ASRock M3A UCC

A test machine, used to be my MythTV backend machine.

Hardware of this machine:

box: no - open air rig. was: Nexus Breeze 400 with psu. There is a faq. (Update: it seems the faq has gone missing.)
power supply: Corsair RM750 modular was: Cooler Master B500 ver.2 (was: Corsair CX430 V2, old: Nexus NX-4090, 400W, silent)
motherboard: ASRock M3A UCC
memory: 4 GB (2 x 2 GB DDR3, 1333 MHz, CL9 Kingston ValueRAM). 4 x DIMM slots, max memory is 16 GB.
cpu: AMD Sempron 145 @ 2.8 GHz, 1MB, 45W, boxed
cpu cooler: stock
storage - SSD: Kingston SA400 250 GB (ada0)
hard drives:
optical drive:
network: re0: (was: em0: , was: xl0: <3Com 3c905B-TX Fast Etherlink XL>)

other: (was: Hauppauge PVR-500MCE tv tuner card for analogue signals. Dual tuner)

bios: M3A UCC P1.40

OS testing: FreeBSD,

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History

2024-11-06: the ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 motherboard replaced this motherboard in the open air rig.

2024-11-02: from ProShop I ordered a new motherboard ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 microATX (2993608) for NOK 935.- and a new CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Wraith Stealth Prosessor/CPU - 6 kjerner - 3.7 GHz - AMD AM4 - AMD Boks (med kjøler) (2884168) for NOK 1666.- the plan is to replace the CPU in my main workstation (c2) with this one, and use the old one with the new motherboard. I have DDR4 RAM already.

2024-11-02: storage - unfortunately, it looks like the sata controller on this motherboard is damaged. I can install FreeBSD (tried with 13.4 and 14.0) on a SSD oor hard drive, but when I try to boot I get errors. And the RTX 3060 card covers enough of the free PCIe 1x slot that I can't put in another satat controller car. Oh well.

2024-10-27: gfx - I removed the Radeon HD 7870 and R9 280, then I installed the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC that I bought. Booted fine, shows up in pciconf output as

root@locaal:~ # pciconf -lv | grep -B 4 VGA
vgapci0@pci0:1:0:0: class=0x030000 rev=0xa1 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x10de device=0x2504 subvendor=0x1462 subdevice=0x397d
    vendor     = 'NVIDIA Corporation'
    device     = 'GA106 [GeForce RTX 3060 Lite Hash Rate]'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA

2024-10-26: I connected up a screen and booted this machine, to check if it is still working. Answer: yes. It has 8 GB RAM now (all 4 DIMM slots filled).

2024-10-22: From NetOnNet, I bought a MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC (item no. 1016941) for NOK 3890.- which I intend to use for local LLM and such testing.

2021-08-22: I re-created this page on my self-hosted web server.

2021-02-14: m3a ucc - I unscrewed this motherboard from its case, and set it up as my new open air rig. Tested with the Radeon HD7870 serial number A133400024711 in the PCIe x16 slot, it powers up and I get a picture. Connected up the R9 280 via the PCI x16 to x1 riser, and that one works as well.

2018-12-19: storage - I added a Kingston 120 GB SSD SATA to the machine. Currently, it is the only storage device connected to the motherboard.

2018-12-19: gfx card - I put the Asus EN6200TC256/TD/64M/A card back into the machine again.

2018-12-19: memory - the motherboard supports DDR3 1800(OC)/1600/1333/1066/800 non-ECC, un-buffered memory.

2018-07-29: gfx card - this machine had a Asus EN6200TC256/TD/64M/A card, which is a nVidia 6200 with 256 MB RAM. And it is fanless. So I'm temporarily borrowing it for my c1.

2017-06-14: I replaced the PSU (CX430 V2) with a Cooler Master B500 ver.2 that I bought on a sale sometime. That was it, the machine is now alive again. Clearly, the CX430 V2 isn't ok.

2017-06-03: the machine has been out of service a long time now, it still doesn't want to power on for some reason. Trouble with the motherboard?

2016-09-01: I opened the machine and cleaned it - lots of dust below and inside. Tested the PSU with a (chinese) PSU tester - PSU ok. Replugged it, and now the machine starts up again. Nice.

2016-08-26: after a scheduled power outage (power company scheduled maintenance), the machine would not power on.

2014-06-28: network - based on testing, I selected the PCI network adapter - Intel Pro/1000GT PCI Desktop Adapter 1000BaseT, bulk it works with FreeBSD 6.4-stable. The adapter shows up like this in /var/log/messages:

Jun 28 19:59:17 kg-fil kernel: em0: <Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection Version - 6.7.3> port 0xd800-0xd83f mem 0xfebe0000-0xfebfffff,0xfebc0000-0xfebdffff irq 22 at device 7.0 on pci2
Jun 28 19:59:17 kg-fil kernel: em0: Ethernet address: 90:e2:ba:5c:3b:f6

That's all.

2014-06-27: today I bought two new Intel network cards from Digital Impuls: 102159 - Intel Pro/1000GT PCI Desktop Adapter 1000BaseT, bulk for NOK 495.- and 113868 - Intel Pro/1000CT PCIe Desktop Adapter 1000BaseT, Inc Low Profile Bracket, bulk for NOK295.-

2014-06-26: coincidence or not, it looks like the thunder and lightning this evening took out the network card, or the network cable. Ok, testing with a switch indicates that the network card is broken, and that the network cable is ok. A new network card required.

2011-12-04: I upgraded the bios from version 1.20 (P1.20) to version 1.40 (P1.40).

2011-12-01: the newest bios is version 1.40, with a date of 8/31/2011.

2011-10-01: I installed the new psu (CX430 V2) - the machine is now alive again.

2011-09-29: I bought a new power supply for the machine: a Corsair CX 430W V2, for NOK 395.- to replace the failed Nexus NX-4090.

2011-09-28: the machine died. Bad powersupply? Must investigate / fix.

2011-08-15: network - I got a 3Com Fast EtherLink XL PCI (3C905B-TX) from a friend.

2011-08-13: added two more disks (lower numbered SATA ports on the motherboard are connected to lower numbered controllers):

root@kg-fil# dmesg | grep ad[46]
ad4: 953869MB <SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA01118> at ata2-master SATA300
ad6: 953869MB <SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1AA01118> at ata3-master SATA300
root@kg-fil# atacontrol list
ATA channel 0:
    Master:  ad0 <WDC WD3200AAJB-00J3A0/01.03E01> ATA/ATAPI revision 8
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 2:
    Master:  ad4 <SAMSUNG HD103UJ/1AA01118> Serial ATA II
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 3:
    Master:  ad6 <SAMSUNG HD103UJ/1AA01118> Serial ATA II
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 4:
    Master:      no device present
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 5:
    Master:      no device present
    Slave:       no device present
The disk named ad4 is mounted lowest in the case.

2011-08-11: I bought a new hard drive to replace ad0, which is failing. The new hard drive is a Western Digital 320 GB 7200RPM 8MB IDE Caviar Special Edition, WD32000AAJB. The price was NOK 595. at my local store. Temporartily connected the new drive as slave on ide, it shows up as ad1, like this:

root@kg-fil# uname -a
FreeBSD kg-fil.kg4.no 8.1-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 8.1-PRERELEASE #4: Fri May 21 00:20:01 CEST 2010     root@kg-fil.kg4.no:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
root@kg-fil# atacontrol list
ATA channel 0:
    Master:  ad0 <SAMSUNG SP0822N/WA100-33> ATA/ATAPI revision 7
    Slave:   ad1 <WDC WD3200AAJB-00J3A0/01.03E01> ATA/ATAPI revision 8
ATA channel 2:
    Master:      no device present
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 3:
    Master:      no device present
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 4:
    Master:      no device present
    Slave:       no device present
ATA channel 5:
    Master:      no device present
    Slave:       no device present

On to do the setup + data transfer.

2011-08-10: currently running SMART tests on the boot hard drive (ad0) - perhaps it is failing too.

2011-08-10: Ok, there is definitely something wrong with the power supply too. After being powered up, it has to run a few minutes before the machine will turn on. Bad capacitors? Who knows.

2011-08-09: After install - there seems to be an issue with the PSU - it will not start up every time.

2011-08-09: I bought a new motherboard (NOK 495.-), CPU (NOK 395.) and 4GB memory (2 x 2GB, NOK 325.-). A total of NOK 1215.- for a new "engine" for my MythTV machine. Not bad. Reusing the rest of it, time to rebuild the machine.

2011-08-08: My old MythTV machine failed during an upgrade.

ASRock M3A UCC

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