ASRock Wants the Best Mobo Ideas in the World

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Some of these are plain idiotic, but anyone can dream right?

1. Support hotswap to the entire board, if not just the slots so users can hot plug or remove a device while the machine is on.

2. Embedded power/remote management: users can power on or off their system with their cellular devices or from another machine even if they're not in the same location. Sends alerts if the system isn't used for a period of time to ask the user if they want to keep it on or turn if off.

3. Quick detect USBs: USB keyboard and mouse takes way too long to detect. Much longer than traditional PS/2. Also some internal USB ports instead of them pin headers will be nice.

4. Add SAS ports as they can also run regular SATA as well as them 15K drives. But most might say SSD is faster. If that is why not a SAS SSD?

5. Monitor system: A hardware based controller or two (to ease the load) to show all the status of the components in a system such as the health of a HDD to the amount of power consumed by a graphic card.

6. Add the Hydra chip to all us for mixed cards!

7. Security: Notify users if anyone else if messing with their stuff by sending message alerts. Allows users to take control of the situation.
e.g. Your system was just turned on by (shows picture* of person)

Press 1 to continue
Press 2 to shutdown
Press 3 to uses "electrobolt" 😛



* requires webcam




 
Modulated Motherboard - what if we could add/remove ports as easily as piecing together a lego puzzle? Sounds cool right? Now, I'm just an above average PC user - I know how to upgrade my PC but still don't know how to overclock it. Now, imagine my frustrations when I find out I only got 4 slots for RAM and only bought 256DDRAM for each -- but I want it to be faster. Yeah, what an expensive mistake. So my solution? Instead of changing my purchase, I'd just buy extra motherboard modules, for RAM, and puzzle it to my existing board. Now, for those who, like me, wants extra SATA/IDE ports for their extra hard drives, they'd simply buy an extra motherboard module for SATA/IDE. Now, what other stuff can have their own modules:

PCI Module
RAM Module
Power Module (works like a distributed powergrid)
USB card port Module (different from the card itself)
Firewire card port module (different from the card itself)
Empty Modules - to increase the space available - for those with big hands.

Now, let's look into the future - USB 3.0 is about to go mainstream. So what do I do? I just buy a module for USB 3.0 port. Woah! What did I did there?! Yes! no need to throw away my old motherboard because of new features. I just switch and match the modules to suit my needs. And it doesn't stop there - there can be light peak modules, USB 4.0 etc.

Now the only problem left is the case. Well, if the motherboard can be modulated, I don't see why the case can't. Now, imagine this: Office space - every cubicle has a monitor, keyboard and a mouse. That's it! And the single large PC with all the motherboard modules (for ALL the PC combined), sits inside a cooling refrigerant room. Not only did we save space for the office, but we also cooled all the PCs more efficiently.
 
Integrated wireless with an attachable antenna out the back (out the top preferably)

Move the ram so it goes horizontal under the CPU slot. Move the chipset to where the ram was and flip the voltage regulators to the other side of the CPU slot for better integrated cooling (combine cooling systems)

Move the power (24 pin slot) down to where most sata inputs are and turn 90 deg for better cable management. Move sata slots up to beside the new chipset location so it is easily accessible when big cards are in place. Move front panel connectors to front top of board and turn 90 deg.

Move CPU power input to upper edge of board and turn 90 deg

Usb 3 front connector sata 3 for boot drives

Add compatibility for water cooling to chipset cooler

Upgrade integrated sound card. And add spdif connections.

Cut out old legacy garbage (firewire, ide, floppy)

Include plastic washers for isolating mobo and maybe put a thin but heat resistant plastic sheet for isolate back of board from case (just in case 😉)

Add speed control for all fan power pin outs


Add bios selector switch and multiple bios’s

Make board led’s changeable so different colours can be swapped in.

Integrated 200nf chips for added pci lanes are well worth it.
 
I want a mobo that shares ram and cpu processes wirelessly to other computers in a certain vicinity with the same board if they are not in use or "off".
 
Put the 8 pin connector somewhere else, above the socket closer to the DIMM slots..
Also as probably already said ditch the legacy stuff like floppy, ATA, PS/2 etc
Put more room between socket and the DIMMs especially in your high end boards, these boards draw enthusiasts which means massive coolers and massive RAM, small gap is bad...
 
User replaceable parts. I'm not asking for anything complicated here, but if a PCI-E slot on a board is physically damaged, being able to quickly swap in a new connector would be great.
 
Looking at ASRock motherboards it may be tough to find any free space on them but an SO-DIMM slot that accepts ECC and non-ECC memory dedicated to onboard RAID cache would be a nice touch.
 
1. UV reactive PCB

2. Transparent PCB

3. POST/ERROR code readouts next to CPU socket and RAM slots

4. Universal mounting channels-channels cut into the pcb that allow previous generation coolers to fit over new sockets/cpus

5. Temp probes/pins for cpu, northbridge, ram- something that could easily connect to an included or aftermarket temp monitor that could be mounted in the case or on the desktop

6. Built in fan mounting mechanism for northbridge and ram

7. Magnet mounting system for attaching mobo to tray-Not an electrical engineer so don't know if this is possible

8. Minimum 12 SATA ports placed in a way that they are easily accessible and do not wind up under installed graphics cards.

9. Larger PCIe locking mechanism that allows for easier gpu removal

10. More space around the cpu socket for easier installation/removal of heatsinks/waterblocks


 
Place components on both sides of the circuit board. Connectors on one side and the components on the other. Routing the circuit board will propably be easier, too. Propably some slight chassis make-over, but it really needs only some kind of stick in the middle to stabilize. And angle the connectors so no need for a thicker case. And the airflow will be much better for cooling the components. Very much easier to change and place stuff. 73 de SM6YYH
 
I can only find 2 motherboards in the world that suit my needs, my M4N98TD-EVO and the NF980-G65, the latter i can't purchase here in Australia so at the moment.. the board i have is the ONLY one i can have..

I would LOVE SO MUCH to see the following for a AMD motherboard from ASRock:

-AMD AM3 Support
-Nvidia SLI up to 2 Cards
-DDR3 (IMPORTANT!)
-6 or more SATA 3-6GB ports
-1 PCI slot between the PCI-Express slots
-PCI-E 4x Slot above the highest PCI-E x16 slot
-High-quality Integrated Audio
-Some lights on the motherboard, specifically status lights (showing standby etc)
-At least 6 rear USB ports
-A sexy black PCB


This would make itself a instant hit with us AMD users looking for SLI, because few boards exist with the above features + DDR3 (most are DDR2)

Oh god how i want a new board..
 
I would like to see an LED display that frowns in red when something is wrong and smiles in green when everything posts properly. Even without having a video card plugged in I can tell by the smile that everything executed up until scanning for the hard drive. It would be nice if there were a few different kinds of emotions to show if I am overclocked (Angry), have ram issues (blue crying),etc. Those emotions are much better than an error code or a beep code. I dont need a manual to understand that if my motherboard is frowning then it needs some sort of attention.

I would also like to see pci-e slots that are adjustable in distance from each other. If I only have two cards then I space them out as far apart as I can.

Two or three (depending on AMD or Intel) ram slots in another location would be pretty cool, too...because 2gb sticks of ram are cheap and I can fill those extra slots with ram much easier than saving up for 4gb sticks of ram.



I would have an optional ide and floppy interface on the board. If I dont need either of them I can just unplug the interface and free up more room for my board to breathe.

 
First of all, I think the question "Best Mobo Ideas in the World" casts a net too wide. There are high end solutions for the professionals/gamers/overclockers sector, or the low end solutions that caters for the business-office, and internet-email market. While a high end Mobo can be used to gain bragging rights (with the accompanying promotional value), none drives the volume like the Mainstream market. Just look at what Apple is doing with are doing with its computers. They are simple, reliable, lots of “wow” factor, but NOT cheap! Yet, people are snapping them up like crazy. Keeping those ideas in mind, I wanted to add a few ideas of my own.

1.Simplify, get rid of the old standards. They take up too much space and those who buy new motherboards usually buy new peripherals anyway. Upgrading options are just too overrated to be practical.

2.Make them All-In-One. The majority of computer users are not high tech savvy. Determine the best combination of CPU+GPU (or APUs?) + Chipsets combination off the time and stick with it. It has worked for Apple and the notebook market, time has come to do the same for the desktop market.

3.Think Green. Go low power. With new CPU from Intel & AMD constantly pushing the envelope, we can have a decent CPU+GPU option today. If needed be, look at the notebook alternatives.

4.Go Cordless. With low power requirements, go cordless with induction power supply system.

5.Hardwire the OS. Just as iPhone/Android smartphones available now, do the same for desktop. Get a much faster boot time.

6.Always On. With a separate independent ARM/Atom/Cell class chip, control the power requirement to the smallest detail. Main computer can go off while user is browsing on the small cpu's power. When needed, fire up the main CPU instantly with little or no delay.

7.Wifi Everything. Give the option of putting the display (tablet form), I/O, hard disk and BD/DVDROM, printers off the main board wirelessly. Even to the Cloud?

8.Connect Everything. Has to be able to connect right out-of-the-box with the TV, media servers, every other appliances, and yes...it has to help me re-order those yummies I took out from the fridge!

9.Cooperate. Be able to cooperate with similarly equipped systems to form a server farm/cluster type system to get more oomph for the gaming and/or professional markets.

Pangestu Alim
 
1- support all the newest tech usb 3.0, sata 3..etc

2-all connections on the side (like the above poster said).

3-Led lights on everything. Individual ram slots (and a self test to let you know what's wrong on the led's). Also on the cpu, and pci slots.

4-Easily reachable cmos reset, lcd screen.
 
Full linux compatibility. All solid caps is a must, a DB meter to measure the sound in the case. Maybe some more thermal sensors, all around the motherboard to see where the air is flowing and where it is not.
 
- Modular VRMs with specs for home-brewers and overclockers.

- Standardised (colour-coded?) headers on the board for voltage readouts.(again for serious overclockers)

- Pin header for the port 80h BCD would be nice too.

- Small onboard flash module to store OS images (or perhaps a backup/diagnostic image) - it would be nice if this were write-protectable with a dip-switch and in the BIOS.

- Improved electrical isolation for fan controllers (to get rid of PWM noise)

 
I would like to see active noise cancellation for the CPU/Case/VGA card fan. Even though PCs have become much quieter in recent years, fan noise is still very annoying. However, because of its rather constant nature, it would be relatively easy to counteract with a small microphone and speaker.

You could place a microphone near the CPU socket, which could sample the CPU fan's noise. A simple calibration routine (probably run from within the OS) could build a fan noise profile -- correlating noise levels, wave forms, etc. to fan speed. You could then cancel the noise with a small speaker mounted on the motherboard.

The concept would need some tweaking, but you could include several microphones and speakers to sample every fan in the system. Ideally you would have a PC that was nearly silent but without sacrificing cooling performance. The idea would not be particularly expensive to implement either -- probably just a low-cost second audio codec and a few internal speakers/microphones. Any processing or calibration could all be done in the OS.
 
I am going to assume the question is what I would change with existing motherboards, rather than what my dream motherboard might possess.

1. A real RAID controller on a fast bus. SSDs are here, deal with it. With two in a stripe, I max out my bus.

2. Power Connector Slots on both the top and bottom of the board. Some cases have the P/S on the bottom, some the top. Right now, I am stretching a cable taught across the board, just missing a fan. Not good.

3. Make the RAM slots nowhere near where I might install a video card or in a tight spot (near capacitors or power connectors, for instance). This is just good design. I want to be able turn the machine off for no more than 1 minute between RAM upgrades.

4. Put the serial number/model number for the board in a big obvious spot that will not be visually occluded by cards etc. When I am having a problem, I do not want to turn the machine off and disconnect things to find these numbers. Include your 1-800 number on the board, it tells me you stand behind your tech.

5. Make the legacy peripheral connectors (or all of them) modular. Allow me to remove them from the mainboard if I will never use them. Make the back plate have pop-outs for the ports I will use. I like a clean, minimal back.

6. More fan connectors in more locations. I would like to see a dozen, though I would understand if all were not usable at the same time.

7. When the system is turned off, sleeping, or in stand-by, I want the board to still function as a router.

8. I want access to the BIOS to be through a web browser interface

9. I want a small fast SSD (say 32 to 64GB) integrated onto the board for my swap file.

10. Wireless USB and Bluetooth integrated

11. GPS integrated. I should never have to tell my system what time zone I am in or how to calibrate my astronomy software. If my system gets stolen, I want the board to contact me with its location. When managing systems, I want a geospatial map of each system's location.

12. Use the speaker on the motherboard for noise canceling all those fans.

13. Invert all those capacitors, diodes, etc so they face the wall of the case. All I want to see is the CPU socket, the RAM sockets, the PCI Express slots, the power sockets, etc. I want the rest of the board to be completely smooth fiberglass.

14. Give me an LED working light that I can turn on and off with a button on the board. How many times I held the flashlight in my mouth while I installed something.

I'm tired, so this is where it ends. I am sure there are a hundred more things that could make boards better, though.
 
Versatility: Please, give us options and lots of them.
1. Do not mount all of the SATA connectors facing in one direction. Not all builds are the same and not all cases are the same; it is nice to have options when wiring things.
2. Break up the placement of the PCI and PCI-E 1x slots so that at least one of each will always be accessible.
3. Give us a way to change the color scheme of a motherboard (maybe just the heatsinks). Gamers like to show off the hardware inside their cases especially when they have paid a lot for it; most high end gaming cases have windows for just this reason. It would be nice to be able to match the color of a motherboard to that of the other components.
4. Allow us to continue using our old universal cpu coolers with motherboards using new sockets. You could use universal mounting holes or include an AM3 mounting bracket adapter with Intel motherboards.
 
Agree with most of these ideas. Get read of the old crap, you'll save afew bucks on materials and R&D while your at it. Another thing make room for two AM3 Sockets or whatever is the newest socket, keep ahead of the game. Integrated 1 or 2 gigs of DDR3 ram, possibly video as well, GUI bios, make it good for over clocking and lots of cooling stuff. I'm still a noob but have some nifty ideas.
 
I would like to see a DualSocket NAS/GAming/workstation Motherboard. This means that it has two sockets / Dual powersupply, 1 socket for a Atom processor that run on its own powersupply 24/7 so you have a home NAS SERVER, that share harddrives and chassics with a p55 gaming rig. with support up to 12 harddrives.
So you have the same data equally accessible in the nas and in your gaming rig. SATA 6 and USB 3 and FIrewire 800 is a must!! and Intelligent UP and Downclocking.
 
My favorite mobo would be like this:

1. All components used for switching regulators across the mobo should be rated up to 125 degree ambient temperature.

2. Use 75um of copper where ever possible (Supply planes, ground planes, cooling planes). It would be interesting to see a PCB with 35um of copper for fine pitch components/thin tracks and 75um of copper for high power components/power tracks (especial in voltage regulators and cooling areas for semiconductors).

3. Create cooling areas for mosfets/other power devices on the bottom of the PCB. These cooling areas should not be covered by solder mask. Strips of corrugated copper (tinned copper of course)can be soldered to these cooling areas in order to increase their effectiveness. The height of the corrugated copper should not be more than 3mm, let's say. This can be decided based on the minimum height of the stand-offs available for mobo mounting. The corrugated strips could be soldered by re-flow at the same step as with the rest of the board, using several points of glue to hold them in place. This may imply use of selective wave soldering for THT components.

4. A better sound chip with adequate power supply filtering (use LDOs to supply for the integrated sound). Via, for example, has a very nice 24bit sound chipset (VIA Envy24HT) used in audiophile class sound cards.

5. Team up with Zalman, Schythe or Thermalright for creating a cooling sollutions that looks good, provides the mobo with some identity, and most important: cools adequately even in low airflow conditions. I personlay like very much what zalman has done with its flower coolers.

6. Right angle SATA, IDE and power supply connectors allong the edge of the PCB. It may not be feasible to place the 4p/8p connector for the CPU on the edge of the board, but I can live with this. Think the placement of the connectors with cable management in mind!

7. Do not place legacy interfaces on the board. Just let the user opt for a model number that is bundled with serial and parallel port adapter card.

8. The board must feature USB3 and SataIII, just to be future proof. native implementations are preferred (without third party chips).

9. Provide the board with enough PWM controlled fan headers, reset and clear cmos button (I like the smart switch design in Extreme 3 series).

10. It would be nice to have an integrated boot loader. This could be controlled by an option in bios. If the options is enabled then after the post screen the used is presented with a choice screen to choose from which hdd to boot from. I like to keep my operating systems well separated.

10. Integrated SSD for installing the operating system (minimum 20Gb). A PCI-e add-in card would also do the trick! But it should be seen as a hard drive and accessible by the bootloader describe at point 9.

11. Error LED for each expansion slot, ram slot, cpu socket, chipsets. They can be bi-color leds. Green = everthing is OK, RED = Not OK. Port 80 debug is nice, but most of the times is happens that the error codes it shows are not documented in the mobo manual. You can continu to implement it as long as all the codes have an explanation in the mobo's manual.

12. Place mode thermal sensors on the PCB and document their position in mobo's manual. Instead of the legacy chip you can place on the board a chipset design for interfacing temperature sensors and connect directly to the chipset. Calibrate these sensors at EOL test on the manufacturing line. Providing calibrated sensors with documented positions on the PCB could be very helpful for those who want to tweak the cooling of their entire system. Not to mention that a light on resources software should be provided for windows/linux so that the user can access the temperatures recorded by the sensors. A logging utility should also be provided for long test runs (8 ours or more).

13. Provide a PCI and a PCI-e slot specialy designed for audio cards (sound cards/capture cards). This means very good filtering and buffering of the supply lines (remove as much noise as possible from the supply lines).

14. And since I spoke of temp sensors and fan headers. Remember the Abit uGuru boards? Well, a wireless device, that reads and displays the data from temp sensors and fan headers (rpm and speed in percentage 0%...100%). And also: why not provide a header on the mobo where the user can connect their own temperature sensors (K or J type thermocouples for example, or small signal diodes). A calibration function should be provided for these inputs and the reading should be available on the wireless display.

That's about it... for now!
 
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