Sam460 tips

Since everyone is complaining about the lack of usb and sata ports. I would like to share, from all of me to all of you, my experience.

I have put my sam460/2GB ram in a antec case.
I have added a radeonhd 4850 512MB GDDR3 ram.
I'm using a 500GB hd connected to the internal sata2 port.
Because of the graphics card using 2 slots i cannot use the pci slot.
And since i have 1 usb memory stick, a usb bar scanner and an canoscan lide 50 flat scanner. And only 2 usb in the front of the case. I have added a Akasa InterConnect which gives me another 5 usb ports in front(7 total). (See picture below). It's connected to the internal usb ports on the mainboard. So no more need to swap around the usb devices.


But then i hear you complain about lack of dvd support. I found a nice solution for this problem here. It's a cheap usb2 external dvd writer. It draws power from the usb aswell. I have tested it to rip a cd using adripper and it found the drive instantly. Worked nice aswell. Also installed some extras from the 4.1 cd. It's not so fast cos of the drivers. But good enough for me.


Now just missing the sound drivers and the sam460 feels like a complete and nice system.
Before i added these components it was a bit annoying to use at times when i needed to use a cd/dvd. Opening the case removing gfx card,adding the pci sata card. And swapping around the usb devices from time to time. (I now have the scanners and mem stick connected at all time.) These issues are now gone thanks to the 2 "addons". They are also cheap. A bit why i got them in the first place.
I find them a very good upgrade.And cheap, about £60(600nok). So there is no excuse not to get a new sam.

@Antique
Why does your gfx card take-up TWO slots? The PCI slot would surely be useful. Seem to recall someone saying the PCI slot was poorly placed?

@chrisH

I think there are slim gfx cards,but not with my radeonhd 4850,and not wiht my 4890 aswell. AFAIK all new/high end gfx cards are 2 slots. Sam460 is like the flex,not much space between the pci/pci-e slots.

Would a PCIe 1x SATA card work?

@mechanic

I don't think there are any drivers for that yet. Let's hope they support some in the future.

I solved the lack of an additional SATA port using this USB to SATA adaptor



I leave it internally, attached to one of the USB plug on the motherboard.

You can find these adapters here or here.

@virgola
"solved" might be too strong a word, since it must be terribly slow over USB1.0 . "worked-around" might be more appropriate...

@ChrisH

Yes, you're right. "Solved" it's a big word, but at least I can use a Radeon PCI 9250 because of it's Warp3D compatibility.

I also should mention that with this solution, at least with the Jmicron JM20329 chip version that I bought, uboot kind of recognize the dvd player, but it is unable to boot from it.
The only working solution USB based are external dvd with USB, which clearly use a chip more compatible with uboot.

This solution is however 100% compatible with OS4 (it recognize it after the kickstart has been loaded), which should be already installed on the HD.

Here is my new SAM460 in the case that Amigakit supplied, it has 2GB RAM, 1000GB HD, a 4 port SATA and a DVDRW drive.



Here is the side open showing motherboard.




All in all I am happy with this system, originally wanted a smaller (cube) style case but at least wont have any issues with space to fit things!