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Have you ever noticed how ANY case mode that gets posted here at /. sucks to high heaven?

Like that x-box "mod" where they made it bigger AND uglier?

Where is all the cool shit like the Millenium Falcon mod where the guy took the time to FUCKING LIGHT UP THE HYPERDRIVE! And did it so it looks like the hyperdrive? And cut a hole into the top of the hard drive and put a LED inside the HD bezel.

Or the Aircraft Carrier Mod? Or the god-damned G4 Cube PC, where it still actually LOOKS like a G4, complete with top loading DVD drive?

I mean, if they're going to post an UGLY Mac case mod, they might want to post this one, which is probably the worst case mod I've EVER seen.

Yeesh. I get so hopeful every time I see this kind of thing pop up it completely shuts my brain down to the drivel I've seen before. I need to filter "Case mod" out of stories in the RSS feed I get.

Have you ever noticed how ANY case mode that gets posted here at /. sucks to high heaven?

Like that x-box "mod" where they made it bigger AND uglier?

Where is all the cool shit like the Millenium Falcon mod where the guy took the time to FUCKING LIGHT UP THE HYPERDRIVE! And did it so it looks like the hyperdrive? And cut a hole into the top of the hard drive and put a LED inside the HD bezel.

Or the Aircraft Carrier Mod? Or the god-damned G4 Cube PC, where it still actually LOOKS like a G4, complete with top loading DVD drive?

I mean, if they're going to post an UGLY Mac case mod, they might want to post this one, which is probably the worst case mod I've EVER seen.

Yeesh. I get so hopeful every time I see this kind of thing pop up it completely shuts my brain down to the drivel I've seen before. I need to filter "Case mod" out of stories in the RSS feed I get.

Have you ever noticed how ANY case mode that gets posted here at /. sucks to high heaven?

Like that x-box "mod" where they made it bigger AND uglier?

Where is all the cool shit like the Millenium Falcon mod where the guy took the time to FUCKING LIGHT UP THE HYPERDRIVE! And did it so it looks like the hyperdrive? And cut a hole into the top of the hard drive and put a LED inside the HD bezel.

Or the Aircraft Carrier Mod? Or the god-damned G4 Cube PC, where it still actually LOOKS like a G4, complete with top loading DVD drive?

I mean, if they're going to post an UGLY Mac case mod, they might want to post this one, which is probably the worst case mod I've EVER seen.

Yeesh. I get so hopeful every time I see this kind of thing pop up it completely shuts my brain down to the drivel I've seen before. I need to filter "Case mod" out of stories in the RSS feed I get.

you can make your own cool recorder with a mini-ITX motherboard, a harddisk and a tv card. plus you don't need to pay a subscription. you can even put it in a teddybear for that cute and cuddly look.

you can make your own cool recorder with a mini-ITX motherboard, a harddisk and a tv card. plus you don't need to pay a subscription. you can even put it in a teddybear for that cute and cuddly look.

Imagine something like this, but built into a plastic toolbox that's painted beige.

No lcd, but add in the ATI card.

Instead of shuttle, look at some VIA mini-itx boards.

With small footprint systems, you can build your own appliances. For example, a friend of mine has a 1ghz via board, 512mb ram, 40gb laptop hard drive, 802.11b wireless, and slimline DVD player... All in a case that is literally the same size as his original DVD player.

The via boards have TV out connectors, so he hooks it up to his TV/entertainment system an uses it for DVD playing/ripping, MP3/CD playing/ripping, MAME and several other game elumators, file storage, surfing the internet from on his TV while sitting on his couch with a wireless keyboard, etc...

That's the appeal of small footprint systems to me... the ability to literally build them into extraordinarily small cases, use them as appliances, and still have the majority of the functionality that you would have in a full size system.

Instead of shuttle, look at some VIA mini-itx boards.

With small footprint systems, you can build your own appliances. For example, a friend of mine has a 1ghz via board, 512mb ram, 40gb laptop hard drive, 802.11b wireless, and slimline DVD player... All in a case that is literally the same size as his original DVD player.

The via boards have TV out connectors, so he hooks it up to his TV/entertainment system an uses it for DVD playing/ripping, MP3/CD playing/ripping, MAME and several other game elumators, file storage, surfing the internet from on his TV while sitting on his couch with a wireless keyboard, etc...

That's the appeal of small footprint systems to me... the ability to literally build them into extraordinarily small cases, use them as appliances, and still have the majority of the functionality that you would have in a full size system.

I agree. If you're going to make the PC smaller, design the processor so it runs cooler.

Mini-ITX (Mini-ITX.com) machines are smaller than Shuttles but run cooler. While they can use P4 chips, Via's newer chips (based around the Nehemiah core) are ideal for the small form factor (17cm x 17cm): at 1 GHz, they use only 7 Watts!

Even better, their slower chips (633 MHz for now, soon to be 1 GHz) are designed to work with just a heat-sink - NO FAN!

Even better still, they've designed a newer, smaller chip which will run at speeds starting from 1 GHz which will fit on a motherboard (the Nano-ITX) of only 12cm x 12cm (the same size as a CD!!!).

OK, so they haven't got the sheer processing power of the P4 but they're good enough to do most things (especially with the on-board MPEG-2 decoder, soon-to-be MPEG-4 decoder) and they're even smaller than Shuttles.

I know I sound like a Via marketing droid but you really can't believe one of these Mini-ITX computers until you've seen them. They're SO SMALL! Just wait 'til they release the Nano-ITX :D

Anonymous Coward

Look at Nano ITX. Admitally only 1Ghz Via C3 but cool none the less
Rus

That's what this case is, a concept.

Nice concept! Hopefully it will send out a wake up call to other case manufacturers that heatsinks shouldn't be kept cooped up inside warm cases, they should be outside the box. It's only common sense really - hi-fi amplifiers have used them for years, so why not PCs?

I'd like a 4U rackmount ATX version of the Hush MiniITX case with a single 120mm 1500rpm air-intake fan instead of all the extra heatpipes the Zalman uses (to keep costs down) - just have one heatpipe for the processor (possibly another for the PSU) and use a cool-running graphics card and hard disk; maybe also a quiet 120mm exhaust fan to help cool the other components.

There are cheaper solutions such as Hush ATX and the Hush ITX computers

There are cheaper solutions such as Hush ATX and the Hush ITX computers

I was hoping to use the TV as a monitor in order to reduce the footprint of the device.

One of those old Mac Cubes is the right size, or one of these Mini ITX boxes...

no disk? no monitor? no keyboard?
what's the definition?
as the x86 platform gets smaller and smaller, linux makes perfect sense. Yes you need to read a bit, but you can get console over RS232, boot off Compact Flash, and build a kernel to do what ever you want. Not to mention x86 hardware is cheap.

no disk? no monitor? no keyboard?
what's the definition?
as the x86 platform gets smaller and smaller, linux makes perfect sense. Yes you need to read a bit, but you can get console over RS232, boot off Compact Flash, and build a kernel to do what ever you want. Not to mention x86 hardware is cheap.

No, you cannot run Linux on it. There is all sorts of dedicated hardware inside the OQO that is not available to the general public (e.g. you). It would take months if not years to reverse-engineer all the hardware; and then you would get sued under the DCMA.

I'd recommend a nice Mini-ITX PC. You get to build it yourself, and you can run whatever you want with it.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Pundit

I remember hearing about OQO a long time ago; I was even invited to an early meeting where the prototype was shown. (It looked just like the "machine" they keep trotting out for press photos.)

If they introduced this three years ago, it might have sold. Now, there's the Cappuccino PC, which has been through several revisions since its introduction. Likewise, I can build a Mini-ITX PC for a fraction of the price of this new OQO. Furthermore, I can run any OS I want; this OQO can only run Windows XP. Yuck.

I'm afraid that I can't endorse the OQO. Sorry, guys. Next time don't produce so much vapour.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Miniature Computer Expert

I just noticed the Hush ATX system. It seems to be passively cooled, yet it has a Pentium 4. Presumably they could also build one with an AthlonXP but they don't seem to have one yet.

http://mini-itx.com/store/hush-atx.asp

steveha

won't a P4 system give me better "speed per dollar"?

Actually, an AthlonXP will give the best speed per dollar, since it gets more done in a clock cycle. It's actually pretty close between Athlon and Pentium, but if you add in the cost of the electricity over the life of the computer, the AthlonXP will win.

What I would care about more is a silent and small (think book sized) system. When I say _silent_ (not just almost silent), I mean that it won't need a CPU fan, no power source fan and that it would be based around a 1GB compact flash card.

I have to quibble about the CompactFlash card. It really isn't a very good way to set up your computer: an OS that expects a hard drive will wear out your CompactFlash quickly. If you are willing to run Linux, and you don't put /var or /tmp on the CompactFlash, this could work. (Make /usr and /etc read-only, and maybe make a CRAMFS for /home or something.) But you would be best off just accepting a hard disk; the hard disk is not the source of very much noise. Get one with fluid bearings. For complete silence, just do a net boot, and run your system purely out of RAM.

Note that you really don't need a 1 Gbit ethernet connection; 100 Mbit will be just fine for a net boot config. I used to use UNIX workstations that had NFS mounted directories over 10 Mbit Ethernet and I rarely noticed any speed difference from the local directories. Not that many years ago, a 10 MB/sec drive interface was considered "fast", and 100 Mbit/sec is about as fast as that. I think you will notice a busy CPU more than you will notice the network speed.

As for the rest of what you want, it is possible with a Via C3 today. It will be possible with a Crusoe chip when the Mini-ITX Crusoe boards ship.

I have a serious case of techno-lust for a Hush computer. Look how well it meets your specs, right down to a fanless power supply (it has a transformer "brick" in the power cord). Note that they offer Seagate drives with fluid bearings (quiet) and even 2.5" laptop drives (should be even quieter, but also slower).

http://mini-itx.com/store/hush.asp?currency=2

Directron doesn't carry it, but they might someday. If you live in the USA, let Directron know you want one, please! If you order from mini-itx.com, you need to pay for shipping from England.

http://store.yahoo.com/directron/hushminiitx.html

Check out the other Via C3 options. The Tranquil PC also looks good:

http://mini-itx.com/store/tranquilpc.asp

I have fond memories of the Atari 520ST. Ours had two floppy drives, and no cooling fans at all. It was silent when you weren't typing. I'd like an email/web/writing computer that is silent like that.

steveha

won't a P4 system give me better "speed per dollar"?

Actually, an AthlonXP will give the best speed per dollar, since it gets more done in a clock cycle. It's actually pretty close between Athlon and Pentium, but if you add in the cost of the electricity over the life of the computer, the AthlonXP will win.

What I would care about more is a silent and small (think book sized) system. When I say _silent_ (not just almost silent), I mean that it won't need a CPU fan, no power source fan and that it would be based around a 1GB compact flash card.

I have to quibble about the CompactFlash card. It really isn't a very good way to set up your computer: an OS that expects a hard drive will wear out your CompactFlash quickly. If you are willing to run Linux, and you don't put /var or /tmp on the CompactFlash, this could work. (Make /usr and /etc read-only, and maybe make a CRAMFS for /home or something.) But you would be best off just accepting a hard disk; the hard disk is not the source of very much noise. Get one with fluid bearings. For complete silence, just do a net boot, and run your system purely out of RAM.

Note that you really don't need a 1 Gbit ethernet connection; 100 Mbit will be just fine for a net boot config. I used to use UNIX workstations that had NFS mounted directories over 10 Mbit Ethernet and I rarely noticed any speed difference from the local directories. Not that many years ago, a 10 MB/sec drive interface was considered "fast", and 100 Mbit/sec is about as fast as that. I think you will notice a busy CPU more than you will notice the network speed.

As for the rest of what you want, it is possible with a Via C3 today. It will be possible with a Crusoe chip when the Mini-ITX Crusoe boards ship.

I have a serious case of techno-lust for a Hush computer. Look how well it meets your specs, right down to a fanless power supply (it has a transformer "brick" in the power cord). Note that they offer Seagate drives with fluid bearings (quiet) and even 2.5" laptop drives (should be even quieter, but also slower).

http://mini-itx.com/store/hush.asp?currency=2

Directron doesn't carry it, but they might someday. If you live in the USA, let Directron know you want one, please! If you order from mini-itx.com, you need to pay for shipping from England.

http://store.yahoo.com/directron/hushminiitx.html

Check out the other Via C3 options. The Tranquil PC also looks good:

http://mini-itx.com/store/tranquilpc.asp

I have fond memories of the Atari 520ST. Ours had two floppy drives, and no cooling fans at all. It was silent when you weren't typing. I'd like an email/web/writing computer that is silent like that.

steveha

i suck at teh html. LINK

My bad. I wrote the Mini-ITX news item from which Darth Fredd borrowed the phrase.

If the management speak really bothers you, then I'll make it an Action Item for us to get together and workshop it this week. Deal? ;-)

I'm looking for a very, very small case. Something that would fit a regular sized hard drive, a mini-ITX via board, a slim PSU, and that's it.

My advice is get a mini-ITX integrated mobo from VIA, like maybe this one that I have.

You can put a gig of RAM in it. It's small and quiet. It's not super fast but at 1GHz it's fast enough for most real work. It's got a PCI slot in case you need to add a modem.

If you add a 5400 RPM hard drive and a DVD+-RWCDRWblabla device and a low-power LCD monitor, you should be good to go for a proper desktop system with low power.

If I recall correctly the chip on that mobo draws something like 24W at full load.

You can even get an external power supply to help protect your wooded silence. Don't know much about electronics, but the external PS would probably be a good start if you want to hook it up to your alternative power source directly.

You can buy complete systems, or parts, or just learn a lot about the mini-ITX world and what people do with the computers, over at mini-itx.com.

I sometimes go live in a very small town in the mountains, not as remote as what you're talking about but still- noise is a much bigger factor when it's competing with the sound of the river than when it's competing with the sound of cars.

Good luck.

I generally agree with the advice in favor of laptops. However, if you are strapped for cash, look at the mini ITX form factor systems. I've just put one together around a Via Epia M mobo for about $400. It has a 60 watt power supply and will also run on 12V DC. See http://www.mini-itx.com/ for more information.

Mini-ITX Pros:
--PC-ish prices (mb & 1ghz cpu = $100)
--uses standard PC ram
--has standard PCI & AGP slots
--consumes less than 100w

Mini-ITX Cons:
--Can't go past 1ghz (currently), so if you absolutely must have 2ghz while talkin' to the trees you're gonna need a laptop

So basically it boils down to how much you want to spend?

Want to save a few hundred bucks and can live with 1ghz? Get Mini-ITX.

Absolutely must have 2ghz, a video card you can never upgrade, and have a grand or two burning a hole in your pocket? Get a laptop.

you might want to look at a mini-itx system. These units draw stupidly small amounts of power, but also aren't high horsepower machines.

I suggest that you build a Mini-ITX Based computer. These little 17x17 cm boards are incredible when it comes to power usage, and with a price of around $150 for a 1GHZ board (CPU attached), it might aswell be worth it. The normal usage of such a machine is around 55w.
Just don't build in any cd rom drives, you'll probably do fine with nothing but the board, a power supply, 256 or 512 megs of RAM, and a IDE or laptop harddisk.

You can also make a really cool looking case Check it out!

If you are considering the mini, have you considered using a mini-ITX board? I'm currently using one in my computer which i have built into a modded Game Boy Advance gaming case. It's quite small, in fact, it's sitting on my bookshelf in my bedroom. Just an idea.

There are many different alternatives. Yes, using a laptop is much more power-efficient, and you can get yourself power-adapters to convert DC to DC current to charge your laptop from a 12v battery car.

However, there is also a Mini-ITX form-factor system, to which you can find cases with built-in DC switching power supplies.

I think the solution is to stay native to DC current, and then convert as you see fit. So, all you need to have is a set of car batteries, connected to solar panels (for charging purposes), and you set-up some sort of power distribution & management system.

and I clicked on the link assuming that you had decorated a Mac cube, maybe like a gingerbread houes or something.

You mean like the Gingerbread Lan!

How about a developer nano-ITX board?

Or, for those of you who don't have root access at VIA, how about a biometric flash drive? A decent smartphone? How about a working LCD display, with all the wiring pre-done please.

Someone actually built a Windows XP box.

Jesus, what a great time to be alive.

read through the projects section on mini-itx, there's some great cases, and the best ideas get picked up and made into products. Hush PC makes some nice ones, for instance.

One of the nice things about mini-itx is that its cheap enough that you can rethink decisions. For instance, I spent around $360 on this project ( http://www.monkeynoodle.org/comp/chihiro), $30 of which was the case and shipping for the case. It's okay, but I'm thinking about a better case setup already. If and when I move it into a better case, I'll be out $30, not the hundred or so that a full-tower case costs, and I'll have a few dinky scraps of plexiglass to dispose of, not a massive metal box.

If the dang things had decent Linux video support, I'd buy a ton more of them. As soon as the XFree86 project has the drivers stabilized, look for VIA's stock price to jump :-)

There can't be a lot of those machine around. And a new Mini ITX machine can be ahd for under $200, is more powerful, more featureful, and has far more software available for it.

There are some fantastic looking STB-style PCs someone else pointed out here and they look perfect for installing MythTV as discussed here. I'm put off by the comments posted next to the parent of this comment by talk of reliability and difficulty of installing Linux. Does anyone else have any experience of these boards, and especially installing Gentoo on it?

Thanks,

Phillip.

Some really nifty quiet machines at nOrhTec. Their MicroServers are smaller than any cable modems I've seen.

Lots of small (but bigger than the MicroServer), low power machines at Mini-ITX

The noise level and power usage are also key for this machine. Of course, there are other fanless machines, many of them much cheaper than this one. (Note: Not all of the machines at that site are fanless, but many are, check out the Tranquil PC and the Hush). (Also Note: Fanless doesn't equal silent, you still get drive noise and monitor whine, unless you replace those with solid state components)

You can check over at http://www.mini-itx.com, that's the sort of stuff discussed. But you don't necessarily need MiniITX, you can also go with a MicroATX board and case, they're quite small too and cheaper. A 1.6GHz Duron is around $40 and should work fine with MythTV, plus you can overclock the hell out of it.

Well, the passive cooled Via mini-ITX and nano-ITX mother boards are there but the power supplies for them aren't there yet.

Yes it is!

If you buy a Mini-ITX case, most have a silent power supply included.

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!

If you need USB, audio and video, just build a mini-itx computer. Cheap, small, and it's a fully functioning computer. The VIA EPIA 5000 is only 7 by 7 inches, pretty small, while it's bigger counterpart is still only a few inches bigger. Plus, you can get small cases, fairly cheap memory, optical drives like CD burners, DVD, etc, thin versions of the optical drives, hard drives, and more. If you need so much functionality, then mini-itx is better.


If you're concerned about paying SCO's license fees ($32 for embedded devices, $699 for single CPU's), don't worry: that offer expired October 1. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, buddy!