H55 / H57 mITX boards: post them here

EngrChris said:
First production batch (not sure if they made it out) have a physical defect and prevents Turbo from working.
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OK, I know that virtually all manufacturers mess up something somehow somewhere along the line when they launch a product.

What I can't seem to understand is how first-revision Zotac boards always seem to have physical shortcomings that prevent them from working as expected...

I mean, the 610i-ITX lacked S3 support; the 9300i-ITX was missing a bunch of resume features, and underclocking potential; and now this...

This is kind of a rant, since I actually consider Zotac to be one of the most forward-thinking motherboard manufacturers (alongside ASRock, they pretty much do what other bigger manufacturers refuse to do or arrive late to the market with, like ION, S478+DDR2, etc.), but by this time my guess is someone should have already been fired for letting all these "small things" pass.

Hope this gets sorted out quickly.

Cheers.

Miguel
 
Unfortunately Zotac has done nothing to help those with the turbo boost issue. If you contact them they will tell you to RMA the board through the retailer. I got my board from Puget, Puget was unaware of any issues with turbo boost, and unfortunately it looks like all of the boards they have are broken. So it looks like I’m SOL, Zotac wont take it back, and Puget doesn’t have any working boards.
 
Turbo Boost doesn't seem to be the only problem of Zotac H55ITX.
Due some design fault the PCI-E slot only supports graphics cards and cannot be used with TV tuners or any other non-video hardware. :(
I canceled my pre-ordered Zotac and going to buy an Intel DH57JG instead.
 
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Unfortunately, most of H5x-based mobos around suffer from that caveat.

At least on the recent Anandtech group review of H5x-based motherboards, most of them had that limitation. I don't know, but it really seems to me that it's probably a limitation on the hardware side, I don't think manufacturers can really do anything about it...

However, any input about this one would be great, it would be very interesting to have a 12 port+ mini-ITX-based NAS on the cheap side (well, it would be cheaper with a €75 uATX Gigabyte H55 board, but still...) with potential idle power draw of ~30W...

Cheers.

Miguel
 
__Miguel_ said:
At least on the recent Anandtech group review of H5x-based motherboards, most of them had that limitation.l
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Sorry Miguel, but what limitation are you referring to? :confused:

I've built two H57 systems so far and none of them suffer from Zotac's issues. Speaking specifically about mini-ITX H5x boards, Intel DH57JG works just fine with PCI-E X1 TV tuners; i5 turbo boost works too.

Also, I didn't notice any mention of such issues in Anandtech group review. So what kind of hardware limitations are you talking about?

Regards

Athan
 
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Athan said:
Sorry Miguel, but what limitation are you referring to? :confused:
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I might have been too vague. I was referring to the "no non-GPU cards on the PEG slot" limitation.

I also confused Anandtech and Tom's Hardware (I know, they are REALLY similar... lol), which on its 9-way H5x review said

Tom's Hardware said:
The x16 slot and integrated graphics engine are mutually exclusive
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when referring to the EVGA H55 ATX motherboard, here. And I remember reading something like that on at least another mobo on that review, though I might have mixed that with the Zotac review (I often take a few days to star reading everything, and similar subjects may end up in the same general "drawer").

Cheers.

Miguel
 
Just got what you meant, Miguel. :)

However, both EVGA's or Zotac's x16 slot problem is due to a bad design choice, not some chipset architecture limitation.
As I said before, Intel's own mini-ITX DH57JG board uses the same chipset but works like a charm with either GPU or non-GPU cards installed on its sole x16 pci-e.
 
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@Athan: Good to know that's not a general issue. I really thought that was more or less a design limitation, like the unsplittable PCIe lanes.

Now, the next question quickly becomes: can a simple BIOS upgrade fix that limitation, just like it happened with many motherboards back in the day when dual-GPU video cards appeared?

If the answer is "Yes", then I really thought we'd be over that by now; if the answer is "No", then I really hope someone gets fired over this. And either way, shame on you, Zotac and EVGA, for not remembering something like that in HTPC-oriented motherboards.

Cheers.

Miguel
 
I'm pretty sure the answer is "No", Miguel. I don't see how they could fix this using firmware alone.

I guess they will release an updated revision of their board soon, same they did with their defective IONITX last year (yeah I RMAd two of them).

But I will not make the same mistake a third time; No Zotac cr*p for me any more.
 
Heh, with all that fuss and mishaps, Intel motherboards, lacking as they are on the OC front, are more and more interesting each passing day... It seems the more non-standard a board is, especially on the BIOS side of things, more chances you have of it not working appropriately.

I tell you, the motherboard that gave me the least problems until now was a D945GCLF: I almost ripped my hair out because of the faulty IDE cable I was using that prevented the board from booting, but apart from that, it's rock solid, period. ASRock has also been very good to me at stock (but God forbid you from wanting to OC even a tiny little bit...), and they are usually dirt cheap.

OK, /RANT. Sorry about that.

Cheers.

Miguel
 
Athan said:
Turbo Boost doesn't seem to be the only problem of Zotac H55ITX.
Due some design fault the PCI-E slot only supports graphics cards and cannot be used with TV tuners or any other non-video hardware. :(
I canceled my pre-ordered Zotac and going to buy an Intel DH57JG instead.
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someone in that thread reported an ATI tuner card works on the H55, so this is something to monitor.
 
Proneax said:
someone in that thread reported an ATI tuner card works on the H55, so this is something to monitor.
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Same time their forum mods have deleted most negative user posts, including their own comments regarding this and turbo boost issues; typical Zotac reaction... :rolleyes:
 
Interesting ... I guess having to place that NEC USB3.0 controller knocked a few other useful features off. I really want 5+ SATA ports: 4 for 4x2.5" HDD/SSD in RAID10 and 1 for the optical drive.
 
Athan said:
Same time their forum mods have deleted most negative user posts, including their own comments regarding this and turbo boost issues; typical Zotac reaction... :rolleyes:
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There were 2 people that claimed the same capture card was working, but on different forums (maybe the same person?) Anyway, the guy on avs retracted, saying it kind of worked, but he could not get it to work in media center, and that in other programs it was stuttering.

Boooo Zotac.
 
Proneax said:
There were 2 people that claimed the same capture card was working, but on different forums (maybe the same person?) Anyway, the guy on avs retracted, saying it kind of worked, but he could not get it to work in media center, and that in other programs it was stuttering.

Boooo Zotac.
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Did Zotac release a new revision of their board? Two days ago, one of my colleagues got a H55ITX and he was able to use it with a Hauppauge HVR-2200 tuner. I've seen that combination working with my own eyes. :confused:
Board was ordered from Kustompcs in UK and came loaded with the latest BIOS version 2K100223. I didn't check the revision number on back of the board, but I will this weekend.
 
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Here it is. Anybody can compare this with his H55ITX?

img0677m.jpg


I confirm that this specific board, loaded with the latest bios, works fine with any of these tv tuners: Hauppauge HVR-2200, HVR-1700MC and BlackGold BGT3510. All these cards were detected by Windows 7 - (64bit) and worked with no issues in MC.
Even tried a Highpoint RocketRAID 2300 SATA II controller on Zotac's PCI-E and worked too! Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to test i5-6xx turbo boost feature on this board.

So what you think? Is it a new, probably fixed revision of the board, or Zotac support just said nonsense when they claimed that PCI-E slot doesn't support anything else than a graphics card? :)
 
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Yeah, supposedly they were fixing turbo-boost and (potentially) this problem. It looks as if they recalled a whole bunch of boards from retail, as the board was out of stock almost everywhere between the end of Feb and now. Ewiz.com was telling me that they would not have the board (I ordered on 02/28) until end of Mar - early Apr ... but I just got a shipping conf. from them yesterday and the board is back in stock on their web-site. It's back in stock on newegg.com too.
 
And the story goes on....

Seeing all these TV cards working on my friend's Zotac, I decided to order one too, same bunch, same retailer and close S/N. Well, it actually worked with my Hauppauge cards but the surprise came when I tried to wake up system from S3 sleeping mode. Guess what; It couldn't!

Although without a PCI-E TV tuner (or disabled in BIOS) Zotac was able to wake from S3, it only rebooted when tuner was installed. No need to say that I tried almost any possible combination, like different PCUs, RAM modules, a number of different pcie tuners and almost any BIOS setting that could alter S3 behavior. No luck!

When using hibernate or hybrid sleep, Zotac still reboots but due to the nature of hibernate it was possible to resume Windows session. Unfortunately it couldn't wake from pure S3 mode, no matter what I did.

Finally, I contacted Zotac support asking for their help. And voila, this is their official answer:

Dear Sir,

We are sorry to tell you that the PCI-E x16 slot is provided for display card only. For other add-on cards, the card may be not functional. You could try to update the TV card driver or use Hibernation mode instead of S3 mode.

B.rgds
Peter Tang
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Great, really great!

So I removed Zotac from my OrigenAE M10 case, dropped it in a drawer with other useless stuff and replaced it with my trusty Intel DH57JG (awesome motherboard btw). Everything works fine again, system is happy, my Hauppauge is happy, I am happy but ...$150 poorer! :)

I've learned my lesson, though; never ever buy another Zotac chinese cr@p again! :mad:
 
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Really really sucks. My 9300-ITX has been great so far but I can see where you are going. They should at least explain why, dunno If anyone knows the reason for this. AFAIK PCI-e is PCI-e.

The intel board should be more reliable though, it has a lot more R&D into it of course. The zotac is just a sweeter bundle. I'll start shopping DH57JG for my newer ITX builds though, It's better to have them working that feature packed and when you sell this stuff having to RMA is a serious issue.
 
Athan said:
So I removed Zotac from my OrigenAE M10 case, dropped it in a drawer with other useless stuff and replaced it with my trusty Intel DH57JG (awesome motherboard btw). Everything works fine again, system is happy, my Hauppauge is happy, I am happy but ...$150 poorer! :)
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Well, not that much poorer if you resell it :D

Anyway, certainly sounds like an annoying issue for those wanting to use different kinds of cards, and one that should be clarified in the product description already.

Didn't have many issues with the Zotac 9300-ITX so I personally I have nothing against the brand. But still it's unfortunate that around here (Finland) it seems difficult to find other enthusiast brands that do ITX with PCIe x16 in stores :( Only LGA1156 boards that I can find at the moment (of any type, not just those with PCIe) are the Zotac H55ITX-A-E WiFi and the DFI LanParty MI-P55-T36. So there's not exactly a plethora of choice of i3/5/7 builders.
 
It's kinda sneaky on the part of Zotac to limit PCI-e slot to just graphics cards, given that it supports CPUs with integrated GPUs and at least some folks buy it EXACTLY in order to be able to stick something OTHER than a graphics card into PCI-e.
 
I've never seen that issue before either, read something here about an evga board but i dunno
 
Yeah, all of the revisions for the GF9300 board gave me a bad feeling about Zotac, yet I still bought the H55 motherboard. It would be nice if it actually does support a tuner card, but I'm going to be using a cablecard tuner and my networked HDHomeRun tuners anyway. I'll be going back to Gigabyte or Intel from now on for my future machines (anybody but Zotac).
 
Hi, I'm going to purchase the H55 for my gaming rig, so using a GraphicsCard in the x16 PCIE slot. Is there any problem with this?
i5 750 + 4GB of kingston value ram.

Has anybody come across bios issues that cannot be resolved?
Theres only one shop in the WHOLE OF NZ that sells mini ITX boards and it sells the Zotac H55 (cheaper) and the DFI board (100NZD more)

Please tell me if you've got any strong warnings aside from TV tuners.
Thanks and regards.
 
Yoy0YO said:
Hi, I'm going to purchase the H55 for my gaming rig, so using a GraphicsCard in the x16 PCIE slot. Is there any problem with this?
i5 750 + 4GB of kingston value ram.
....
Please tell me if you've got any strong warnings aside from TV tuners.
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Zotac first production batch of H55-ITX has a confirmed hardware defect (yep, another one) that prevents turbo boost from functioning, so unless you get an updated revision of the board you probably will forget this i7-750 feature. Unfortunately nobody knows what revision numbers these are and company gives no details. ;)

Why you're looking for an H55 mini-itx board? I do love these boards but are best suited for low-power PCs paired with Clarkdale CPUs. If I were you, I would get the DFI P55-T36 since it has stronger power circuitry than any H5x board, something really necessary for power-hungry beasts like i7. DFI also has better layout and good build quality.
After all you won't make use of Clarkdale IGD so I see no reason to get an H55/57 mini-itx board, especially a defective one (aka Zotac).
 
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Athan said:
snip!
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Thanks for the insight. Also, I'm really keen on having wifi available, Zotac incorperates it w/ a mini-PCI slot but I'm hearing many issues with the DFI P55 board.
If the DFI P55 board issues are resolved, I'll be stuck into DFI's board.

Does anybody know the current situation with the DFI board's issues with USB wireless dongles? (haha, 'dongles'..)
 
Yoy0YO said:
Also, I'm really keen on having wifi available, Zotac incorperates it w/ a mini-PCI slot but I'm hearing many issues with the DFI P55 board.
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I know what you mean; really missed Zotac's onboard mini-pcie wlan. I honestly think this is the best feature of H55-ITX. :)
 
The built-in WLAN on the 9300-ITX was a nice touch indeed, not having it on my current computer is a shame. Although for some reason the WLAN was rather temperamental in Windows 7, took a while to get it to work reliably :p

I really need to buy a proper USB WLAN stick in its stead, but I never seem to get around to it.
 
Athan said:
Zotac first production batch of H55-ITX has a confirmed hardware defect (yep, another one) that prevents turbo boost from functioning, so unless you get an updated revision of the board you probably will forget this i7-750 feature. Unfortunately nobody knows what revision numbers these are and company gives no details. ;)

Why you're looking for an H55 mini-itx board? I do love these boards but are best suited for low-power PCs paired with Clarkdale CPUs. If I were you, I would get the DFI P55-T36 since it has stronger power circuitry than any H5x board, something really necessary for power-hungry beasts like i7. DFI also has better layout and good build quality.
After all you won't make use of Clarkdale IGD so I see no reason to get an H55/57 mini-itx board, especially a defective one (aka Zotac).
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Zotac keep delaying a review sample for me...wonder if these issues are why.
 
After hearing a handful of user reports, I tried using a plain graphics card on Zotac's PCI-E slot (radeon 5450).
Guess what! The same wake-from-S3 problem exists even when using a graphics card. That means it's not a TV-tuner incompatibility but a board/bios bug that affects PCI-E operation as a whole.

I wonder what excuse Zotac techs will come up with now! ;)
 
There's another contender in the H55 mITX space - Gigabyte apparently has plans to release the H55N-USB3. Its point of differentiation from the existing offerings is the inclusion of USB 3.

There are a number of 'previews' and 'sneak peeks' around on the Web, but I can't find any mention of any planned release date. Does anyone here have any idea of when this might be available?
 
chah said:
There's another contender in the H55 mITX space - Gigabyte apparently has plans to release the H55N-USB3. Its point of differentiation from the existing offerings is the inclusion of USB 3.

There are a number of 'previews' and 'sneak peeks' around on the Web, but I can't find any mention of any planned release date. Does anyone here have any idea of when this might be available?
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I have been wondering the same thing myself. Although I wish someone other then DFI would grace us with a p55 itx board. Some of us know that we wont be using the onboard video like EVER so I would rather it not be there.
 
bastage said:
I have been wondering the same thing myself. Although I wish someone other then DFI would grace us with a p55 itx board. Some of us know that we wont be using the onboard video like EVER so I would rather it not be there.
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Well if you buy a Clarksdale i3 or i5 the "onboard" video is actually on the CPU itself. The H55 just supports it. If you don't plan on using the onboard then think of it as a bonus feature. ;)
 
For those who got a Zotac h55itx-a-e, did yours come with a bag of screws and a motherboard / case speaker?

I purchased two from Amazon.com and neither came with the bag of screws and motherboard / case speaker.
 
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