Official Zotac H55-ITX-C-E Thread

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mrmylanman

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 13, 2008
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Just got my board, I can't wait to play around with it

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So far I am using it in Ubuntu 10.04 Linux and everything worked 100% (didn't even have to do a fresh install, which I kind of suspected).

I am going to play around with undervolting tonight, since I am only rocking the stock heatsink at the moment, and overclocking probably won't work out so well.

I am somewhat impressed with the manual it goes into a decent amount of detail about anything I needed to read up on. Sorta sucks that there are 6 SATA ports, but they only supply 3 SATA cables. Not a huge deal, but it would be nice if they threw an extra 3 in there.

Let me know if there's anything I can test out, I'll try to get that in.

I'm using a Xeon L3426 so it's not a huge processing powerhouse, but it should be a nice happy medium of low power but a decent amount of power.
 
I hope Zotac has gotten its act together regarding BIOS updates. My blood still boils thinking about all those H55s I bricked trying to update the BIOS.

It's in stock at Newegg.

Have you had a chance to try the H50 on it? Looks like there's alot of stuff on the underside that could get in the way of the H50's backplate.
 
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I may need to reinstall Linux because lm-sensors is not appearing to work correctly. Or maybe I will just put Windows on it. I undervolted the CPU as far as it will go, and the BIOS shows it as like 1.000V which I feel is probably far too high for this CPU. I might do some more to verify what is going on (as well as borrow a watt reader from work to verify actual power draw), but I am not sure I like this first sign.
 
I am currently attempting some overclocking and preliminary results look pretty good for the board itself, it's at 180 base clock and running like a champ. I do not have CPU temps available to me, but it is still below stock voltage, so I'm not too worried about that just yet.
 
IsLNdbOi said:
I hope Zotac has gotten its act together regarding BIOS updates. My blood still boils thinking about all those H55s I bricked trying to update the BIOS.
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I'm with you on this, although I flashed from a USB stick under DOS. Not very difficult, but still a bit nerve-wracking (how long was that bad BIOS on their site anyway?). Personally, I'm done being an early adopter for Zotac while they churn out new hardware revisions to fix their short-sightedness. Back on topic, I'll be interested in anyone teams this board up with one of the Ceton cablecard tuners. The wireless N in the A-E version seemed ideal for an HTPC, but 7MC kept telling me that the HDMI didn't support protected content -- so, trying to turn this into a Hackintosh instead.

Maybe I'll try this new board after a time -- good luck with your builds!
 
Finally someone posted about this board, I've seen alot of love for the H55-USB3 but nothing about this one. I just got mine in the mail as well. Running Windows 7 just fine i7 870, 2x4GB 1333 DDR3. I haven't had any problems with mine, I was having issues originally with the board layout, but its so tiny it wasn't a huge problem. The built-in in wireless was the deal-breaker for me and I can say I couldn't be happier.
 
Yeah it was a tough call between this and the ASUS AM3 board (I believe that has wireless as well) but decided that for now, I'm staying Intel.

I couldn't be happier with this board so far, for a low power rig it's great and I haven't run into any issues overclocking, I have the base clock running at 172, and I haven't had any stability issues, although right now it's running open air, so it's getting a lot of airflow (I have a ceiling fan running all the time when I'm home... lol)

Right now I am running Ubuntu 10.04, however I am going to get Windows XP on here as a dual boot when I get my case and PSU sometime next week. I needed some version of Windows because there doesn't appear to be compatibility between the version of lm-sensors in 10.04 and this board so I don't know for sure what temps things are running at, except the heatsinks are all still fairly cool to the touch.
 
I bought one of these for my 6x NAS server that I'm building in the Lian LI Q07 (some modding).

Have you measured any wattage usage for the motherboard?
 
No I haven't, I can get a kill-a-watts from work though I'll try to remember tomorrow, I'm interested myself in knowing that number.

I do have a lot of stuff in there as well, though, and this case is sorta difficult to build, so I probably won't be doing any taking it apart or anything. If I remember tomorrow I'll post some results in the evening!
 
That's ok, whenever you can :).
My friend has a kill-a-watt too, but I still haven't finished with the case mod to accommodate the 6 drives to plug the whole system in, so we can measure it.
 
Does anyone see that option in the BIOS to power on via a keypress on a PS/2 keyboard?
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What do you guys think about this board? Are the temps reasonable? How does the WiFi work? Any major or notable issues with it? Does the onboard WiFi work in Linux?

I'm considering this and an i3 530 in an Antec ISK 300-series case to build a low-power daily-use PC.
 
Infineon said:
What do you guys think about this board? Are the temps reasonable? How does the WiFi work? Any major or notable issues with it? Does the onboard WiFi work in Linux?

I'm considering this and an i3 530 in an Antec ISK 300-series case to build a low-power daily-use PC.
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The onboard WiFi does work in Linux just fine, I didn't even have to install drivers in 10.04, so that's cool.

Temps seem fine, no big issues with it other than it not wanting to go super low in voltage, I think the lowest I can go is around 1V.
 
mrmylanman said:
The onboard WiFi does work in Linux just fine, I didn't even have to install drivers in 10.04, so that's cool.

Temps seem fine, no big issues with it other than it not wanting to go super low in voltage, I think the lowest I can go is around 1V.
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Well that's cool :)

How would it do with a stock-clocked i7 860? Any chances of damaging the VRMs?
 
Infineon said:
Well that's cool :)

How would it do with a stock-clocked i7 860? Any chances of damaging the VRMs?
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That's about the right voltage for that anyway so you're good to go! I just have a 45W Xeon so I know my voltage could go a fair amount lower. I'll probably just sell this CPU for an i5 or something I think.
 
Cool :)

Instead of building a separate i3 or X2 ITX rig, I'm considering just downsizing my sig rig to ITX (PC-Q11 I'm thinking). Mini power FTW!
 
mrmylanman, if you're not busy, can you please check the BIOS to see if there is an option to power on via PS/2 keyboard?

Thanks.
 
Hi. I have a problem with my Zotac H55ITX. When the CPU load to 100% (I use OCCT) the motherboard squeaks (high pitched sound). Can someone confirm this problem?

MissJ84 said:
Can anyone tell me if the wifi card is Atheros or Ralink based?
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Ralink
 
I think about buying Noctua cooling. Will it fit? In the picture I mark a few elements. I think they can block SecuFirm 2.

 
I have a major issue with this board. I installed an i3 540, corsair 2x2gb 1333, and a gigabyte radeon 5770 on it.

I can't finish WinSAT and get a performance index. It stops at "Tuning Windows Media Decoding" and the WinSAT log says there's a problem rendering the test video.

I go to C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT to try and playback one of the videos in WMP, and the computer freezes for a few seconds, then WMP complains about low ram. I check task manager and see only 1GB used.

This is all on a fresh install of windows 7 with latest drivers off Zotac and Intel's site. Tried cat 10.10e and 10.12, with 10.12 it just says "can't playback video".

It works fine if I just use the onboard HD graphics, but I want to play battlefield with this thing too.

UPDATE: Media Player Classic and CoreAVC work fine.
 
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Did you install any codec packs? DirectShot and DMF get messed, real easily, with useless codec packs (Win7 stock + Haali or Gabest mkv splitters will do almost anything. MPC-HC is created by Gabest).
 
I tested it before and after installing CCCP+CoreAVC.

The test was after drivers and windows updates, but nothing else installed.
 
I recently got this board, and I have it in a nice little fileserver build right now. I haven't been able to figure out how to boot from a usb drive with the shipped bios. Would any of you happen to know what I'm missing?
 
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