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17 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Not bad, but not the quality I expect from Intel Feb 06, 2009
By Greg A. Mefford
First of all, this is a nice, small motherboard/CPU combo. I'm happy with it, but it has a few things that I would really like to fix about it.
1. See that fan in the picture? It's not on the CPU like you'd expect. It's on the north bridge. Seriously, if you make a low-power CPU, you have to do something to get the north bridge to be low-power too. That's just crazy.
2. I bought a Zalman fanless northbridge cooler (the blue fan-shaped one) to replace the loud fan that comes with this board. For some reason, Intel drilled holes through the board in four places to install mounting brackets, but only put the brackets in two of the places, and it was the two that this particular cooler does not use. Disappointing, but my fault for not checking.
3. Realtek network chip. Again, my fault for not checking ahead of time, but I assumed that an Intel motherboard would have Intel integrated networking. In the future, I will be more careful. Realtek chips have terrible support in Linux and BSD, so I ended up having to use up the only PCI slot to install a supported network card, which is frustrating when it has a port right on the motherboard.
Overall, the build quality is good, and it is a great little board. I'm using it in a little NAS box I built, and it runs FreeNAS well.
17 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Great board: the future of computing Sep 08, 2008
By Brian DeLacey
The Intel D945GCLF motherboard is a great product. This is a super way to start building a computer without the time-consuming complexity of buying many compatible components and assembling them into a working system. So far, I've bought two of these boards and expect to buy more in the future as Intel continues to improve this chip / board product line.
You'll need to add a hard drive, ram memory, a case/power supply, external speakers, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and operating system. But that's all stuff you can pretty easily plug together. You may already have some of these key parts lying around as spares from existing or antiquated computers.
I installed several different versions of operating systems, settling on a copy of Ubuntu for daily use. It's fast, fun, and free.
I have shown this board to a number of very knowledgeable, computer savvy friends who were impressed enough to quickly buy one for their own use. It's cost effective and ruggedly reliable. (I wouldn't recommend a drop-test, but I did drop it off the back of a van and it kept working.)
I've found the processor performance to be quite acceptable for web browsing and basic administrative tasks. The system boots surprisingly quickly. The outstanding energy efficiency is appealing, ideal for any systems that are left on for extended periods of time (e.g. in home servers, security systems, or environmental control devices.)
This product is an exceptional value for a low-cost desktop system. You could also use it as a component in an embedded PC-compatible systems. If nothing else, it's a fun, inexpensive, and powerful way to explore and experiment with new computing technologies.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Won't blow your socks off but works. Dec 05, 2009
By G. Reyes
"ghavo..."
I used this MB for a home made NAS unit...
-Pros:
-Worked out of the box
-Stable
-Used FREENAS with out any problems
-CONS
-CPU Fan a little noisy but not too bad.
-10/100 MB NIC... It would have been fantastic if was a gigabit
-Conclusion... again for my purpose it was perfect... I needed a lowpower MB for a home NAS system.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
good Linux support + way too noisy CPU fan Sep 24, 2009
By Forrest Sheng Bao
This motherboard is cheap, small and having good support on Linux. I used Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit. I found the 64-bit version has power management problem that causes one core is running on power management all the time.
But, the big pain is, after few months, the fan is getting noisy. The sound is tooooooooo loud. I am looking for a replacement for it. If you know a good alternative to the CPU fan on the board, please let me know.
 Bad network chip Dec 27, 2011
By Jordan Xaviers
"Technology Guy"
Had this board for about 2 years now, and then the network chip finally failed Christmas eve 2011. This is the second time an intel ATOM mini-itx board combo NIC has failed. I am really taken aback seeing that, that the nic fails so soon after. My other atom 510 nic failed within a year of use ! I would never buy another intel atom/realtek combo unless the price was really cheap. I now am using a usb wireless dongle. And that is functioning decent for now. Big, big disappointment from intel !!!
In both instances, I added a extra fan, so there was NO issue of overheating. Both units were operating (near)ICE cold. Also, all my electronics are surge protected, SO it has to be a design flaw with the REALTEK nic.
Pros:
Intel side of mobo seems tough enough
Tiny footprint
All-in-one package
Bios is tweak-able (a few overclockable options, really ???)
Will accept ddr2/800mhz ram (corsair is what I am using).
Cons:
Bad network chip
Very slow, needs to be tweaked to run decent (ie. x64 OS). Runs better with 64 bit
OS.
Only one ddr2 slot
Single channel
Max support ram - 2gb
Recommendation: A good buy, only if the price is in the < $60 range.
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