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Mini-ITX board with eSATA recommendations?


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At the beginning of this year, I put together a rootin'-tootin' dual bootin' mini Hackintosh centered around a portable shoebox-sized case. You can see my components list here: PC Parts Picker

 

Note: my video card is actually the superior, older, more powerful, yet lower wattage draining Sapphire HD 7750LP (100357LP). I also purchased a USB Bluetooth adapter as well as a Dell DW1520 (Broadcom BCM4322) to make it 100% functional with OSX. Amazingly, the stock 150w PSU handles the load, but can be upgraded with a larger mini-ITX PSU with the caveat of cutting through the case to route the IEC power cord.

 

The eSATA port on the Asrock Z87E-ITX motherboard I selected is of great importance to me, as I use both the 2 front and rear eSATA ports daily in my line of work (broke-a$$ video editor). Having it built into the motherboard frees up the single PCI card slot so I can drop in a decent video card for when I wand to get my 'pew-pew-pew' on. Unfortunately, after 2 replacement boards in less than a year, and loads of BIOS headaches, I am done with this board. I'm going to dump the replacement board on eBay as soon as the replacement board is returned to from Asrock. In the meantime, my system is down. After now reading the numerous bad reviews on various retail websites regarding this model motherboard which are consistent with the three rounds of board failures I have experienced, I can no longer rely on this brand or model. 

 

When I began my research about a year ago, this mobo fit my needs perfectly, but had very little competition when it came to offering eSATA. I'm hoping there are more choices now. Can anyone recommend an OSx86-friendly replacement mini-ITX motherboard that is not built by Asrock featuring eSATA, and where my current crop of components can drop right in?

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hi

 

maybe with this MB, you will have to patch your bios or use a patched kernel...if I well remember, there are posts about this specific MB

about the video card can't give opinion...

 

but did you see the red notice banner, and the issues you will have putting those things together...

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/291182-asrock-haswell-anyone/

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/301944-success-asrock-z87e-itx/

 

your PSU delivers low juice...get one at least  real 450w 

 

c.frio

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Hi C.Frio

 

Thanks for your feedback. I think you may have missed my request for help. The computer is already together and functioning just fine with OS X 10.9 Mavericks on drive 1, and Windows 8.1 on drive 2. When the motherboard is working, even with my weak PSU, my configuration works well when doing heavy video renders or playing video games. My problem is the poor quality control at the factory causing 3 repeated failures of the Asrock Z87E-ITX mobo. The board either fails to boot to BIOS (RMA #1) or has one of the RAM slots stop working (RMA #2). This has happened to many users - you can look up the product on Newegg or other online retailers to see bad reviews that show the same problems. I am looking for another brand/model mobo that is Hackintosh-able and has eSATA to replace the Z87E-ITX. That's it.

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