Beebox-S mPCIE slots configuration

Hello! We are intending on purchasing new minic pc barebones for our company laboratory. We are mainly looking on Gigabyte Brix-S, Asrock Beebox-S and intel NUC series Skylake i3 motherboards. 

kristsm wrote: Hello! We are intending on purchasing new minic pc barebones for our company laboratory. We are mainly looking on Gigabyte Brix-S, Asrock Beebox-S and intel NUC series Skylake i3 motherboards.  Our laboratory needs to install and use specific mPCIE 3.0 x4 non-storage(audio and video capabilities) devices in the mPCIE slots of the motherboards.  Before that we have used Intel NUC series motherboards with great success, which allows to install non-storage and non-commucation specific mPCIE hardware in mPCIE slots. Moreover, I have seen in the internet someone using Nvidia videocard working with Asrock's H110m-STX motherboard through mPCIE port (with an adapter from PCIE X16 to mPCIe X4 3.0)  As Intel NUC motherboards  does not support USB 3.1 Type-C (until today) , we need to look for other options.  Before going with Beebox-S i3-6100u motherboards, we would like to ask you to confirm the following: (1) What PCIe version (3.0?), lane count and configuration (x4 , i.e. 4 PCIe lanes connected directly to the cpu?) does those two mPCIE slots on the Beebox-S i3-6100u motherboard has? (2) Can we install and use any kind of mPCIE devices in these two mPCIE slots unless their communication configuration conform to the PCIE revision and lane count of the two mPCIE slots? (4) Are there any hardware or software whitelists in the motherboard?�s BIOS or UEFI which in this case disallows the use of some specific category devices in the mPCIE slots other than those as specified by the whitelist? (5) What is the max power (in amps) which could be drawn through the DC IN port on the motherboard? (6) What is the min and max voltage which can be used to power the motherboard? Thank you! Regards, Krists

I may be able to answer a few of your questions, in general terms.

The manual for the Beebox PCs may be helpful to answer some of your questions:

http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Manual/Beebox-S%20Series.pdf

First a check on the terminology you used, specifically mPCIe. mPCIe, or Mini PCI Express, is not used in the Beebox-S.

The Beebox-S has two M.2 ports/slots, which are not compatible with mPCIe. So if the devices you plan on using are truly mPCIe interface devices, they cannot be used in the Beebox-S.

If the devices you plan on using have the M.2 interface, you must check how they are "keyed", and there purpose, due to differences in their communication protocol, as you know.

The M.2 slot for use with storage drives is a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. The WiFi capable M.2 slot is not specified regarding its interface in the manual.

The M.2 slot for storage drives can be used with both PCIe SSDs and SATA SSDs. The M.2 WiFi slot seems to be strictly for WiFi devices. Beyond this, matching your devices to these slots, if even compatible, will be on a case by case basis.

The Beebox-S mother board does not have any standard PCIe slots.

The DC in port is specified as 19V, 3.42A/65Watts. A minimum and maximum input voltage is not specified. The supplied power adapter can be used with an AC input voltage of 100 - 240V.