Prebuilt [SFFn] ASRock's DeskMini A300 - Finally!

[catawalks]

...where would you put the drives? I dunno why you'd run FreeNAS on a box that can, at most, take 2 hard drives.

i mentioned freenas just because of ecc ram, which is an official recommendation for it. but yeah, a 2 disk zfs is not the most optimal solution. but if you are ok with 5 tb of usable storage, you can fit 2x5 tb seagate 2.5" hdds with minimal tray modding as discussed before. or wait for cheap 8tb m.2 nvme ssds

but the point here was the apu, a 35w 4350ge with 10-15w idle power consumption and 8 threads would be awesome, compared to those 6-10w tdp apollo lake integrated boards everyone uses.

anyways, all of this was hypothetic as ecc ram is not supported in a300.

You guys just need to have some more imagination! The A300 motherboard doesn't need to stay in the DeskMini case in order to function. And with M.2 to PCIe adapters you could easily add an expansion card to it. Plus, the little guy runs just fine off of a regular 12v DC power supply connection so you could hook up as many drives as you could attach to the expansion card with ease. So with 1 NVMe drive, 2 SATA ports, and an expansion card running over an X4 M.2 slot, you could probably have 7 drives without too much issue. Of course there are much easier and better solutions out there, but it's totally doable. lol

 

[ermac318]

You guys just need to have some more imagination! The A300 motherboard doesn't need to stay in the DeskMini case in order to function. And with M.2 to PCIe adapters you could easily add an expansion card to it. Plus, the little guy runs just fine off of a regular 12v DC power supply connection so you could hook up as many drives as you could attach to the expansion card with ease. So with 1 NVMe drive, 2 SATA ports, and an expansion card running over an X4 M.2 slot, you could probably have 7 drives without too much issue. Of course there are much easier and better solutions out there, but it's totally doable. lol

I know @Curiosity has been working on an A300 Frankenstein build, but for a NAS this board would be ill-suited. Also the board runs of 19v DC, not 12v, and hard drives will require either 5V or 12V+5V, so you can't run the whole system off a single voltage.

Also those 5TB 2.5" drives are SMR drives which make them very very bad for FreeNAS.

 

[Valantar]

While the A300 can reportedly run off 12V despite its 19V only input rating, you need to remember that it's SATA power only outputs 5V (and possibly 3.3V?). There is no 12V rail in that system. So 3.5" HDDs would need to be powered entirely separately.

 

[solson223]

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum.

I just bought the ASRock Deskmini A300W and put it together a few days ago. From the box, it has a date of 6/18/20, so it appears to be one of the latest and greatest assemblies. BIOS is 3.6. I've been reading through a lot of the discussions and I'm aware of the common issues with this system.

I bought the Noctua NH-L9a (not installed yet) to resolve the CPU cooler whine. It's pretty annoying so I'm anxious to snuff that out.

Main question, and I've read some talk about it. Can the sleep mode pulsing (with blue light) whiny beep be resolved by setting it to a deep sleep? I didn't find a firm answer on this but would like to get this resolved also. Or if there is another method, I'd be appreciative to hear it.

Thanks.

 

[boros]

Using 3.60N so far no problems on iGPU with 4650G ,even on playing games.
and i can set to DDR4-3600 and IF 1800 for stable...

Did you set an soc vid?

 

[catawalks]

I know @Curiosity has been working on an A300 Frankenstein build, but for a NAS this board would be ill-suited. Also the board runs of 19v DC, not 12v, and hard drives will require either 5V or 12V+5V, so you can't run the whole system off a single voltage.

Also those 5TB 2.5" drives are SMR drives which make them very very bad for FreeNAS.

While the A300 can reportedly run off 12V despite its 19V only input rating, you need to remember that it's SATA power only outputs 5V (and possibly 3.3V?). There is no 12V rail in that system. So 3.5" HDDs would need to be powered entirely separately.

Running this board on 12v is 100% possible and has been done by several people, including me. I have a build using a 12v rail from a Flex ATX PSU to power this board. And like I said in my other post, since you can already power the board off a 12v rail from an ATX or likewise PSU, then you can use the rest of the SATA connectors on that PSU to power whatever drives you wanted to add to the expansion card. And even if you only use the 2 on board SATA ports for 2.5" drives there are still plenty of options out there for ~4TB and up SSD drives depending on how much money you want to burn.

Again, it's all technically possible with enough imagination and effort. It's definitely not practical in any way, but still achievable, hence the original joke.

 

[Curiosity]

Yes hello.
I've been running my a300 on 12v since Marchish? Put about 90 hours into Halo MCC over the last month or two with zero issues.
Currently pulling from the 12V pins on my g-unique Archdaemon to power the GPU, riser, and mobo , then using a NVME SSD and powering my pump and fan off the internal headers.

 

[Weekly_Cow]

Did you set an soc vid?

3.60N no SOC setting, so its run as default...

 

[fadsarmy]

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum.

I just bought the ASRock Deskmini A300W and put it together a few days ago. From the box, it has a date of 6/18/20, so it appears to be one of the latest and greatest assemblies. BIOS is 3.6. I've been reading through a lot of the discussions and I'm aware of the common issues with this system.

I bought the Noctua NH-L9a (not installed yet) to resolve the CPU cooler whine. It's pretty annoying so I'm anxious to snuff that out.

Main question, and I've read some talk about it. Can the sleep mode pulsing (with blue light) whiny beep be resolved by setting it to a deep sleep? I didn't find a firm answer on this but would like to get this resolved also. Or if there is another method, I'd be appreciative to hear it.

Thanks.

Does yours have coil whine since it's not clear whether you've built your system? If you have then there's nothing you can do unfortunately. I personally would have opted for X300 since it's about to be launched any day soon.

 

[alles_alles]

3.60N no SOC setting, so its run as default...

have to install R Version here you can set it

 

[solson223]

Does yours have coil whine since it's not clear whether you've built your system? If you have then there's nothing you can do unfortunately. I personally would have opted for X300 since it's about to be launched any day soon.

I did build the system myself.

Other than when it's in sleep mode, I don't hear any coil whine. I am attributing the sound I'm hearing during sleep mode to coil whine though, unless I'm wrong about that. I'm curious if anyone has tried to disconnect that little blue LED to see if that pulsing whine stops.

Yeah, I could have waited for the x300 system but I'm sure I would have paid more money and I'm not sure the benefit (for what I'm using it for) would have been worth it. Plus, I didn't look far enough down the road to see that the x300 was even on the horizon. lol

 

[Curiosity]

I noticed coil whine coming from my PSU brick

 

[gustav]

@solson223 I have the same whining. Most notivble when I'm Stand-by and the power led is fading.
@Curiosity I can hear that noise coming from the power birck too. Whereas you can put the brick more away, and that whining is not as profound as in A300. Would not bother more.

About the whining of the power-led. I used to read somewhere, that AsRock is aware of the issue, and the provided workaround ist to turn power-led off from power source

There is a header on the Mobo, where you connect front panel. You can relatively easy find PWN_ON and RST pins (2 each because of Vcc and GND)

But I else for hdd-led and power-led you would need to try out. Thereafter you could put some protective film on that pins and then the whining should be gone

I may follow you, your findings are indeed reasonable in terms of high-frequency noice.

PS: by shoring (EMG. With a screw driver) PWR_ON the system should start
RST shorting should reset the system

Better make a drawing. And when trying out, let the front panel header unconnected. Note your findings.

 

[fadsarmy]

I did build the system myself.

Other than when it's in sleep mode, I don't hear any coil whine. I am attributing the sound I'm hearing during sleep mode to coil whine though, unless I'm wrong about that. I'm curious if anyone has tried to disconnect that little blue LED to see if that pulsing whine stops.

Yeah, I could have waited for the x300 system but I'm sure I would have paid more money and I'm not sure the benefit (for what I'm using it for) would have been worth it. Plus, I didn't look far enough down the road to see that the x300 was even on the horizon. lol

Actually, Asrock adivised me to disconnect the blue LED if the whine is bothering me.

 

[solson223]

Thanks guys! Appreciate the feedback. I'll take the suggestions and see if I can resolve (eliminate the blue LED from its feeble existence) the problem next time I crack open the case. I just installed the Noctua NH-L9a last night and I thought for certain I had forgot to connect something because it's so quiet. What difference! ?

 

[gemignani]

Hi, I've been following / lurking this thread for a while, but finally this topic is back on the table. I've been running my A300 in a headless server for over a year, but after some thinking I've decided to migrate it to pi4, it's all good in my new setup. So now I decided to install windows on the pc and use it as a workstation, I thought the 2200g wouldn't cut it, but it is plenty for internet browsing and office work, I was happy until I put my pc to sleep, the coil noise is unbearable, I've searched the german forums and it was discussed in detail with no avail. I finally decided to RMA my unit, so I contacted CCL in the UK, the retailer paid for my postage back to their lab, but after inspecting the unit they didn't find any issue, yeah.... right... They run prime95 lol, so I explained about the S4 / S5 sleep mode and all the noise out the psu / mobo but they said no problems were found and returned me the faulty unit. I could deal with AS Rock directly, but I just don't know their contact and covid wouldn't help.
So now to my surprise I've found that leaving a Kingston 64 Gb USB Drive plugged in the front usb makes the coil noise from the sleep to go completely away. It is likely there are USB interference in the board and that won't heal by disconnecting the LED (I tried it myself, just unplug the front panel cable and jump start the mobo, or disconnect the front panel connector during sleep time).
Hope the usb trick helps someone! It sucks to have that thing, I hope I could find some other usb device, I've tried multiple dongles for keyboard / xbox / bluetooth, but they didn't work. Cheers guys

 

[gazpl]

Hi, I've been following / lurking this thread for a while, but finally this topic is back on the table. I've been running my A300 in a headless server for over a year, but after some thinking I've decided to migrate it to pi4, it's all good in my new setup. So now I decided to install windows on the pc and use it as a workstation, I thought the 2200g wouldn't cut it, but it is plenty for internet browsing and office work, I was happy until I put my pc to sleep, the coil noise is unbearable, I've searched the german forums and it was discussed in detail with no avail. I finally decided to RMA my unit, so I contacted CCL in the UK, the retailer paid for my postage back to their lab, but after inspecting the unit they didn't find any issue, yeah.... right... They run prime95 lol, so I explained about the S4 / S5 sleep mode and all the noise out the psu / mobo but they said no problems were found and returned me the faulty unit. I could deal with AS Rock directly, but I just don't know their contact and covid wouldn't help.
So now to my surprise I've found that leaving a Kingston 64 Gb USB Drive plugged in the front usb makes the coil noise from the sleep to go completely away. It is likely there are USB interference in the board and that won't heal by disconnecting the LED (I tried it myself, just unplug the front panel cable and jump start the mobo, or disconnect the front panel connector during sleep time).
Hope the usb trick helps someone! It sucks to have that thing, I hope I could find some other usb device, I've tried multiple dongles for keyboard / xbox / bluetooth, but they didn't work. Cheers guys

did you validate that it enters S4/S5 with that Kingston stick plugged in? Iirc some usb hardware prevents entering deep sleep states.

 

[rubicoin]

You guys just need to have some more imagination! The A300 motherboard doesn't need to stay in the DeskMini case in order to function. And with M.2 to PCIe adapters you could easily add an expansion card to it. Plus, the little guy runs just fine off of a regular 12v DC power supply connection so you could hook up as many drives as you could attach to the expansion card with ease. So with 1 NVMe drive, 2 SATA ports, and an expansion card running over an X4 M.2 slot, you could probably have 7 drives without too much issue. Of course there are much easier and better solutions out there, but it's totally doable. lol

in my opinion, a300 is great because despite of the ultra sff 1.92l size it can house 2x sata 2.5" storage besides m.2 drives and full desktop am4 apus. disassembling the sfx board and the chassis kind of breaks the original purpose, so i'm personally not interested in any kind of modding that increases outer dimensions. a powerful not so mini pc with igpu can be done better with mini-itx boards for not much more money (but with more functionality) if you ask me.

about nas purposes: i've just recently built an openmediavault nas based on an integrated 10w intel quad-core mini-itx board in a 10.1l (198 x 245 x 210 mm) lian li pc-q03 case with a seasonic 300w tfx psu. it has 2x5tb 2.5 seagate barracudas and an idle power consumption of 15w. i mostly utilized used parts, but after finishing this build just realised that if someone is ok with only having 2 disks in mirror, an a300 with a 2200ge/3200ge/4300ge apu can have the same storage size and roughly the same power consumption but far better performance. as deskiminis offer a great package of chassis/psu/mobo for a very good price (+new x300 puts a300 on sale everywehere!) a 2 disk mini server based on a300 is a viable option even based on new parts.

for reference, see my nas build 5x the volume as deskmini with the exact same storage functionality a300 could achieve by modding the 2.5" tray:

so much wasted space and more parts compared to a300!

 

[gemignani]

did you validate that it enters S4/S5 with that Kingston stick plugged in? Iirc some usb hardware prevents entering deep sleep states.

As far as I know, S3 = sleep, S4 = hybernate, S5 = powered off.
The ambulance happens on S3 for me, you can actually connect the usb after it is on sleep mode, but totally not practical for day-to-day usage
S4 and S5 modes I don't need the usb as the noise is quite low and bearable, if you disable usb power in bios you are sorted.

 

[D3NPA]