Dell Optiplex FX160 Thin Client

Okay .... I would say, my Way of cutting out the Metalframe was not 100% right, but at least I can still close the case. But "THAT" looks just wrong.

I think in the WebGUI is a setting, what should happen then you press the powerbutton. (Shutdown, Nothing or Sleep). Did you set that to "Shutdown"?

I used tools I have, but this is only small whole for cables, disk is bolted to VESA mount. If I find small cheap disk for OS I can go back to "basic" setup

With that button, it occurs that after restart everything is working fine

Great to see that someone else got this working. I can pickup these units for like $30

Please post any info on how you got the Sata DOM to work on port (Sata 0) or any other solution to attach a disk to (Sata 0). I was looking at a thin mSata adapter card in combination with the sata extension cable.

I am currently using a usb flash drive but am wondering if that is why I am having some performance issues. I am not looking to transcode video but to just use this as a NAS for recording video to the NAS from 2-3 security cameras so I dont think performance will be an issue to use it just for storage.

I like this unit because it is a complete solution including the case. I am also open to other options but I am trying to keep my budget to about $125 including all components with a storage capacity of 1TB. 1TB drives are not that expensive today.

That is odd as I though the Sata DOM card required power (5v) and most Sata Dom cards I have found only have the Sata (Data Connector) and not a power connector.

I have also looked at using an msata to sata adapter board and putting an msata card on that. I think because of the thin profile it can fit under the fan.

2.35 inch sata Extension

http://www.microsatacables.com…235-inches-sata3-ext235in

mSata to Sata Adapter

http://www.amazon.com/Micro-SA…ywords=msata+sata+adapter

msata Card

http://www.amazon.com/Premier-…r=1-2&keywords=msata+16gb

Hi YALL !

I got my FX160 some time ago. It's time again for a new router and instead of spending 200 bucks for a very limited little box, I'll make one out of this. It's perfect for the job, has countless improvements over a "normal" router and it's really cheap.

What's on my list are 8GB RAM, an Intel 7260AC wireless card, a 120GB mSATA SSD connected to Port 0 with adapters and 2 SMA connectors on the top for antennas.

I heard from a guy who's working as an IT specialist (like me) that you can upgrade a lot of older chipsets with 4GB modules, even when the chipset doesn't officially support it. He knows someone who's running a FX160 like this and after more research I think it's worth a try.

The 7260AC card can only be used after I finish my BIOS hacking. Since today, I'm already running revision C13 (c for custom) as you can see here:

It's almost ready. Just can't continue right now because I don't have a DELL 1397 wireless card. I need it's UUID to continue. Went through the whole BIOS already and checked if it has the newest microcodes, fixed typos, cleaned it up a bit from the legacy crap that's inside but not used so flashing is faster etc.

This is a picture of the 2 adapters put together:

This should fit great, I just have to saw off a bit of plastic on one side because of the front panel connector.

I'll just drill 2 holes for the SMA connectors; found some which are longer than usual and they also have a 8 inch long cable.

Just for the heck of it, one day I'll get a mPCIe to PCIe adapter and connect a graphics card so I can see the Crysis saga running on this little router in Ultra HD

Hello, I recently bought a optiplex 160 (atom 230) for 2000 tenge = $ 5 bought from a friend (Kazakhstan), put 2 Gb RAM (1Gbx2). I understand it does not support HDD 3.5. Now I think to put the ssd to 64Gb or buy 2.5 HDD. My task on it: media center, torrent download 24 \ 7 \ 365, NAS and backup. Glad to see the theme of the old, but classy optiplex 160! There was a question, he supports 2Gb or 4Gb maximum?
(C) thanks to Google translator. I do not speak, read, write in English. Sorry in advance for the bad translation.

The 8GB RAM arrived today and both modules work without a problem. I paid less than 20 Euros for this brand new RAM, so I don't even need to consider getting "only" 4GB. You can never have too much RAM on a server
The limitation is only because of the chipset, you don't need to hack anything. If the memory controller supports this much RAM, it'll work without a problem. Usually only Intel chipsets don't support this much RAM.

Hacking the BIOS is rather easy. I just needed to get some stuff before I could proceed. I got a 4315 and also an Intel 6200 which works without modifying anything. Usually, the vendor & device ID get checked by the BIOS so you just need to enter the ID's of the card you want to use or disable this check completely (which is harder). In this case, they took another path and it looks like they just check the device class. I'll see what can be done and share this modified BIOS when it's ready. The goal is to disable this check completely so ANY card can be used.

In around 3 weeks I'll get a bigger SSD than initally planned, then I can install 2 OS's and will also have plenty of storage left for the NAS part. I won't do much until then.

EDIT:
Last weekend I found a mPCIe expander. It gives you 3 slots instead of just one. That's why I won't use 2,5" drives; I need the space for this. There's really no need to put more than one mSATA SSD inside, a 256GB one is cheap. If I ever need more, there's always the possibility of using nano USB sticks on the 4 USB slots on the back. With the expander, I'll update to USB 3.0 which can't be used at full speed but it'll boost the transfer rate to 250MB/s.

Some nice little projects here. Might have to consider keeping my eyes open for one too ...

Extra SATA ports would really make this thing a winner though, so I'm also in favor of the SATA m-PCIe BIOS mod. Unfortunately I'm not skilled enough either ...

Too bad the chipset only supports 2 SATA because it looks like there is room for an additional SATA connector next to the blue one. (I believe I read somewhere that some thin clients just need one soldered one)

For power consumption, maybe a picoPSU-90 with a high efficiency (active power factor correction) power block (using the p4 plug only) could even improve performance. And with the modded BIOS one could use the extra plugs to power more disks. Off course this would drive the costs up a lot.

I would use the internal USB header to attach a female USB port with a mSATA-to-USB adapter plugged in. I'm using this setup in my OMV system currently without problems so far and then I can have two SATA ports for data disks with RAID1 or snapraid.

For the non-believers, I just made a pic:

As you can see, only one module is inserted and the BIOS shows 4096MB. When you insert both, it shows 0MB. I'll look for a way to display the correct amount. It's just a cosmetical thing anyway. So far it's been working very well. I have to wait another 2 weeks so I can get a bigger SSD because at the moment I only have the 2GB SSD that came with it.

I'm understanding the BIOS better and better. I think I found the whitelist, but the format doesn't make much sense yet. It uses the vendor ID and a 16 byte long hex string. Now I need to figure out what the hex string does. Already found the subroutine which is xref'd to the whitelist. I hope I can disable the check completely.

Update:
Nyarharhar, the 7260 AC+Bluetooth card works

There's 0 byte left on the SSD so I can't even install a driver

I also activated SLIC 2.1 by going into factory mode. Let's see what else can be done.

Here's a picture of my brand new 500GB SSD and the adapters:

It sits very firmly.

I've found the routine which is responsible for calculating the memory size. It's only a single address that gets read. I will use a simple compare which will display the correct amount. When it can't count it fully, it'll display 8192MB instead of 0. Writing the code is easy, but I don't know yet how to insert my own code into the BIOS.

I've found all kinds of different mPCIe cards. There's a card which can be used to decode all video formats in 1080p. It's only 15 Euros and would make a great video player out of this little router. I've also found an expander which supports connecting up to 4 mPCIe cards. I hope the sample I'm trying to get is not too expensive.

Interesting thread. I got one of these for free from work when they were about to toss it out, cause why not.
Now mine is the Single Core Atom version, with the 1GB NVRAM SSD.

I remembered I had an old Windows tablet that had a mPCIe decoder card (Broadcom CrystalHD, the second version, half-sized card which has better hardware and actually fits the slot), pulled it out and it fit in the mPCIe slot like a champ. Now in XP Embedded it will play almost anything I throw at it, which is just awesome.

That's when I decided to order the HDD Caddy, and my issue starts. I got the caddy the other day, and tried 3 different 2.5" HDD's (Two of which I KNOW worked as I pulled them out of working laptops). Regardless when I plug it in and boot it up, POST says there's no HDD (even if the nvram SSD is still installed) and the BIOS shows nothing on the second SATA Port. I have a few $1 cables enrute from China which would allow me to at least use the SSD's SATA port, but I was really hoping to be able to use both.
Has anyone run into this?

It says:

No HDD
Pres F1 to Resume

>I press F1

Checking NVRAM

No boot device available-
strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup, F5 for diagnostics.

The NVRAM check fails wether the NVRAM SSD is still installed or not.

If I unplug the HDD Fan, it'll boot to the NVRAM, and not see the hdd. The HDD seems to be spinning up.

Best guess, it's the SATA Cable or the SATA Port. I don't want to contact the seller who sold me the cable however if it's a known issue and I'm missing something stupid.. Any ieas ?

Finally got my SATA+Power extension cable, so I could test the HDD in the NVRAM's port, and it worked.
So then I plugged the NVRAM into the HDD Caddy's cables, nada. Wasn't surprised. Looked around in the BIOS some more and BAM. SATA1 - DISABLED.

Dell, if you're reading this, maybe on the page in the BIOS where you list the detected HDD's, if a port is disabled, rather than saying "Not Detected" just say "Disabled" :p

So now I feel like an idiot, but it works lol