Novatech

My original intention was to build a NAS device from an old Novatech PC (the machine is described here). Unfortunately, I could not get the machine to post and it seemed likely the motherboard was faulty. Diagnosing and repairing faulty motherboards is currently beyond my capabilities. On top of that, I don't have a proper workspace set up.

Prevarication

I decided to build a secondary Linux box. Partly with existing parts, partly with second user ones. I got most of the parts some time ago but put off building it for various reasons. It wasn't the only build delayed.

Initially I didn't have much of an idea of what I was going to do with it other than it wasn't going to be a NAS box - the case has very few drive bays. After deliberation and various technical mishaps, it will eventually live in my garage/workshop for playing media and web browsing. I suspect I'll be watching a lot of repair videos.

Hardware

I already had a Athlon II X3 425 and 16 GB of DDR3 RAM. I bought a cheap second hand AM3 motherboard.

Unlike some of my other machines, it doesn't have huge gaping holes in the front from the removal of ancient optical drives. Just one from removal of a floppy drive. I found a 3.5" blanking plate.

The Alvorix motherboard was used in a number of HP/Compaq machines. It's nothing special per se but it is interesting that it is "legacy free".

There isn't an IDE connector, nor are there PS/2 peripheral connectors. No PCI slots, only PCIe.

That is has a mini-PCIe connector is interesting. I've not seen that before on a desktop motherboard before. I suspect it is intended for a Wifi module, which were common in laptops. It's worth noting that these modules can be a lot cheaper than desktop PCIe cards. One downside of these cards is that they use a different type of antenna connector and laptop antennas are build into the body. Obviously, a mostly metal case is not good for signal strength. There are adapters that allow for the use of external antennas. 

The mini-PCIe connector is not mSATA compatible so adding an SSD that way isn't possible. There are adapters and whilst the Gen 2 x1 slot potentially offers better throughput than SATA II, the M.2 interface that has largely replaced mini-PCIe and mSATA is a x4 slot.

It has both VGA and DVI video output and can use them simultaneously. However, the DVI port doesn't support those DVI to VGA adapters. 

I bought a PCIe USB 3.0 card. USB nomenclature has become confusing to say the least. It's the 5Gb/s version. The PCIe x1 slots don't have the bandwidth to support anything faster. It has two external Type A sockets but also 19 pin connector for front panel mounted USB 3 and a Molex connector to supply power for USB charging.

Because it is intended to have a functioning NAS at some point, only a small SATA SSD is installed.

But...

It posted once when message appeared that the CPU fan was not detected but on numerous other attempts, it failed to post at all. The conventional wisdom is that is that in no post situations, it's never the CPU that's faulty, except when it is.

The compatibility of AMD CPUs and motherboards can be somewhat confusing. In short, AM3 motherboards only work with AM3 processors and DDR3. An AM3 processor will work in an AM2+ motherboard but the motherboard is only compatible with DDR2.

I do have a AM2+ motherboard and some DDR2 RAM but also wanted to test the Alvorix and original motherboard so I bought an Athlon II X2 220. It turns out that the original X3 425 was defective. The original Foxconn motherboard also turned out to be defective.

On start up, the machine would come up with an error message about the system fan not being connected and it would then shut down. HP machines that used this motherboard didn't use the stock AMD cooler with 4 pin fan. Instead they use 3 pin connectors and the BIOS gets upset by non HP fans. You can disable hardware monitoring of the fan in the BIOS but it's not an option you see if you enter the BIOS in the usual way. Instead, you have to enter into an advanced mode by pressing other keys. Which did the business.

The motherboard has an additional 3 pin system fan header. At the moment, the case has a single exhaust fan which is sufficient but I put in a fan splitter anyway in case need to add a front intake fan.

The DVD writer appeared dead but that was because the power cable wasn't connected. Not that there is much use for an optical drive these days. It's neater than removing the drive. It's also the only machine here with a functional optical drive. 

The PCIe USB 3 card was not recognised. It's likely that Linux doesn't support its chipset rather than it being defective. It was removed and installed in a Windows machine. There were also some problems with USB ports connected to motherboard headers but they seemed to resolve themselves with the exception of one front panel port which is likely defective.

Oh dear

My primary Linux desktop Lenok runs Ubuntu Studio so it was an obvious choice to install it on Novatech as well. Visual Studio Code was installed - I'm used to VS on Windows. Some others app were also installed.

Something that I would have liked to install is a Microsoft OneDrive client for Linux. There only seem to be paid for ones. Given that all that my Linux boxes are attached to a network that has Windows machines on it, there are work arounds if OneDrive is synched to network storage etc.

Upgrades

I've no interest attempting to game on the machine and I've better machines for that. Integrated graphics are plenty good enough for most potential purposes. 

According some documentation, use of a PCIe graphics card disables the onboard video. The AMD 785G chipset does support Hybrid Graphics with the right graphics card but maybe there is something different about how HP has implemented things.

The main reason for adding a graphics card would be to gain more outputs but given Novatech is a secondary machine, it doesn't really need them. It's not a "productivity" box that requires multiple monitors. 

Getting a Linux compatible USB 3.0 (aka USB 3.1 Gen 1 or SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps) card might be useful. Preferably one with a front panel header. 

Upgrading the CPU is possible but the motherboard only support 95W CPUs. The Phenom II X6 1065T is the most powerful but second user ones can be stupidly priced. There are quad core AM3 Opterons but benchmarks suggest they have roughly the same performance as Phenom parts.

As the machine is a desktop, Wifi isn't a priority. Adding Bluetooth would be be useful. Mostly for headphones but in a workshop environment, wireless keyboard and mouse help to keep bench clear of wires.

The AMD chipset only supports SATA II, the speed of which most SSDs exceed. Adding a SATA III card is an option. It is possible to pick up new PCIe x1 dual and quad port cards relatively cheaply but they appear to be Gen 3. SATA III has a theoretical bandwidth of 600 MB/s, whereas PCIe x1 Gen 2 has 500 MB/s. 

A PCIe x1 Gen 2 slot doesn't have enough bandwidth to support 10 Gigabit network cards which have a theoretical bandwidth of 1250MB/s. It would cope fine with 2.5 Gigabit assuming a CPU with enough grunt (more cores help) and network card with TCP/IP offload engine. Although 2.5 Gigabit ethernet cards have fallen in price to the point where the slight price premium vs Gigabit looks compelling, the cost of network switches less so. Powerline networking is used here for purposes but it has bandwidth limitations.