle and make a decision then.

 

[PPB]

He could run it at CnQ speeds with 1 core active and still fullfill his purpose, dropping volts really really low and it would be ok power consumption, and also going with passive cooling to save up extra w and space.

I would first check which is your strongest core, as in the most stable when running at a certaing voltage and clockspeed threshold. Then start stress testing under CnQ speeds and voltages to then try to lower that voltage as much as possible.

Bear in mind, even if you could reach as low as 10-15W CPU power consumption with my advice, you still are having like 40W of platform power consumption from that old chipset. It's probably the only drawback i'm seeing in this experiment you are trying to have. And i wouldnt dare to sacrifice stability in something like a Southbridge to shave off a few more watts.

 

[EightySix Four]

He could run it at CnQ speeds with 1 core active and still fullfill his purpose, dropping volts really really low and it would be ok power consumption, and also going with passive cooling to save up extra w and space.

I would first check which is your strongest core, as in the most stable when running at a certaing voltage and clockspeed threshold. Then start stress testing under CnQ speeds and voltages to then try to lower that voltage as much as possible.

Bear in mind, even if you could reach as low as 10-15W CPU power consumption with my advice, you still are having like 40W of platform power consumption from that old chipset. It's probably the only drawback i'm seeing in this experiment you are trying to have. And i wouldnt dare to sacrifice stability in something like a Southbridge to shave off a few more watts.

Don't go with passive cooling. A higher temperature processor uses more power at the same voltage and clockspeed.

 

[Arkaign]

Hello Forum. I have a Phenom 940 that i was going to decommission until i gave it a way or some other purpose for it came along, i have since decided to use it as a NAS Box (free nas). I am looking for suggestions on using the least amount of power possible while still severing it's new purpose (reliably).

Systems Specs:

Phenom 940
DFI 790FX Mobo
Ati 5450 (i believe) passively cooled video card
two sticks of ram 2gb each, i plan on only running one.
Silverstone ST75ZF, 750 watt power supply, purchased in late 2005/early 2006.

Sell it, you can easily get a little MicroATX setup for dirt cheap using a Celeron Dual core that will do the job nicely with a fraction of the power/heat, even after doing everything you can to optimize your existing setup.

 

[PPB]

Don't go with passive cooling. A higher temperature processor uses more power at the same voltage and clockspeed.

He needs to evaluate if the extra consumption from extra temps overcomes the extra consumption of having 1 Fan running in the heatsink. Besides the size factor advantages/disadvantages of either way.

 

[Arkaign]

True, though if he just sells this, he will actually make a profit AND have much more efficient hardware to work with. 940s sell for surprisingly high $$. Ditto the 750 Silverstone, unneeded video card (if it has HDMI out, easy $20 there), etc.

Getting a Celeron Dually, H61 mobo, single 2GB stick of DDR3, basic power supply, and then he can also use a 212 with no fan I've done just that even with the Pentium dual core slightly undervolted, and it's flawless. 24/7 stable for over a year as an IP camera server.

EDIT : looks like 2x2GB DDR2 also sells for $35 or so

 

[ipown1337]

Thank you very much for the suggestions, in reference to passive cooling I do have a Zalman 9700 cooler in this setup, perhaps this will aid I your suggestions sorry for not listing it before I thought it would be insignificant but I was wrong. I can also measure power via ups or kill a watt.

Using a very low power embedded solution sounds temping but I was looking to have fun without spending any money, I also figured that it would be neat and challenging to achieve very low power with this setup.

Other parts that I have and can possibly use:

Dual core fm1 CPU, would need mobo/ram
Dual core Brisbane am2 CPU 4800+

 

[ipown1337]

Deleted post due to a duplication.

 

[NTMBK]

Thank you very much for the suggestions, in reference to passive cooling I do have a Zalman 9700 cooler in this setup, perhaps this will aid I your suggestions sorry for not listing it before I thought it would be insignificant but I was wrong. I can also measure power via ups or kill a watt.

Using a very low power embedded solution sounds temping but I was looking to have fun without spending any money, I also figured that it would be neat and challenging to achieve very low power with this setup.

Other parts that I have and can possibly use:

Dual core fm1 CPU, would need mobo/ram
Dual core Brisbane am2 CPU 4800+

The FM1 dual core sounds promising. It's on a smaller process, it's got an integrated GPU, and the FM1 motherboards tend to draw less power than an AM3 one. (One-chip chipset, instead of separate NB+SB.) Combine it with a nice mini-ITX board and you could make a pretty good NAS.

 

[Lorne]

Trade it for a Athlon II 250, Set an agressive power management and shouldnt even need a fan on the cooler or set it really slow.

I org. did this for a home theater and had a draw of 40w (micro atx) watching a BR.
Sadly I put into another case for a closet NAS and the new 250w powersupply blew and taken all but the HD out.
Now Im restarting with a old Athlon X2 2400BE (40w) had laying around, I should be able to do the same setup get some really low idle power draw.

 

[stinger608]

You could probably sell most of that for enough bux to purchase this little jewel:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813135363

Would be great performance in a very small package.

 

[NTMBK]

You could probably sell most of that for enough bux to purchase this little jewel:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813135363

Would be great performance in a very small package.

2 SATA ports? Not exactly great for a NAS...

 

[stinger608]

2 SATA ports? Not exactly great for a NAS...

LOL, yea you do have a good point there.

 

[ipown1337]

I have some data that i need to get off the system, i will do that during the holiday and i'll also perform some testing. I will test underclocking/volting and i'll also need to test the mobo's clock (time) management, it seems that the clock loses time with cool/quiet enabled, i tried replacing the battery but it didn't help, hopefully its some type of weird os problem. If it turns out that it's the mobo i'll just sell the cpu. If i have to cell the cpu i will just get a small form factor mobo for the fm1 cpu that i have.

Thank you for your input, i will revert with my findings.

 

[alyarb]

don't get the synology ds413j. I just sent one back to newegg and the restocking fee was $60. it's some embedded marvell linux nas. I have 4 4TB Blacks, and there was a performance wall at 50 MB/s, tried RAID 0, 5, and 10... same performance. tested the drives individually and they are good for 145-150 MB/sec on the same workload. i dont know if it was a sucky ethernet controller or what. sent it back. fiddling with AIO type products is pointless.

so for about the same money i am building a haswell box on a Q87 board. we'll see what an RST raid can do with the blacks... gotta be better than 50 MB/s.

Anyway point being, be it marvell, or realtek, or atheros, intel, or amd... choose your chipset wisely. that its a headless file server makes no difference. any time i am on a gigabit LAN and I can't max it out with sequential i/o (at least with backups and fastcopy) I get irritated.

 

[ipown1337]

don't get the synology ds413j. I just sent one back to newegg and the restocking fee was $60. it's some embedded marvell linux nas. I have 4 4TB Blacks, and there was a performance wall at 50 MB/s, tried RAID 0, 5, and 10... same performance. tested the drives individually and they are good for 145-150 MB/sec on the same workload. i dont know if it was a sucky ethernet controller or what. sent it back. fiddling with AIO type products is pointless.

so for about the same money i am building a haswell box on a Q87 board. we'll see what an RST raid can do with the blacks... gotta be better than 50 MB/s.

Anyway point being, be it marvell, or realtek, or atheros, intel, or amd... choose your chipset wisely. that its a headless file server makes no difference. any time i am on a gigabit LAN and I can't max it out with sequential i/o (at least with backups and fastcopy) I get irritated.

Thanks, once i've decided on my NAS path i'll do some research and seek further help :thumbsup:

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

You're going to use a 125W processor to run a NAS? Most people use an Atom! D: I really hope electricity is cheap where you live...

Nothing wrong when CnQ / PowerNow is enabled. Was running my two HTPC/fileservers with PII X3 740BE @ 940s, until I swapped them out with 1045Ts earlier this year.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

EDIT : looks like 2x2GB DDR2 also sells for $35 or so

Tell me about it. I sold off a whole bunch of PII X4 940BEs just recently for $89 a pop. Sold like hotcakes, and I got more than what I paid for them from newEgg a couple of years ago

Ditto for 2x2GB DDR2-800 sets. Sold off 5 sets (various brands - Crucial, Patriot, Mushkin, Corsair) for $55 each.

 

[ipown1337]

Tell me about it. I sold off a whole bunch of PII X4 940BEs just recently for $89 a pop. Sold like hotcakes, and I got more than what I paid for them from newEgg a couple of years ago

Ditto for 2x2GB DDR2-800 sets. Sold off 5 sets (various brands - Crucial, Patriot, Mushkin, Corsair) for $55 each.

I can understand DDR2-800 being at a premium, but why are people paying so much money for am2 phenom's? I might definitely sell!!!!!

This may sound silly but i don't like selling my old cpu's i tend to keep them due sentimental value lol. I still have a athlon x2 toledo core 4400+ in my living room (the machine still works, surviving an 8 foot drop and all) that is one cpu that i will never sell, i paid close to $500 dollars for that cpu and it was my first dual core. Another one of my priced possessions is an e6300, that baby ran at 3.2 from day one, i believe that i just set the fsb of ram 800, i do not remember if anything else was tweaked, it ran rock solid for a couple of years, after 2 or 3 years it no longer liked the 3.2 oc, i downclocked it to 3.0 and ran it until i acquired the phenom 940, the 6300 is still in a mobo box along with some other goodies, the 6300 is the best cpu i've have ever owned....

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

^ Not at all! I understand the sentimental bit - I have fond memories of almost every piece of hardware I've owned (cases, sound cards, vid cards, mobos, etc.)

Yeah, that puzzled the hell out of me too. I had absolutely no problems getting rid of 6x PII X3 740BEs and 9x PII X4 940BEs for good prices on eBay. Upgraded most of the systems (fileservers, HTPCs, folks', etc.) with cheap 1045Ts that I managed to snag from MicroCenter (was $80 IIRC with a free Gigabyte 78LMTS2P mobo).

 

[blastingcap]

I would not sacrifice ECC for slightly lower power draw. ~40W idle isn't that bad if you enable just one core like someone else said.

However only ASUS and a few other mobos enable ECC by default, and OP's mobo is something I doubt supports it. Plus it sounds like OP doesn't have ECC RAM anyway.

 

[Arkaign]

I would not sacrifice ECC for slightly lower power draw. ~40W idle isn't that bad if you enable just one core like someone else said.

However only ASUS and a few other mobos enable ECC by default, and OP's mobo is something I doubt supports it. Plus it sounds like OP doesn't have ECC RAM anyway.

That's true, but I think the $$ perspective would pay off for OP with a move forward.

H77 mobos are pretty cheap, I've used the Asrock H77 Pro and it's nice.

USB 3.0 (Intel), 4x Sata 6Gbps ports + 4 Sata 3Gbps ports, Gbit Lan, much lower power chipset, 32GB Ram Support, Multiple PCIe 3.0 ports, VGA/DVI/HDMI output, etc.

Combo that with a cheapo G1610, and he's got something that is just a world better for NAS duties imho, with the bonus of being able to be brought up to speed as a full fledged workstation with the drop of a CPU and GPU in there.