AT5IONT-I Motherboard Map

Hello all.

After spending a few weeks having various hardware issues with this motherboard, I have made a map of the various interfaces and busses. Hopefully there will be enough keywords in the thread for anybody having hardware problems with this motherboard to find it, and that they find the map useful. I know I have had issues with booting from USB 3.0 devices, and my pci-e SIL3132 sata card is not recognised at all. Thankfully they've fixed the memory issues with a BIOS update.

I hope someone finds this useful.

NOTE: This is for Rev 1.03 Boards. On Rev 1.01, the PEX8608 is replaced with a PI7C9X20404SL from Pericom Semiconductor Corporation. There may be other differences. I do not own a Rev 1.01 board, so cannot check.

Crazy your 3132 card didn't work. Wonder if other PCIe 1x cards do...

What does the SIL show up as? I've run a card with it in OpenSolaris, Linux, FreeBSD, and SolarisExpress 11 with no issues.

Actually the NM10 has 4 PCIe 1.0a lanes, not 2.0, so they are 250MB/s, not 500MB/s.
See (page 31): http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/322896.pdf
That's one of the reasons I chose the AT3IONT-I over the AT5IONT-I, I really wasn't happy with the limited bandwidth provided by the NM10 chipset (only 4 lanes at 250MB/s, and the ION2 chip is attached to one of these at such a narrow bandwidth).

Other than that great map, it sure can be useful to understand this mobo better.

numb7rs Wrote:Hello all.

After spending a few weeks having various hardware issues with this motherboard, I have made a map of the various interfaces and busses. Hopefully there will be enough keywords in the thread for anybody having hardware problems with this motherboard to find it, and that they find the map useful. I know I have had issues with booting from USB 3.0 devices, and my pci-e SIL3132 sata card is not recognised at all. Thankfully they've fixed the memory issues with a BIOS update.

I hope someone finds this useful.

I have the same problem here! what revision is your board? I have a theory that all/some board with revision 1.03G don't have a working PCIe port. I had two at home none worked. Not even at the bios level. A buddy has a 1.01G version and there alle cards i tried worked.

Hi all, thanks for the feedback.

darkscout Wrote:What does the SIL show up as?

It doesn't. It doesn't appear in the list of devices, and it doesn't do it's own little "Press F10 to configure" thing after the post.

gregorburger Wrote:I have a theory that all/some board with revision 1.03G don't have a working PCIe port.

My board is Rev 1.03G. I bought and tried a cheapo Wi-Fi card in there, to see if it was the port, and that worked no problem. Have you tried other sorts of cards? I have another dirt cheap SATA card on the way, so I'm not too fussed about it.

ion_man Wrote:Actually the NM10 has 4 PCIe 1.0a lanes, not 2.0, so they are 250MB/s, not 500MB/s.

You are correct. I went by this image, which quotes a 500MB/s transfer speed. I then looked up the spec and saw 500MB/s = PCI-E 2.0. I didn't pay attention to whether that was single or bi-directional transfer speed. My bad. I have edited the map to fix.

not trying to get off topic of hijack but do you know if this board would allow booting off a PCIe 4x card OCZ Revodrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0050

durando Wrote:not trying to get off topic of hijack but do you know if this board would allow booting off a PCIe 4x card OCZ Revodrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0050

Hi durando. I would say it was unlikely, given this motherboard's reputation for PCI-E devices. Even if it did work, you would have severly reduced speeds compared to other options, as the PCI-E port, while being the size of a x4, electrically it is only a x1. Add to that it is only at PCI-E 1.0a speeds, and there's a switching chip to go through, I would not recommend this combination. A SATA SSD would work much better, and be a helluva lot cheaper.

Hi.

So I have been leaning towards this board. Mainly to stick into a small case; Antec ISK-300 65 me thinks.

This would be an install and forget type of stand-alone XBMC box meaning not planning on anything besides needed to get it running...RAM, SSD, MOBO, CASE.

Besides quirks listed here is there any other reasons you guys would recommend NOT getting this mobo?

Thanks

the biggest reason i am looking for booting alternatives is to save both sata ports for 3tb drives and to get fast boot times.

would this system be able to boot a lacie fastkey (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11589)

at usb 3.0 speeds?