Intel D2500CCE Atom D2500 Dual LAN & Dual COM Mini-ITX Motherboard, BLKD2500CCE

I bought this board to replace an aging VIA CN13000G mini-ITX board I had been using since 2010 as a firewall for my personal Internet connection. While I cannot vouch for this board's use as a desktop motherboard, for what I intended it for it's got 5 stars if not more. It easily updated it's BIOS with the latest on Intel's website without much of a fuss. Has a quality UEFI firmware with really nice unexpected features that make this thing a joy to work with unlike the buggy classic BIOS the old VIA CN13000G had that couldn't even properly boot from USB even though it claimed to be able to.I went from a single core 32bit only 1.3GHz VIA C7 with a 100Mbps LAN port for the Internet WAN connection to a dual core 64bit 1.86GHz fanless CPU with dual onboard PCI-Ex Intel branded GbE NICs (my preferred). I run OpenBSD on it happily and it gives me no issues and runs considerably faster than the old VIA C7 setup. I had no idea my Internet was being bottle knecked by the old C7's slower under-performing CPU and the 100Mbps WAN port. After getting this board installed I speed test easily over 120Mbps+ and am barely causing it to break a sweat. Very much satisfied with this unit and can see it will easily last me another 5 years if the VIA unit could last that long. Highly recommended for the price if you're use case scenario is similar to mine.

I am using this motherboard with a 4GB Crucial DDR3 SODIMM PC3-12800 memory kit (2x 2GB sticks), M350 Universal Mini-ITX case, and a picoPSU-80, to run as my home-brew firewall, NAT, DNS server, etc., appliance. I repurposed a 500GB Western Digital Black disk drive from a dead HP Pavilion DV7 laptop. An Acer LCD monitor, generic keyboard and Logitech mouse is shared with four other computers via a Linksys KVM switch.The disk was already installed with openSUSE 11.4 Linux x86_64, and it booted right up and recognized all onboard hardware. I was impressed, and happy that I didn't have to install the OS again. It was painless to get up and working, took me less than a couple hours from opening the box to working on my network, mostly reconfiguring Linux to work in its new role.Consuming only 17W (as seen with my Kill-A-Watt device), it is a nice reduction from the 45W machine that it replaced (an old Shuttle Spacewalker SS50 "cube" computer with a 1.6GHz P4 processor with an extra PCI LAN card). The old machine had noisy fans, the new one is totally silent.The only oddity with this machine is the clicking noise when the power is off. But since this machine is up 24x7, it's not a problem. So far it has been reliable and speedy in this role.Oh, and one last thing, the M350 Mini-ITX case has some quirks -- it has a front power switch, illumination LEDs for power, and two USB ports on the front panel, which connects to the motherboard and works great, but the case comes with a front cover that does not let you access the USB ports. There is no "door" to open, and removing the cover is not exactly easy, as it is held very firmly with tabs all around. Also, the USB ports are angled 90 degrees so you have to insert the USB cable plug "sideways". These quirks have nothing to do with the motherboard, but I mention them here because lots of people seem to use the M350 case with this board.Highly recommended!

Used for pfSense build. Very pleased. Paired with 4 GB Crucial SODIMM (Crucial 4GB kit (2GB x 2) DDR3/DDR3L-1066 MT/s (PC3-8500) CL7 204-Pin SODIMM memory upgrade for Mac CT2K2G3S1067M / CT2C2G3S1067M), Mini-Box picoPSU-80 80 watt Output 12 volt Input DC-DC Power Supply, Sabrent AD-LCD12 LCD Monitors 12V 6A 72W AC Adapter Power Supply, M350 Universal Mini-ITX PC enclosure PicoPSU compatible; and SD SDIO SDHC SDXC MMC Memory Card to 2.5" SATA 22pin SSD HDD Hard Drive Adapter converter With Case 9.5mm. It's a fan-less install inside a Actiontec router to Verizon FiOS at 85 Mb Internet feed.Very please with the setup. Rock solid and no problems in the first week+. 4 Gig memory is overkill for my needs, but there's lots of headroom. Case is warm to touch, but not hot.

Fits perfectly in M 350 Universal ITX case with picoPSU-80 supply and 60GB SSD drive. Dual gigabit Intel LAN ports work flawlessly. The 4GB memory limit, 2 SATA ports, and limited processing power may make it less desirable for many applications but it works great as a pfSense firewall and it is small and very low power. My whole system draws less than 15 Watts throughout the boot up process. Perhaps it draws more when the network cards are busy but under normal circumstances it is more than 10X better than the 180W+ my old firewall, based on a re-purposed Athlon XP PC, would use.For a cheap, low power, reasonably capable system I couldn't find anything better. Including the case, memory, picoPSU and power supply brick the total system cost was $240 which is cheaper than nearly all home firewall appliances I see and much more capable given the software, memory and disk space available. It's a great little motherboard for the right application.