# Junk Collector and x1 Video Cards



## Phishfry (May 13, 2018)

So I buy loads of hardware off ebay.
I bought some 3.5" SBC Boards for dirt cheap($20)NEW-With the understanding that the 2 Display Ports did not work.
These are Haswell SBC with 2980U CPU and two Intel IGB interfaces. But no video output.
So I bought two. One wide input 9-24VDC voltage and one 12VDC input.
http://www.dfi-itox.com/products/product.php?productId=2084
I fired them up hoping somebody used a wrong adapter but it only beeped. Nothing on Display Ports.
So I boot up off my FreeBSD USB Install and check pfSense and sure enough it got a lease.
Buying these with no project in mind i shelved them for a few weeks with little use.

So now I am trying to get my used Virtualization Test Server up and running I have trouble with Alpine Zen install.
http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-7582
All the instructions are for COM1 and I am using a serial console only server and I got COM's all messed up.
Zen should be on COM2 anyway I got sick of fighting it and decided to add a video card,
-But the server only has an x8 PCIe Slot on a riser.
Most all video cards are x16. So I decided to buy a x1 Video card. A NVS300 with DMS59 jack and dongle.
That worked great. It allowed me to get Alpine Xen up and running and I tried out Xen on Devuan. So mission accomplished.

Then I thought to myself, I have a MiniPCIe slot adapter for x1 PCIE Slot.
So I broke out my DFI boards with bad video and booted up off the x1 NVS300 video card on an MiniPCIe adapter, using a molex power supply to 4 pin floppy power header.
Sure enough it boots up and I could use the BIOS, set the options I needed and it allowed me to figure out that COM1 jack was hardwired RS485 so I moved my serial cable to COM2 header and now I have a FreeBSD serial console on COM2 even with no Serial Redirection in BIOS. A very ugly rig but only temporary. Now I can do something with the boards.

Just for value I am adding my /boot/loader.conf for COM2 serial console.

```
boot_multicons="YES"
boot_serial="YES"
comconsole_port="0x2F8"
comconsole_speed="115200"
console="comconsole,vidconsole"
```
`mv /etc/ttys /etc/ttys.bak
echo 'ttyu1 "/usr/libexec/getty std.115200" vt100 onifconsole secure' > /etc/ttys`


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## Phishfry (Jun 23, 2018)

I found another solution for these no-video SBC boards.
IEI makes a Mini-PCIe VGA card.
I bought a pair to use for setup..
http://iei.rs/IGCME-1300-R11
https://www.ebay.com/itm/142527331774


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## tingo (Jun 23, 2018)

Interesting. Let us know how it works out.


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