5 weird motherboards that shouldn't exist

[Emily Young]

Motherboards are the heart of any PC build, but while we take certain features and form factors for granted, specialty use and just plain bizarre system design means we get a few oddballs…

 

 

[Lord Szechenyi]

What about the motherboards in those fridge computers from the 60s?

[NoGoat]

I actually have a PGA - 989 chip lying around. It's a Core i3 - 2328M. It's a potato by today's standards tho.

[da na]

27 minutes ago, Lord Szechenyi said:

What about the motherboards in those fridge computers from the 60s?

Not technically a 'motherboard' as we would think of today. The boards on those didn't have the IO - as fridge sized computers were mainly used by businesses and you would install cards with your floppy controller, memory expansion, vga if needed (on most systems). 

[NoGoat]

3 minutes ago, Benji said:

And most CPUs labeled "M" or "QM" in the name that had a number that didn't end with a 7 or 5 could actually be had as both socketed and soldered versions. I actually have a 3520M lying around. You just need(ed) to find out the appropriate sSpec ("Spec Code") number so that you find the right version. And these are not a secret - they're written directly on the Intel webpage.

Mine is the socket variant.

[AbydosOne]

Why is this scene mirrored? (9:00)

 

EDIT: same deal here (11:35)

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

29 minutes ago, NoGoat said:

I actually have a PGA - 989 chip lying around. It's a Core i3 - 2328M. It's a potato by today's standards tho.

Why would someone even have a laptop chip laying around anyways?

 

Is it from an upgrade or dissasembling a laptop or what?

[NoGoat]

Just now, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Why would someone even have a laptop chip laying around anyways?

 

Is it from an upgrade or dissasembling a laptop or what?

It's from my previous machine. I still have the laptop. The only issue is it refuses to boot any kind of x64 based OS. So, I took it apart and took that pic.

[Nystemy]

22 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Not technically a 'motherboard' as we would think of today. The boards on those didn't have the IO - as fridge sized computers were mainly used by businesses and you would install cards with your floppy controller, memory expansion, vga if needed (on most systems).

VGA weren't a standard in the 60's, took until 1987 before any computer on the market supported VGA.

But the large mainframe computers could have a fair bit of IO, and at times better IO expandability than even a lot of modern systems. It weren't all that uncommon to have systems with 10's of hard drives, or whole office floors of terminals interfacing with the system all in parallel.

 

And to be fair, the idea of mainframe computers is still around, all though not that common even in more computer heavy industries.

[BobVonBob]

38 minutes ago, Lord Szechenyi said:

What about the motherboards in those fridge computers from the 60s?

Old computers didn't have motherboards. They were usually based on cards and backplanes. Basically like if everything in your computer plugged into a PCIe slot. You would have some cards that did arithmetic calculations, other cards that did floating point calculations, even more cards with memory on them, and they'd all be slotted in and wired together to make the whole computer.

 

[Ubersonic]

Tiny X79 boards with only two RAM slots weren't actually all that odd for the time. Shuttle mass produced a MITX barebones unit with one back in the day.

[darknessblade]

That Epic itx-m37 should be a ECX or "epic" formfactor, which is often used for embedded systems. 
 

ECX:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_Compact_Extended

EPIC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPIC_(form_factor)

 

 

most CPU's on such boards don't need a CPU cooler, or use a proprietary cooler specific to that board.

since they are very low power, a large portion of boards, do not need a cooler,

Not forgetting often they have a PCI104 connector that is used to directly control something like a CNC. from within a Custom system

[Vidhyut]

I have a 2nd generation and a 4th generation i3 mobile chips lying around too. Courtesy dead laptops.  Had a first generation too but I lost it while relocating.  Not sure what to do with them. 

[Seneral]

I wonder if the ZA-SK1050 (or even better, the ZA-KB1650) could be used for a light VR rig, in a backpack PC format. 19V DC in allows for easy battery management, has an integrated GPU with cooler, M.2s for Wifi and Storage, and low-profile laptop memory would allow for a very neat, cable-less setup (ex battery).

Yeah no powerhouse. But portable!
Perhaps a video idea? Or any other ideas in regards to it's gaming capability?
Price on alibaba doesn't seem all that great even with current GPU prices unfortunately

[YoungBlade]

Linus: "That's a ridiculous amount of USB expansion! So much, that I can't even conceive of a legitimate, desktop use-case."

 

Uh... I recently added 4 more rear USB 2.0 via mobo headers. Combined with the 6 from the motherboard, the 5 ports from a USB expansion card, and the 2 front panel ports, my system has a total external USB port count of 17. The expansion card also has 2 internal USB Type-A ports that I have yet to find a use for. Which gives me a grand total of 19 USB ports on my desktop.

 

To be fair, I've never had all of those occupied at the same time, but I have had 14 with something plugged in at the same time.

[Luscious]

If this list includes completely proprietary form factor server mobos there are plenty of weird ones out there as well, especially the ones that use connectors that attach a separate daughter board for IO breakout. My favorite one right now must be the Supermicro X11DPG-OT-CPU - a crazy dual Xeon socket 24 DIMM board that rocks four PCI-E 3.0 x24 slots (not x16). These four bad boys connect to an even crazier daughter board (X11DPG-21-PCIE) that has... wait for it... 21 PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots. The idea here is that you would shoehorn in 20 single-slot GPU cards connected via PLX with an additional x8 RAID card to run whatever drives are at the front of that 4U chassis.

 

The craziness comes when you connect 20 double and triple wide slot cards to the board using riser cables and not using a server chassis at all but multiple milk crates zip tied together, or in the case of a mining setup an entire shelf on an open wire rack. It's also probably the only mobo you will ever see that has four huge-ass power connectors attached, outside of a quad socket system anyway. Sadly this low res pic is the only image you will find on the Supermicro website:

 

[darknessblade]

  

1 hour ago, YoungBlade said:

Linus: "That's a ridiculous amount of USB expansion! So much, that I can't even conceive of a legitimate, desktop use-case."

 

Uh... I recently added 4 more rear USB 2.0 via mobo headers. Combined with the 6 from the motherboard, the 5 ports from a USB expansion card, and the 2 front panel ports, my system has a total external USB port count of 17. The expansion card also has 2 internal USB Type-A ports that I have yet to find a use for. Which gives me a grand total of 19 USB ports on my desktop.

 

To be fair, I've never had all of those occupied at the same time, but I have had 14 with something plugged in at the same time.

The only thing i can think of that one would use those USB ports for would be a USB powered  BBQ/grill:

 

-------------

 

I cant really speak for others as my motherboard has a lot of USB ports itself 
I myself have the ASUS Crosshair VIII formulla, which over 11 USB 3.0 type A ports. [excluding the front panel ones]
with front panel i have over 17 USB 3.0 type A ports of which 2 USB 2.0 
and i have another 2 USB 3.0 type C ports.

its not that i have to use it all, but its nice to have. as you will never have the issue of accidentally plugging in a USB 3.0 drive into a usb 2.0 port.
why i chose the formula:

- 5gb/ 10gb internet ports [need to upgrade my internet setup soon to support 10gb/s]

- No IO based usb 2.0 ports

- great support for watercooling [currently using a AIO for the cpu, and the asus strix LC RX6800xt, so i technically do not need a custom loop]

- great overclocking support [if i ever gonna use it]

- oled status panel

- full support for Ryzen 9 5900x. [unlike cheaper boards which don't utilize the full power of the  5900x]

[case: thermaltake core X71, use silicone dust-caps to cover the 3.5mm port, and 3 of the usb ports,]

 

As for temps under normal use the CPU barely gets hotter than 45C, the GPU is barely hotter than 35C. [ambient 25C]
--------------

[kenblu24]

I don't have the exact model that was shown on video, but that last one is commonly seen in enclosures like these:

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/IDEARACE-Compact-Tower-Intel-Support/dp/B07QJY899T/

 

https://www.amazon.com/Kingdel-Fanless-Desktop-Computer-Windows/dp/B01AU7T1NO/

 

These are industrial fanless PCs, but I've used similar ones as routers running PFSense.

 

On the second listing, you can see an inside shot of the mobo, and it's pretty similar. The main differences I see are that Linus's board has USB 2.0 instead of 3.0, and the ones I found all have COM ports and Wifi. Also, now you know what voltage to give it, and why the CPU is on the back: It's meant to be cooled passively!

[Nathanpete]

Can anyone identify those power connectors on the first motherboard? The one by portwell with all the USB ports?

[mariushm]

49 minutes ago, Nathanpete said:

Can anyone identify those power connectors on the first motherboard? The one by portwell with all the USB ports?

They're just fancy barrel jack connectors. I dig the hex metal bit on the back of the barrel jack.

 

You'd start by figuring the inner diameter  (ID) and the outer diameter and then you go to a distributor of electronic components like Digikey or Mouser or Newark/Farnell and find barrel connectors with thread lock.

The most common barrel jack connectors have 5.5mm (0.217") outer diameter and  2.0mm/2.1mm/2.5mm inner diameter

Here's a bunch of connectors with thread lock : https://www.digikey.com/short/1vf8c5zv

And here's a bunch of plugs (with cable) with thread lock : https://www.digikey.com/short/zfpw5v5v

 

[GeorgeMKane]

I've seen some wacky motherboards before, and the ones in the video are just o_O ...

 

I like the one motherboard that has so many usb ports- but oh wait, you can't power it with a normal psu... So... wait what? I mean, if you really need THAT much usb, just get a USB hub that has its own separate power adapter.

[YoungBlade]

7 hours ago, GeorgeMKane said:

I've seen some wacky motherboards before, and the ones in the video are just o_O ...

 

I like the one motherboard that has so many usb ports- but oh wait, you can't power it with a normal psu... So... wait what? I mean, if you really need THAT much usb, just get a USB hub that has its own separate power adapter.

See, you say that, but then you do it and it's not great. USB hubs connected 24/7 sometimes can have odd issues where devices will drop out. They also need external power if they're USB 3.0, which adds more wires and takes up an outlet spot on your surge protector or UPS.

 

I used to run not one, but two 4-port USB 2.0 hubs off of my old computer to have enough connectivity. It only had 4 rear USB ports and 2 front panel ones. This gave me 12 ports, which was usually enough, but it wasn't ideal. I put low-bandwidth components like my mouse and keyboard on the hubs, which meant that if a hub had an issue, I'd lose mouse and keyboard until I disconnected and reconnected them.

[MultiGamerClub]

"Balls to the wall transfer speed"

 

I like where this is going.

[GeorgeMKane]

5 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

See, you say that, but then you do it and it's not great. USB hubs connected 24/7 sometimes can have odd issues where devices will drop out. They also need external power if they're USB 3.0, which adds more wires and takes up an outlet spot on your surge protector or UPS.

 

I used to run not one, but two 4-port USB 2.0 hubs off of my old computer to have enough connectivity. It only had 4 rear USB ports and 2 front panel ones. This gave me 12 ports, which was usually enough, but it wasn't ideal. I put low-bandwidth components like my mouse and keyboard on the hubs, which meant that if a hub had an issue, I'd lose mouse and keyboard until I disconnected and reconnected them.

It honestly depends on what you get and where you get it. I've seen a lot of reviews on amazon that talk about how bad the usb hub was, but then I look at known/popular brands on the same website and they have much better experiences. Look at reviews on Best Buy and MicroCenter and you'll see what I mean.

[doubleflower]

On 9/17/2021 at 1:00 AM, GabenJr said:

Motherboards are the heart of any PC build, but while we take certain features and form factors for granted, specialty use and just plain bizarre system design means we get a few oddballs…

 

 

Industrial PC boards using socketed laptop CPUs aren't exactly uncommon though (this has nothing to do with recycled PC parts, unlike Chinese 'X79' boards),  ASRock actually has a board that uses a mobile CPU socket, see the ASRock IMB-180:

 

https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/IMB-180

 

For some reason there are industrial/embedded customers that require such hardware configurations