D201GLY Intel's Little Valley Mini-ITX Board

You can find some D201GLY power-consumption measurements over at http://resources.mini-box.com/online/MBD-I-D201GLY/intel-d201gly-power-consumption.html

Hi EagleCD,
Yeah I saw that linked from the EPIACenter.com page on the little valley, which is also a nice little article.

http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1126

I hope these will be available in the UK. I would particularly like to find out

1. What the onboard TV out quality is like.
2. Can the onboard heaksink be exchanged and so run fanless.
3. Is speedstep enabled on these processors.

AS this could well be one hell of a cheap HTPC board

Well said Mickey! The device is RoHS compliant so it should be available in the UK. Though there is only VGA out - so you'd have to get a PCI card or usb dongle to get TV out.

I am thinking of getting one myself. I've always been a fan of mini ATX/ITX boards or should i say SFF PC's and this board as cheap as it is, is sure to be my entrance to the world of SFF PC's :)

Let us know how you're sattisfied with the board. What the cons and pros are and basicly do a little review if you can. I and everyone that has seen this board would like to see more pics. So.. mind taking it for a spin with a camera? :)

I still haven't hooked mine up yet, but believe me I'm going to as soon as possible! In the meantime, I've snaps a few photographs so you can get a better look:

http://www.docunext.com/blog/2007/06/intel-little-valley-photos.html

I've hooked it up now, here's a new post:

http://www.docunext.com/blog/2007/06/intel-little-valley-photos.html

My main question is will it boot off a USB device? My plan for it is as a car PC
without a conventional hard drive.

Yes - absolutely. I boot off of a USB CD-ROM all the time. I can also check to see if a USB flash drive works too. Been meaning to do that anyway...

Another quick note about the intel Little Valley D201GLY - the CPU heatsink fan is quiet. Barely audible even at close range. A little bit louder than a quiet hard drive sound.

How hot does the little valley d201gly get?

With the p4-clockmod module and two mini-fans, it stays VERY cool. With one fan and no clockmod, it still stays pretty cool!

If you are interested in a review of the Intel D201GLY Mini-ITX you should check http://www.minitechnet.de/intel_d201gly_1.html - at the moment still only available in german, but english version of this review should come soon (I hope so :) )

Interesting review. If you open the page with babelfish you get a literal english translation. It's pretty in depth. The power consumption findings were somewhat at odds with the other website. 39 watts @ idle without dvd-rw and 42 watts with dvd-rw versus the 25 watt finding at the other site. Still this is looking to be a very basic but solid board. I'd like to see intel do more with the itx form factor.

For the lazy:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/...www.minitechnet.de%2Fintel_d201gly_1.html

It does look very thorough! Strange about the power consumption. In all my tests I've stayed under 30 watts.

Is the motherboard compatible with FreeBSD? The nearest thing I can see is that the FreeBSD ATA driver doesn't work with SiS662.

To sum it up: Did it work? Any issues with *BSD or Linux?

nix - it is compatible with FreeBSD. I have one of the little valleys running m0n0wall with an extra nic card in the pci slot, as well as another little valley running RELENG_6_2.

Thank you very much Admin.

I heard of this board, went to intels site, saw a version of this board WITH TV OUT but cant find it anywhere for sale

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/D201GLY/configs.htm

version
LAD201GLYLT

Thanks for the heads up James - that's AWESOME! Too bad its not available yet - must be in production now.

I have one dual booting win xp and PCLinuxOS. I have 1gb ddr2 and I put in a ATI Radeon 9250 video card and it's been running great. It's so quiet that I can't tell that it's even on. Everything works under PCLinuxOs.

Hey Admin,

p4-clockmod module and two mini-fans

What's a p4-clockmod? Have any links?

Hi forumworx, Actually I've had a tough time finding information about the p4-clockmod. It is a kernel module for slowing down the processor so that it will not heat up as much.

Hi Chuck, PCLinuxOs looks pretty cool. Thanks for commenting!

HI Guys,

If anyone is using the picoPSU or PW-200M to power this board.

Can you confirm if you are connecting the:

12 V processor core voltage connector (2 x 2) or just simply the Main power connector (2 x 10)?

I do not see those connectors on those PSU's. Do we need to get an adapter or make a mod?

If we are not needed to supply the 12 V processor core voltage connector (2 x 2), why is it there?

Thanks in advance

Hi Forumworx!

In my experience, the d201gly / little valley requires the 2x2 power connector. When using the picoPSU or PW-200M, I used an adapter I purchased from centrix international:

http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=252

That adapter is from a regular HD molex power plug to a 2x2 power plug.

I've purchased several items from and was satisfied with their service.

Admin thanks for the info.

Have you read this:

http://support.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-009007.htm

Synopsis

Adapter cables are available that allow the incorrect use of older ATX or SFX power supplies in place of an ATX12V or SFX12V power supply. Intel does not recommend the use of these cables. These cables convert a standard 1x4 peripheral connector to the ATX12V 2x2 connector. An ATX12V or SFX12V with the 2x2 connector is required for all Pentium® 4 processor based Intel® Desktop Boards. Using the 1x4 converter cables can lead to system component or power supply damage and/or boot failures. The ATX12V and SFX12V power supply design guides (http://www.formfactors.org/) †recommend a minimum of 8A at 12Volts to properly power any Pentium 4 processor based Intel® Desktop Board. Standard ATX and SFX power supplies typically provide approximately 5A of current, which is not capable of reliably powering the Pentium 4 processor based Intel® Desktop Board.

Anyone have thoughts on this or experience any issues?

Thanks

Wow good find. That's not very encouraging! :-( I haven't had any problems using those, but I could be getting lucky. However, Pentium 4 systems used a lot more power than the Celeron 215. Volt amps and watts aren't the same but they are close:

4 amps x 12 volts = 48 watts

8 amps x 12 volts = 96 watts

My D201gly only uses 25 watts total. I'm not an electronics expert though!

You can find the version with TV-OUT for sale here.

http://store.mp3car.com/Intel_D201GLY_Little_Valley_with_1_33_GHz_Celeron_p/mtb-053.htm

Unfortunately, I already bought one without, but we can always add the connector and whatever components are missing from the board ourselves.

If anyone has a unit with the s-video connector onboard, can you please provide HIGH detail picks of that area, maybe we can retrofit it.

Thanks

What is the dimension? LxWxH

Its mini-itx (6.7x6.7 inches) for LxW, and 2 inches high:

http://www.docunext.com/blog/2007/06/intel-little-valley-photos.html

Can anyone post a link to the Linux Drivers provided by Intel for this board?

The Intel Site currently only lists teh BIOS as a Linux download.

Others have mentioned on other Boards that Intel did at one time provide Linux SiS Mirage Drivers.

Thanks,

Guess what, you post on enough sites and someone came thru...

From skiselev on the ubuntu forums.

Re: Video Driver for Intel D201GLY (SiS662 - Mirage*1)
sis_drv.so from SuSE10.2 rpm package works for me (on Gutsy Gibbon/Ubuntu 7.10).

Here is the URL for downloading RPM package from Intel:
SuSE 10.2 driver: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/1337...21307.i586.rpm

You can use rpm4cpio + cpio to extract /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/sis_drv.so from RPM packages. Replace your /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/sis_drv.so with extracted file (make a backup of original file first!)

and now even more info....

This gentlemen has been developing this... SiS/XGI graphics chipsets and X.org/XFree86/Linux

http://www.winischhofer.eu/linuxsispart4.shtml#download

Source available for compilation.

1. The Premium X.org/XFree86 driver (pre-compiled = binary)

(2007/10/06) Despite of what is written below: Development is ceased. The source of the Premium version is available for download here. THERE IS NO SUPPORT WHATSOEVER FOR THIS CODE. A BINARY IS NOT AVAILABLE.

The Premium Version has the following features not found in the Free Version*:

* Hardware accelerated display/screen rotation support, including support for video playback (315 series only; 180 degree rotation and video playback in rotation mode only supported on SiS M650/651, 330, 661/741/760, XGI V3XT/V5/V8). [Requires X.org 6.9/7.0 or later for optimum performance]
* Real CRT1/VGA and CRT2/LCD hotplugging, redetection and modelist rebuilding; if you hotplug a VGA monitor (or projector or any other analog device) which is DDC2-capable, the driver can detect this, rebuild its modelist and adapt it thereby to the new monitor's frequency capabilities. The same applies to hotplugging LCD panels.
* Advanced video blitter Xv adaptor (including scaling support)
* Advanced Xv video support for overcoming most overlay size/dotclock/etc limitations/restrictions (only on SiS M650/651, 661/741/760, 330, XGI V3XT/V5/V8).
* Screen enlargement after server start: For example, if your LCD is 1280x800 and you start X, all modes beyond this resolution are usually not available afterwards. The Premium version allows switching to larger modes (such as eg 1280x1024) later, if you, say, switch from LCD to a VGA monitor. (Not supported in MergedFB mode.) [Requires X.org 6.9/7.0 or later for optimum performance]
* Advanced MergedFB mode display device placement specification, including swapping (reversing) the relative position for specific metamodes.
* Optional: TV (analog) copy protection support for SiS video bridges. (Available for companies only)
* Optional: Customized LCD support for ICOP/Vortex86 or other embedded boards
* Optional: Other customizations (upon request; hardware sample eventually required)
* Eventual bugs might be fixed quicker than in the Free Version.
* And for those who unfortunately can't read: No, the premium version does not support DRI(OpenGL).

Features named as "optional" are subject to a separate agreement and a separate fee. Extended support is available upon request.

(* Note that some of these features might at a later time show up in the Free Version as well as development progresses.)

Hi forumworx! Glad you found the drivers, I don't have a gui setup on mine since I just use the command line for the most part. How do you like the machine so far? Pretty cool huh? Which power supply did you choose? Case?

Hey Admin,

I ended up getting the PW-200-M with 8.5A 110W AC-DC.

I found that this place was the cheapest and delivered very quickly.

http://www.short-circuit.com

Unfortunately, I have not hooked anything up yet. Work is draining all my time. I hope to get to it this weekend though.

I'll post my results once I have my system up and running.

Stay Tuned!

Hi forumworx, great. Good choice with the PW-200-M, I've had good luck with that one and the little valley.

What OS are you going with?

Keep us posted!

Finally got this puppy up about a couple of months ago and thought I'd give some info.

I went with XP for ease of setup for now but plan to put linux.

The unit sits in my basement, without anything attached to it.

I remote desktop in and control my torrent downloads.

It feeds my network with digital content that I play on my XBOX (using XBMC) for my kids.

It's Awesome!, cant even here it when I go right beside it.

I plan on buying another with S-VIDEO out and running linux on to replace my XBOX as my media center PC.

All-in-all, I'd recommend it to anyone.

Has anyone used a flash drive with this? (And if so, what sort?)

I notice that a CF adapter can't be used because of where the DIMM socket is.

While I'm asking, has anyone used empedded XP on it? (No linux-people flames please - I use what I need to use!)

Hi Family guy! I haven't tried embedded XP on it, but I imagine it would work. As far as the CF adapter is concerned, there are many different shapes and sizes, and an IDE cable could be used to connect it too, so I don't think it would be a problem.

I have no problem with you using embedded Windows XP. :-)

If you like the family guy show, check out another one of my blogs where I have a lot of posts about the show:

http://www.toobinator.com/blog/family-guy/index.html

I have been running the little valley in a sealed GS-L05 case (from Serener) with the via epia-M heatpipe assy bolted to the cover (there isn't much faith in mounting one on the m/b as the tie downs don't really look like they can handle any kind of shock whatsoever). I bought a SYBA compact flash to IDE adapter and added an 8GB 266X compact flash that was "ghosted" from a HDD device to get the boot sector in place, and then I installed windows XP Pro on it... it's been working like a champ ever since it was built 6 months ago with absolutely no problems and without any moving parts and without ever making a sound (except from the sound port). It runs google earth with 3d buildings turned on (careful, it must be the 1.33Ghz version, I tried it with the latter D201GLY2, but the GLY2 had issues with the 3D graphics and I couldn't make the GLY2 address the 800x480 gfx resolution that was needed for the 10.2" touchscreen display. Added to that I modified an M3-ATX power supply (from i-tuner) for the little valley by moving a coil off to the side because it conflicted with the ethernet package on the board.

That sounds pretty sweet Gary - do you have this setup in a retail environment? Sounds like a great attention getter.

We are still working on marketing and packaging. We designed this unit to work in harsh environments for public service vehicles. We are going to proceed with production using a Samsung SSD for our first order of 10 units. The specs:

It boots up in about 45 seconds.
the highest temp I was able to achieve was 66c after 5 hours of testing google earth close up with 3D buildings turned on w/ a slow spin applied. The Avg temp inside the case was 43c with only one texting application running. I was able to load and run windows vista ultimate 64 on the D201GLY2 version. (the GLYL version does not support emt64). I may be able to point to a flyer after our pilot program goes out.

I just received this today and I have a VGA-to-S-Video converter, has anyone been able to get that to work, as of right now it does not display anything for me.

I dont know about the S-video adapter, but you probably have to do some setup in the video settings to make this work as a second monitor.

I tried using a 32GB SSD from Samsung with my little valley, and it failed pretty badly, do not get the samsung SSD with the -M extension, the memory that they use in that one is pretty slow and windows will crash a lot. I had good success with the Samsung 8GB SSD (the -F version). and I had success making a reasonably fast homemade SSD with the CF-IDE adapter using Ridata 233X 32GB CF card.
(the samsung SSD runs about $160 and the Ri-data CF& CF-IDE combo runs about $160)

Update: 5/12/08

Intel has just announced 3 new offerings at CeBit in the Mini-itx format

Eaglelake, Fry Creek and little falls

Eaglelake is an all Intel board with integrated Intel Gfx and dual/quad core support. Fry Creek looks about the same but designed as a media center edition. Little Falls utilizes the new intel "ATOM" processor, and looks like the same processor/chipset foortprint as the little valley, should also run at less than half the current of the Little valley at a higher clock rate of up to 1.87Ghz.

Hi Gary, Those sound awesome, especially the Little Falls! Thanks for the update. :-)