ZOTAC GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi

Nice!

I was about to buy the setup this afternoon, but hesitated cause I wasn't sure if the PSU will be able to handle it.

Were you using the SG05/06's PSU as well?

And when you were gaming, where there any problems? I'm concerned that the SG06's PSU might not be able to handle the load wattage of all the components.
 
nikko said:
Nice!

I was about to buy the setup this afternoon, but hesitated cause I wasn't sure if the PSU will be able to handle it.

Were you using the SG05/06's PSU as well?

And when you were gaming, where there any problems? I'm concerned that the SG06's PSU might not be able to handle the load wattage of all the components.
Click to expand...

I was using the stock PSU, but if you want to be super sure about power, you can grab one of these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338019

No modding necessary to replace it, which is nice.
 
100% possitive about that? it's great to know, maybe it can power a GTX285 then!

What cooler have you got for the CPU?
 
fr500 said:
100% possitive about that? it's great to know, maybe it can power a GTX285 then!

What cooler have you got for the CPU?
Click to expand...

Yep, I am sure. It may or may not power a GTX285. It has the raw watts, but I think it doesn't have enough amps. GTX285's usually need about 40 or so. Athena does have a 550w PSU of the same size though that may be better for a GTX285, although it's about $120. It has four 12v rails though, with 20a on each, so you could even run a GTX295.

Was using a GeminII on the CPU
 
Same cooler as I do. The GTX285 itself is know to consume up to 16amps but most of the time people recommend PSUs with a single 12v rail with 40 or more amps.

Hopefully corsair will sometime enter the sft psu market and do some wonders :D

Have you measured power consuption with the '260
 
fr500 said:
Same cooler as I do. The GTX285 itself is know to consume up to 16amps but most of the time people recommend PSUs with a single 12v rail with 40 or more amps.

Hopefully corsair will sometime enter the sft psu market and do some wonders :D

Have you measured power consuption with the '260
Click to expand...

The only way I've really measured it has been by running it in the rig and not having instability as of yet :p;)
 
100_0273.jpg


I pretty much chopped the whole front off. You don't have to do that though. You only need to cut enough off to slide the card in, to give it just that extra bit of clearance to fit 10.5" cards.
 
Ah, nevermind about that. My mistake. My eyes were playing tricks on me with whatever is in the background. I assumed the right side of the pic was the front of the case and whatever is in the background looked like the top of a card shooting out.
 
According to the Zotac representative on Twitter, undervolting is not possible with the current PCB. So no hope on getting it via BIOS update. Still a big thumbs up for the responsiveness via Twitter.
 
I've just built myself a little HTPC box based on this motherboard. I've connected my Dell 3007WFP screen to the DVI port with a dual-link cable.

I've installed the latest Windows 7 x64 build, and installed the Nvidia nForce 730i, and Geforce 9300 drivers.

No matter how I try, I'm unable to get the native resolution of 2560x1600 working.

Is it because I'm using Windows 7 x64? Maybe the drivers aren't mature enough yet? Maybe there's a trick... Anyone?

Has anyone had problems or success running 2560x1600 with this motherboard?
 
I thought for dual link you had to connect it to two ports or something? I know the displayport supports that resolution.. dunno if there's an adapter to change it to dual link dvi though
 
i'm starting to look into this board for an upcoming build. what other problems are there with this board besides the fact that it can't undervolt? on XS, there were mentions of the 9300 chipset being a "bad" chipset, but i can't remember any other details. are there any other major bugs with this board?

ps- my first post here :)
 
uncola said:
I thought for dual link you had to connect it to two ports or something? I know the displayport supports that resolution.. dunno if there's an adapter to change it to dual link dvi though
Click to expand...

Dual Link DVI is just a special DVI cable. It has the same connector - I guess it connects more of the pins. I've been using this screen with this cable at the native 2560x1600 resolution for 2 years on a different PC.
 
WhiteFireDragon the only issues I can think of are no wake from usb when hibernating, if you update the bios while smart fan is enabled you can brick it, and some of the boards had a problem with 4gb+ of ram(mine doesn't)
 
d.brophy said:
I've just built myself a little HTPC box based on this motherboard. I've connected my Dell 3007WFP screen to the DVI port with a dual-link cable.

I've installed the latest Windows 7 x64 build, and installed the Nvidia nForce 730i, and Geforce 9300 drivers.

No matter how I try, I'm unable to get the native resolution of 2560x1600 working.

Is it because I'm using Windows 7 x64? Maybe the drivers aren't mature enough yet? Maybe there's a trick... Anyone?

Has anyone had problems or success running 2560x1600 with this motherboard?
Click to expand...

Here's an update... I upgraded the BIOS following a forum recommendation to the latest version from the Zotac site (2K090602).

Now when I boot the PC using this screen, the BIOS post message shows a corrupted picture. It's impossible to get into the BIOS setup because the picture is corrupted. Using a different screen, the picture in the BIOS is fine.

When Windows finishes booting, the screen is fine again, but the resolution is 1280x800. Now windows shows a 2560x1600 resolution option, but the same picture corruption happens when I switch to it.

Is is possible that this board has a hardware fault in the Dual-Link DVI hardware?

Maybe I should RMA it?

p.s. Here's a video of the picture corruption: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLePciY6Bpg
 
Here's a post from the Zotac forum:

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...a.com+9300+dual-link&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Q:
Does the Zotac 9300-ITX's DVI support WQXGA? I know the 9300 should, but saw in another thread that people were having trouble hooking it up to a Dell 3007WFP

A:
PCB versions 02 and later of the 9300-ITX feature dual-link DVI-D hardware. However, even the boards that do contain dual-link capable hardware have been shipping with BIOS versions that do not enable dual-link support, this will be remedied in future BIOS releases.

Can anyone tell if I have PCB version 02 or above? The code on the bottom of the board says "236-DA105-0J1 BF"...
 
The bottom side of motherboard PCB
shows “236-DA105-xx00F”
Motherboard PCB Version:00

The bottom side of motherboard PCB
shows “236-DA105-xx10F”
Motherboard PCB Version:01

The bottom side of motherboard PCB
shows “236-DA105-xx30F”
Motherboard PCB Version:03
 
Right... I got the reply didn't want from Zotac:

Dear Customer

The GF9300 latest PCB version (03), with support for USB WakeUp (S3) and Dual Link DVI, is not yet shipped out. Therefore all the boards on the market are not yet containing these new hardware features.

It is also true that the BIOS for the GF9300 move slightly ahead of the hardware, such that the existing BIOS (2K090602) is already added with the codes for "Dual Link DVI". We do tested this BIOS (put to the older PCB which do not support Dual Link), but not found any issue so far.

The problem described here sounds new to me. I will check factory if there is such issue in this combination (new BIOS with Dual Link DVI support + old hardware without Dual Link DVI support).

Will come back to you on this

Kindest regards,
 
d.brophy said:
Here's a post from the Zotac forum:

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...a.com+9300+dual-link&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Q:
Does the Zotac 9300-ITX's DVI support WQXGA? I know the 9300 should, but saw in another thread that people were having trouble hooking it up to a Dell 3007WFP

A:
PCB versions 02 and later of the 9300-ITX feature dual-link DVI-D hardware. However, even the boards that do contain dual-link capable hardware have been shipping with BIOS versions that do not enable dual-link support, this will be remedied in future BIOS releases.

Can anyone tell if I have PCB version 02 or above? The code on the bottom of the board says "236-DA105-0J1 BF"...
Click to expand...
Well, I have the same pcb number as you. The mystery continues
pajopet
 
I assume the code is actually:

236-DA105-??x ?F

Where ? is anything, and x is the PCB number. The people I bought the board off - scan.co.uk have very kindly said I can keep hold of this board, and RMA it when they have PCB version 3 boards in stock. In fact they said that when they do get them in stock I can order another board, and they'll process the returned board as a refund - so I don't spend any time without a PC. Kudos to Scan. I've never had a returns department quite so nice.
 
does anyone know what i need to do to get the esata port on the back to work? i bought a new external harddrive and it wont recognize the drive when using the sata connection. when using USB/Firewire it works just fine. using windows 7 64bit.
 
AP2 I saw another guy say it doesn't work unless you're in AHCI mode instead of IDE mode in the bios.. unfortunately changing this mode usually makes windows unbootable. there may be guides online that tell you how to change this setting in teh bios without having to reinstall windows
 
so I am using this mobo in an Apex Mi-008 with an intel e5200 with the silverstone nt07 heatsink.. the only drive I have in there is the 640GB one recommended on avsforum.. anyone know a way I can make my htpc quieter? would changing to a laptop hard drive make it any quieter? also, has anyone replaced the psu fan with a quieter one? or would it be smarter just to replace the psu with a picopsu?
edit: I haven't enabled smartfan because I am afraid of forgetting I have it on when I update my firmware and bricking my mobo :| does this make much of a difference?
 
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First of all turn smartfan on. There is nothing to worry about with it.
Secondly I'll assume the 640 disk is the WD6400AAKS which is not a loud drive. Swapping to a lappy drive would give you nothing and you'd likely be giving up significant performance.

Turn on the smart fan and have a listen. If it's still too lound then CPU and PSU fans are the most likely culprit.
 
what are the latest display drivers for the zotac??? i tried the latest on the nvidia site but refuse to install.

any settings in the bios that would help in playing bluray dvd (mt2s files with XBMC)??
 
guinnes.s said:
what are the latest display drivers for the zotac??? i tried the latest on the nvidia site but refuse to install.

any settings in the bios that would help in playing bluray dvd (mt2s files with XBMC)??
Click to expand...

XBMC won't do hardware acceleration... Therefore not taking advantage of the onboard GPU. Play them in something that will.
 
criccio said:
XBMC won't do hardware acceleration... Therefore not taking advantage of the onboard GPU. Play them in something that will.
Click to expand...

XBMC DOES supponrt acceleration via VDPAU on nvidia based cards and works great, linux only of course, but with an 8400gs pci an atom is able to play 1080p content with 0 dropped frames.

As for m2ts files, they are just mkv files I think, it's the matroska container, the internal codec is what matters, you can add them to mime types on XBMC and play them fine.
 
Yes well I think its safe to assume he's not using Linux. And no, m2ts files are not part of Matroska. And no again, not all players/splitters play nicely with Matroska, so the container does play a role.
 
My mistake. Still, non-encrypted m2ts files do play fine in XBMC and so do most mkvs I tested altought irrelevant. The part that XBMC does not support is decrypting BD discs on the fly.
 
Of course it will play them, my first response was because he said they weren't playing correctly. That led me to assume his CPU wasn't up to the task. And since he was using XBMC (most likely in Windows), his GPU wasn't helping.
 
Hello, can anyone tell me if i should risk purchasing the Q9400S processor for this board?

It isn´t on the compatibility list but it should be compatible because it´s identical to other processors.

Has anyone tried it? How much of a chance of compatibility do I have?

Otherwise, I will have to go for a much inferior processor, due to the fact that the Q9550S is too expensive at the moment. Will it ever come down in price, like 200 euros or something? That´s the maximum I´m willing to spend on the processor for this system.

Thanks for any help
 
Any way to undo a bios upgrade? I updated to latest bios and now system does not boot.

I have Sugo05 case, Sugo DVD slot loading drive, 4gb of RAM (Kingston), Core2Quad 9400, of course Zotac 9300. If I can't get this fixed, email me at deleted if you want to purchase it off my hands, I'll let it go for $550 US + shipping or Best offer. Everything works, only bios upgrade failed, I would think that you could send it to Zotac to have it reset, I have all boxes for everything, all cables, all software. If you want a strap for the case, a Casegrip, I'll throw it in for $15.

I know this isn't the for sale area, but I don't have enough posts and did not want to spam the board just to get the posts necessary, I'm building my posts carefully.
 
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WARNING: When upgrading from BIOS versions N0422WZT or older, you must first make sure that CPU SmartFan Control is Disabled in BIOS!

I hope you heeded that warning otherwise your mobo might be bricked
 
Hi Guys,
I'm looking to build a very quiet HTPC.

Bits I have :-
PicoPsu 120
WD Scorpio Black 320GB 2.5 HDD

Bits I want:-
Zotac 9300
Silverstone SG05
Intel E5200

I won't be using the PSU and drive tray that comes with the SG05. Hoping to mount the HDD at the bottom in front of the motherboard. I want to have a maximum of 2 fans in the system. 1 if I could go passive on the CPU cooler...

So the Question is what CPU cooler should I use?

I have seen the GeminiII, GeminiII S, AWP 140 all stuffed into the SG05, but as I won't have the PSU height restriction of 78mm, would a tower heatsink be worth considering?

Does anyone know the maximum height available for a tower cooler in the SG05 without the PSU installed?
 
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