ASUS E35M1-M Pro Motherboard

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There is a review of the ASUS E35M1-M Pro motherboard today at Neoseeker that is worth checking out. Here's a quote from the review:

The ASUS E35M1-M Pro steps its Brazos board offerings up in form factor, and expandability with a host of connectors and headers; it's the only board of its kind to offer more expansion slots than a single full-length PCI-E, and in fact the only one to be bigger in form factor than mini-ITX. At $145 it's not too expensive.
 
I'm thinking this will be my next Linux Server.

I wonder if it is possible to disable the GPU portion of the APU to save even more power for uses where you don't need video output (like a closet linux server)

I figured I'd get a MicroATX case without a power supply, and get a Pico-PSU from mini-box.com in order to drive it more efficiently. and use a low power SSD. I bet I can get the power usage at the wall down close to the actual TDP :p

Maybe I'll wait for the E-450 version though, since it is rumored to be pretty close.
 
I bought this board for a WHS v1 build and it came in the other day. Testing Windows 7 64bit, 8GB ram and 128 GB Crucial SSD on it before some of these parts go into my gaming rig.

I don't think there is a way to disable onboard GPU with no pci card installed. It reverts back to onboard I think.

The GPU is nothing to write home about. It can't play 1080p youtube videos. 720p is fine. It still can't play 1080p youtube video after I stuck in GeForce 8800 GT pci-e card. Don't know if I'm doing something wrong or its the limitation of the CPU.

DVD's and mp4 files encoded for iPad works fine.

If anyone wants to see any test, let me know. It's going to be a server in a few days so no more test after that.

[edit]
1080p Youtube video plays fine after pausing and letting it buffer for a little bit. This is with the onboard video.
 
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If anyone wants to see any test, let me know. It's going to be a server in a few days so no more test after that.

I'd be interested in seeing how it does with bluray's and Netflix playback.

If it can't handle 1080p well, then that is horribly disappointing. after my server I had planned on building a few HTPC boxes surrounding the E-350 due to their low power....
 
The GPU is nothing to write home about. It can't play 1080p youtube videos. 720p is fine.

What version of Adobe Flash do you have installed?

Anandtech's review ran into similar issues with Flash 10.1. They contacted AMD and were told it was an Adobe problem and they were working with them to fix it in 10.2. 10.3 is out by now, I would have hoped that would fix it.
 
I have no Blueray player but do have netflix. I'll test out netflix streaming and see. I did change my plan to DVD only the other day so I don't know if it went into effect yet.

I'll shoot a video of my monitor watching a 1080p youtube and netflix and upload it on youtube.

I plan on shooting it with my Nokia N8 phone. Is there a screen capture program that will do it better?

I also have the latest version of Flash.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037610319 said:
I'm thinking this will be my next Linux Server.

Using it as my Linux server, works great. If you have any questions, let me know.

Just one thing, make sure to use the fan on the heatsync unless you have lots of airflow in the system case, the heatsync has to cool the APU and northbridge processor as well and can get very hot without active cooling.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037643146 said:
I'd be interested in seeing how it does with bluray's and Netflix playback.

If it can't handle 1080p well, then that is horribly disappointing. after my server I had planned on building a few HTPC boxes surrounding the E-350 due to their low power....

Bluray playback is fine, but it depends on the flash being decoded.

Youtube 1080p works great as has H.264 encoding.
However, Netflix does not, and is purely CPU-bound.

Netflix really needs to get some hardware acceleration for their flash videos.
The E-350, while much faster than an Atom dual-core, still does not have the horse-power to drive 1080p flash without hardware acceleration.
 
The GPU is nothing to write home about. It can't play 1080p youtube videos. 720p is fine. It still can't play 1080p youtube video after I stuck in GeForce 8800 GT pci-e card. Don't know if I'm doing something wrong or its the limitation of the CPU.

You're doing something wrong. Both the HD6310 and 8800GT can easily run 1080p Youtube videos without much CPU interaction. Make sure flash is fully updated and that the video you are running supports the hardware acceleration.
 
Turns out youtube 1080p does play with onboard video or add in video card. Once clicking play on the video, I would need to pause and let it buffer a quarter of the way and then hit play. Plays just fine and I don't need to make a video anymore.

Netflix HD does not work at all with either onboard video or my Nvidia 8800GT card.

Hulu works in 480.

My fan is hooked up. It is very quiet.

80689548.jpg
 
Reason netflix doesn't work great right now, is it's Silverlight, and Silverlight 5 with HW accelleration is not due until a bit later (though the beta is out, iirc).
 
Reason netflix doesn't work great right now, is it's Silverlight, and Silverlight 5 with HW accelleration is not due until a bit later (though the beta is out, iirc).

Good call, thanks for the info. Hopefully it will be released soon, it will really help with lesser system which have the ability to decode.
 
There are only a few problems so far with this motherboard.

The NIC controller is not meant for heavy loads or server loads, only light usage.
Definitely add a discrete NIC to this mobo as it will compliment it very well.

The second issue is the PCI-E 16x slot (4x). It will not run anything other than a graphics card.
I have heard of others using it for certain hardware RAID cards, but getting it to function properly is a crap shoot.

I personally have tried to use my PCI-E 4x fiber channel 4Gb card in it with no success.
The card has power and activates just fine, but the UEFI and OS will not recognize the card at all.

Just as a warning, make sure your expansion card will work with this motherboard if it is the reason for purchasing it.

The PCI-E 1x slot works just fine for everything else though, as do the standard PCI slots.
 
Good call, thanks for the info. Hopefully it will be released soon, it will really help with lesser system which have the ability to decode.

Interesting.

I wonder if the beta is public. If so it would be really interesting to see a test.
 
The NIC controller is not meant for heavy loads or server loads, only light usage.

What kind of issues are you seeing with the NIC?

Low overall transfer speeds? Difficulty in handling multiple simultaneous server style requests? High CPU usage?

Have you tested it with iperf/jperf?

My plan was to get a board like this for my NAS/File server so I am very interested in the networking capabilities.
 
What problems are you seeing with the NIC? Maybe I can see if I can duplicate it and see if I run into the same.

I had already planned to drop an Intel Gigabit card in it.
 
The only problems I've seen with the NIC is when very high usage (60MB/s+) for an extended period will cause the controller/system to crash. With any other gigabit NIC though, it does not do this, so I know it is not an overload on the APU, but on the integrated NIC itself.

It's not a huge problem, just don't rely on very high speeds for extended times with the integrated NIC. If your speeds are below 20MB/s, it can sustain those just fine.
 
What I had heard was that in order to use the PCIe X16 slot with cards that are not graphics cards you have to enable it in the bios. I think it was changing the graphics to PCIE GFX and the IGFX to auto.
 
What I had heard was that in order to use the PCIe X16 slot with cards that are not graphics cards you have to enable it in the bios. I think it was changing the graphics to PCIE GFX and the IGFX to auto.

Nice, next reboot I'll have to give it a try.
 
Haven't rebooted yet, it's in my server, it doesn't go down often.
 
The only problems I've seen with the NIC is when very high usage (60MB/s+) for an extended period will cause the controller/system to crash. With any other gigabit NIC though, it does not do this, so I know it is not an overload on the APU, but on the integrated NIC itself.

It's not a huge problem, just don't rely on very high speeds for extended times with the integrated NIC. If your speeds are below 20MB/s, it can sustain those just fine.

This would explain why I'm always finding my WHS2011 machine disconnected from the network -- apparently the NIC is crashing like you have observed. Very disappointing.

Is there any likelihood that a driver update could fix this?
 
This would explain why I'm always finding my WHS2011 machine disconnected from the network -- apparently the NIC is crashing like you have observed. Very disappointing.

Is there any likelihood that a driver update could fix this?

I bought mine expecting that the onboard NIC would be garbage.

First thing I did was disable onboard NIC, and install an intel server NIC.
 
Actually, since using the board, I've seen quite a few more problems and have subsequently switched to a more powerful CPU/mobo to act as a server.

It's not a bad board, and driver updates may certainly help alleviate some of the issues, but all in all, it was just a buggy product to begin with, not so much the processor, but more so the mobo.

First thing I did was disable onboard NIC, and install an intel server NIC.
That's exactly what I did as well.
 
Sheesh, this mobo replaced an 8-year old system that had onboard NIC that I never had a problem with -- that system could record up to four HDTV channels simultaneously -- this one so far hasn't had more than two channels connected. Gigabit ethernet has been around forever -- how could it be the weak link in a new mobo?

I was looking at ASUS's website and didn't see a link to submit problems -- I have to think this is a driver issue.
 
Sheesh, this mobo replaced an 8-year old system that had onboard NIC that I never had a problem with -- that system could record up to four HDTV channels simultaneously -- this one so far hasn't had more than two channels connected. Gigabit ethernet has been around forever -- how could it be the weak link in a new mobo?

I was looking at ASUS's website and didn't see a link to submit problems -- I have to think this is a driver issue.

The Realtek 8111c chipset is garbage essentially. Yes, it's gigabit, but its really intended for light facebooking and email on a net top. It's a cheap chipset.

Personally I wouldn't use ANY Realtek chipset for ANY networking at all, but especially not in anything that's going to see high loads like a server.

Intel server NIC's are the way to go. Broadcom NetXtreme server NIC's are pretty decent too.

In all but the highest end of boards, on board NIC's are junk.

The only on board ethernet solutions I would trust are ones on real server boards like those made by Supermicro.
 
I was looking at ASUS's website and didn't see a link to submit problems -- I have to think this is a driver issue.

No, it's not a driver issue, the Realtek NIC is a piece of garbage.
If you are serious about using your system as a server, you need to dump that onboard NIC and go with an Intel, you won't be disappointed and you will see a big difference between the two.

The hardware on the Realtek is just, flat-out inferior to anything else on the market.
 
FYI, I installed the version 7.50 drivers from Realtek's website (not ASUS, which still only has ver 7.37 on their website) and I have yet to experience a network drop-out since.

I see there's now a version 7.53 on Realtek's site but haven't installed it yet.
 
FYI, I installed the version 7.50 drivers from Realtek's website (not ASUS, which still only has ver 7.37 on their website) and I have yet to experience a network drop-out since.

I see there's now a version 7.53 on Realtek's site but haven't installed it yet.

Thanks for letting us know about the driver update.
The only problem is that the chipset is just not powerful enough for anything beyond basic file transfers and Internet usage, it really wasn't meant for server-grade applications.
 
This is a WHS2011 application -- it moves plenty of bits every day for doing PVR, but it doesn't need to be bleeding-edge fast. I just tested it with a 20GB file -- it maintained 40+MB/s the entire time. That's plenty good enough for what I'm using it for -- something that can stream hd-video all day long while using minimal power. It's not like I'm using it for terabyte sized databases in a business environment.

There's a big difference between a computer losing its network connection every day (making it an electronic paperweight) vs. never going down -- it turns out newer drivers did resolve that issue.
 
There's a big difference between a computer losing its network connection every day (making it an electronic paperweight) vs. never going down -- it turns out newer drivers did resolve that issue.
I'll stick with an Intel NIC, thanks.
 
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