You should not lose any data with either RAM or CPU upgrade. You can put the hard drives back right after each upgrade is done.

Is the e5200 fast enough to stream/handle 10-20gb 3D media files? I stream 3D files from my ps3 to my samsung plasma and the stock ex495 processor just chugs away and the movies are choppy at best.

Thanks

It took a while for me to get around to performing my EX490 upgrade but a few weeks ago the unit crashed on me again...its like the third time that I had to do a complete rebuild....so I thought I give the upgrade a try. I followed a youtube video on getting to the 490's backplane - simple! and I installed my 6400 CPU - no problemo, and I upgraded the ram to 4GB - piece of cake...then put it all back together. I took the opportunity to add a few new drives, 3 2TB drives, one open slot for later. Installing the new WHS 2011 was a bit of a challenge because I needed to create a boot USB stick with the ISO image of the WHS CD on it, but once I learned how to do that it worked like a champ. The first thing I added was DriveBender, since Drive Extender was missing. So far she is running fast and cool, although my data transfers are pretty slow - not sure why but that is for another day. I installed CPUID and monitor the CPU temps and it has only gotten above 60c a few times, mainly when I was doing my first backups, most of the time it runs below 50c. Kudo's to the list for the inspiration.

Sounds great. I still haven't gotten around to it. I have the E5200 and the Arctic Silver and WHS 2011. Did you remove the thermal paste from the heatsink? I think that's the port that is getting to me. Why can't it jus be reused. Not ideal but better than nothing.

philip

Its very easy...When you take the old cpu out it will take some of the thermal paste with it....you need to add a little to be safe....dude, its like putting toothpaste on your tooth brush! lol...I just cleaned off the heatsink with a paper towel and put on some new thermal compound...it's no different then adding a cpu to a mobo...

Thought it'd be worth chalking up my upgrade fortunes here, I've recently upgraded my Stock CPU+2gb ram EX470 with a new EX490 I stumbled upon at an irresistible price, I ordered up some AS5 and a Core 2 Quad Q8200S to ensure it'd be good to transcode anything I threw at it for a good few years yet. Since I bagged a new and sealed unit, I gambled on the HP paste likely still being soft and fresh and decided to fit the CPU and see how the temps shaped up. Much to my surprise it's actually pretty acceptable, the highest CPU temp I've managed to get out of the HP console is 62c with speed fan reporting core temps of 40 to 50c depending on load. It's been 100% stable over the weekend and with any luck the AS5 will shave ~5c or so off my temps when it decides to turn up.

A full HD transcode with Serviio and Allshare sitting in the background has the machine running at about 50% load across all 4 cores, I've not yet seen memory usage go past 1.5gb even with Allshare doing it's hateful ram guzzling best to drag everything down with it .

Interesting. So you reused the heatsink without cleaning off the paste? I have been waiting to put in an E5300 into my EX490 but the paste issue has always been an issue! I would have thought a warm heatsink would still have enough paste on it to reuse it? Is 62c an acceptable temperature over the longer term?

Philip

Hey guys, my EX490 has the E8400 in it right now but I was thinking of downgrading and putting in a E6750 that I have laying around.

Both processors are identical, besides the E6750 having a lithography of 65 nm while the E8400 being 45nm


Any ideas if this would work?

62c is toasty but not OTT for these processors imo.

I only reason I went with the stock paste was because I landed a new and totally unused part and as such the compound hadn't cured yet. I did redo the sink with AS5 a few weeks later which has dropped temps to 56c, worth the 5 extra minutes imo

Hey all,

Just got done saving an EX495 from the scrap yard (bad RAM, bad CMOS battery) and was poking around on the motherboard. I've been an avid MediaSmart user since the beginning... just love these little boxes!

In any case, when poking around on the board, I noticed something that was present on the ex48x had been removed on the ex49x - a front motherboard fan connector, the traces on the PCB are there, and I tested them with a multimeter and they are active. Would just need to buy a fan connector from mouser, digikey, etc..

Looking over Alex's awesome blog entry for the ex49x introduction, I noticed the fan header was present. Perhaps Alex had a special unit

I've seen posts around people cramming in a Q9550+ processor on these, but the temps heating up. Has anyone considered making a front case fan mod with a baffle that will take the the fan fron the front, and direct the air over the processor to keep it cool? I only ask because I was given a Q9550 (non s) processor and thinking of repurposing it for this.

Picture attached for reference, this is Alex's photo from the blog, with my arrows indicating the fan header. On my unit, it is just the traces, and coincidentally, the "fan" silkscreen is still there, as well.

Interesting, I'm not sure why they would remove it. I did get a unit in advance so I could write my review before it went live, but I'd guess it was removed in a hardware rev, probably to save a penny on the BOM cost. I'm sure you could solder a header on there if you wanted...

_________________
Alex Kuretz
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Yeah, was weird when I saw it. There is also an auction on Ebay for a dead ex49x motherboard, and based on the pictures it also has the header. I'll take a look at mine later and see if there's a revision stamped to it.

Be interesting to see what else may have changed.. for better or worse.

Well it's been fun but I just but I just put my EX495 with Q9550S for sale on *bay.

I've been happy with my new Zotec ZBOX ID82 with USB 3.0 enclosures. I guess I should update my signature soon

_________________
WHS 2011
Zotec Intel i5 ZBOX ID82 SSD C:
Six 3TB drives via USB 3.0 ProMedia Enclosures
8GB RAM

thinking about finally upgrading my ex490, do you think an q8200s or e6750 would be the better option?