Intel D945GCLF2 Dual-Core Atom

**delane** · 02-27-2009, 07:14 PM

Hey everyone. I have a major hardware issue i've been trying to hunt down.

I'm currently using the D945GCLF2 mobo, with an 8GB Transcend SATA SSD and the PicoPSU 90W power supply. The BIOS is flashed up to date.

The system works correctly until i kill the power to the system. The boot after the system has had the power killed to it, it boots and says no hard drive detected. The only way to get the system to boot again is to use the power switch to power off and turn it back on again, and then it detects the SSD and boots normally.

I have tried the hard drive delay feature of the bios to see if it was a matter of not giving the SSD enough time to recover, but it still does it after a hard power loss. The SSD is not faulty, it works fine on a non-hard power cut and in other computers. What is even more confusing, is that when I hook up a normal hard drive and cut the power, the next boot works just fine.

Has anyone heard of SSD issues with the ICH7 on the Intel Atom? I really don't know where to place the blame - somehow the mobo/picopsu is not taking care of the SSD. This hardware issue is boggling my mind. I don't use this in a car persay, but this forum seemed to be the optimal place for smart people familiar with small computers. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Delane

**xnetc9** · 02-28-2009, 04:39 AM

been using this board for 2-3 months now. works dandy except for a few things:

1. sometimes when the power is too high (unregulated power) the system will reboot and cannot find SSD. press and hold power button +4 seconds, then turn it on again works. this was annoying when i did not use sleep. btw, my boot time for my vista 64 was 12 seconds (loaded, no hour glass, ready to work). i once booted in 3 seconds. this was done when i swapped system drives and windows skipped device loading.

2. if in sleep mode, usb devices are still powered! my car looks like a christmas light with all those usb devices on. i haven't figured a way to turn it off. it is in S3, meaning only memory is powered... usb should be off, but they arent! actually, with all those lights, theives wont want to touch it thinking they are alarm systems. i think those devices put a larger drain on the battery

3. while in sleep mode, it seems the car should be ok in a day and a half. i didn't use my car for 2-3 days and when i went to crank, it almost did not start. you can hear the engine trying to start but barely makes it. this wasn't a problem when i use to live at home where i park into my auto charger (clips that touch two metal plates to charge the system).

other than that, the system works well running all these systems:
-vista 64
-gps mapping (1%cpu)
-winamp (1%cpu)
-logitech cam in record mode (10%cpu)
-wifi scanner
-bluetooth

**seninha** · 03-01-2009, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by xnetc9

been using this board for 2-3 months now. works dandy except for a few things:

3. while in sleep mode, it seems the car should be ok in a day and a half. i didn't use my car for 2-3 days and when i went to crank, it almost did not start. you can hear the engine trying to start but barely makes it. this wasn't a problem when i use to live at home where i park into my auto charger (clips that touch two metal plates to charge the system).

I think that you can solve your problem by using the XP power schemes.

What it does, is let you use standby but goes into hibernation after amount of time given by you.

Works great. I have configurated my system as next:

-As soon as shut down the engine system goes into standby.
-if car is not used whitin 2 hours XP wakes system up and goes into hirbernation.

This way I have my system running in 10 seconds when car is used within the 2 hours, and my battery does not run out if car is not used for a longer period.

To make this work you need to first tell XP what the system must do when you press your power button. In this case : STANDBY

Then in the power scheme you need to fill both lines: (otherwise it wont work)

Sytem standby after: .... (1 hour in my case)

and

System hibernate after: .....(2 hours in my case)

**Lukeyson** · 03-01-2009, 04:09 AM

I remember passing by some discussion where it was stated that the Pico power supplies might not have enough current supply on the 5V rail for the 945GC chipsets. Apparently they flipped over from a previous chipset being 12V hungry to now being 5V hungry.

For example, from mini-box.com, the M3-ATX, which is a 120W Pico style PSU, was insufficient for the D945GCLF2, whereas the M2-ATX was OK. The 5V rail can have other loads too, because your USB ports take power from that rail, with at least 100mA, and up to 500mA, for each port if needed. The M2-ATX can supply 8A - or peak to 12A - on the 5V rail. The M3-ATX is good for 6A peak to 8A on the 5V line. I imagine a 90W Pico PSU would have even lower numbers than this.

Also, in hibernation, or even when the PC is switched off completely, the system still draws 50 to 150mA on the 5VSB (Stand By) rail. That's why these intelligent PSU's are used, because they forcibly disconnect the PC from any power at all after a configurable time delay.

Lukeyson

**Sinobi** · 03-02-2009, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by refuse

Just got this board to replace my sp1300 and everything is running great except the audio. Anyone have trouble getting the audio drivers to work?

Yes, I am having problems (or had).
With BIOS 099 everything first seemed fine.
Then, after a few reboots, the red speaker icon in sys.tray was missing,
and the network hardware had disappeared from windows sight completely.
Shutting windows down took 45 minutes (because of HD Audio's RTHDCPL.EXE that relates directly to the red speaker icon).
I then updated to BIOS 150 and reinstalled windows xp.
After many boots all seemed fine.
I then installed XPort. Rebooted, and bang....same problem with the red speaker and dead-slow shutdowns.
I then removed XPort, but am still having the same problem with the red speaker and dead-slow shutdowns, most of the times, but not always.
I then removed RTHDCPL.EXE from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and rebooted (patience...) and after reboot the slow shutdown is gone.
I am not completely sure about if XPort had anything to do with all this or not.
RTHDCPL.EXE is only used for soundfield manipulation (no-one in the right sense would ever use that) and poping up when you insert something into the audio mini jacks, asking what you inserted (also of no use).
At all times did I have audio working through the connected speakers.

Henrik

**WarningSLO** · 03-02-2009, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by WarningSLO

Just got this board on Wednesday. I am upgrading from a MII12000.

I am installing it in the opus case with the 120w power source. At first I could not boot from either my slimline DVD drive or USB drives. So I dug up an old dvd drive from an atx case and plugged that in. Decided to give TinyXP a try since my last install was full XP and so far everything went well except for the new BIOS install. I tried the windows exe BIOS install and got a CMOS error. I think I will try a CD iso image BIOS install next tonight.

The board seems very quick and responsive though so far compared to my old MII12000. Will update once all my installs are done and this thing is back in the car.

To update my previous post... I finally got my updated BIOS to work by installing it in recovery mode (as suggested in this thread before). The computer is back in the car and all is working awesome so far. This board can run multiple processes so much better than my via epia could. Still no DVD at this point though, and I think that is because the slimline to IDE adapter is unable to set the drive as a slave drive. I think a slimline to SATA adapter should work though.

**wayda** · 03-04-2009, 02:33 AM

I got this board after a lot of research because at the time of purchase it seemed like tha most bang for tha buck and the lowest power consumption. But.... little did i know about the video shortcomings. I hope that this post will help someone not go down tha same path i did

I have a suv with a vga monitor up front and flipdown lcd (compsite/rca inputs) in the back. The problem is i cant get a signal to the rear monitor and dual view is totally not possible!! Poo Doo!!!!

I tried the 4pin to composite cable / didn't work =(
I purchased a pctv box thing / worked but caused noise in both monitors =(

So now i'm thinking i'll just go purchase a pci card with tv out
got one, installed it, but wait, m2-atx is 160watts, my video card needs atleast 300watts, so i exchange it for a card with tha lowest power requiements i can find and its 250watts. Both cards would post and show windows loading screen but would go black just before windows would start

Meanwhile i have to order a new case from mo-so-co (with pci slot opening), keep in mind my other mo-so-co case is not even a month old! Plus had to order tha m4-atx 250watt power supply to juice tha pci card

But wait... tha m4-atx cant be mounted in the 4th generation case!! I got a lot of respect and admiration for that one cat on here who put his in with some ducktape, im not knocking him i just wanted something a lil more stockish. I will probabbly end up modding tha case to run tha power supply externally if tha atx wires are long enough, i also may pick up that m4-atx enclosure

Maybe i should give up mobile computing and just go back to world of warcraft as a hobby! I hope this post was helpful to someone, if i had to do it all over again i would have definitely tried to get a motherboard that supported dual view and had standard 4pin s-video out or composite out

**treetop777** · 03-04-2009, 06:50 PM

Research should have told you the tv-out was only a clone at best. I guess i've been lucky, the tv-out work the first time once i selected the right setting. I used an adaptor from parts express and it's working fine. Granted, that little 3.5 inch monitor isn't very demanding.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=180-141

**Lukeyson** · 03-04-2009, 07:01 PM

Research? That's a bit rich. There's nothing on the intel website to suggest that it's Clone-only. Only when you dive deep into the depths of MP3Car do you find the truth.....

I don't think it's a lost cause yet, but it certainly looks difficult.

Luke

**treetop777** · 03-04-2009, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by Lukeyson

Research? That's a bit rich. There's nothing on the intel website to suggest that it's Clone-only. Only when you dive deep into the depths of MP3Car do you find the truth.....

I don't think it's a lost cause yet, but it certainly looks difficult.

Luke

I hope we don't confine our "research" to MP3Car - i knew that fact (clone only) way before i saw it here.

There are 100 reviews on that board on the web.