Shuttle's Tiny PC Reviewed

PhantomHarlock writes "VIAHardware posted a review of a great miniature PC desktop system from Shuttle, the motherboard manufacturer. It's a tiny aluminum case with a floppy bay and one 5 1/4 bay. It uses Shuttle's FV24 mobo, one of the smallest on the market. The motherboard has built in video (with S-Video out), audio, 10/100 Ethernet, USB and dual firewire ports. " Might be a nifty device to use as a stereo component with that S-Video out.

Comments

LCD display for added fun

[Boiotos]

That hd bay could also be used for a Matrix Orbital PC Bay Insert LCD display if you think this would make a great component for a linux stereo or video system. MO inludes a page of customer hacks whose content should further inspire your digital muse.

Re:Use ideas

[Foochar]

To be "Tivo-like" you don't need just TV-Out you need TV-In. And half of what makes the tivo so cool is the service. I can tell it to record a show and I don't have to worry about them changing the night it is on, or running a long episode. Yeah, things like Bush deciding to give a press conference will still cause a problem but no more then it would a VCR.

I bought the motherboard, then sent it back.

[krafter]

I bought the FV24 motherboard a few months ago. It is truly an amazing little board with tons of features packed into it.

I planned on using the motherboard to create a mp3 player I could put in my stereo rack. I put a 60gig ATA100 drive in the machine, a 466 Celeron and 256mb of memory. I didn't add any cards to the machine because everything I needed was on the motherboard.

I also had a USB audio device from Onkyo, the SE-U55, which I was going to use so that I could connect the output to the optical input on my receiver.

I installed Win2k on the machine, I know because of that I won't get much sympathy here on slashdot.

The first problem I had was that the sound coming out of the onboard audio device was garbage. Mp3s played fine but sounded distorted. I tried many other sources of audio and everything was coming out distorted.

I figured it was just bad on board audio so I switched to the USB audio device and it also sounded distorted.

I then tested everything using my Compaq E500 laptop and it sounded great so I knew it was the hardware.

I did some research and found that the southbridge on the motherboard was in the family of VIA chipsets that seemed to be causing problems for other people. I tried new drivers and every hint I could find online but nothing seemed to work.

I bought a different motherboard with a non-via chipset and everything has been great since. I miss the small size of the FV24 but I don't miss the unusable audio.

Chris (krafter@zilla.net)

Re:Windows XP dumb terminal

[Locutus]

I will counter your trollosity by pointing out the wonderful feature of X windows where I can throw remote windows around with a simple command line argument. Its neat having 30 some-odd machines put their load monitors up on one desktop.

True. But can't you do that with an X Server on Windows instead? That way, you can run thousands more applications than you can with Linux alone.

Ahh, now we see what flutters in this guys head. Doh. Grasshopper, an X-Server is meerly a display server and only shows that which is generated elsewhere. Surely one could have an X-Server running on a MCWindows machine and have all those powerful Linux machines ( or Solaris, etc ) sending displays to it. But every MCWindows crash would require you to resend all those displays again.
You see, Grasshopper, how the power of the many can be maintained and controlled by the few in the *nix world. The power of the many in the MCWindows world requires many to maintain and control. ;/

LoB

Re:DIY dvd player anyone?

[brunes69]

Question... Why would you spend 5x the cost of a store bought DVD player to build on yourself that s largr, uses more power, looks worse, and (without the 5.1 audio) sounds worse ?

Is is just me?

[dwk123]

Okay, these things aren't beautiful, but I don't find them as ugly as most. Not compared to the average case, anyway. Paint the front black and stick it behind a smoked glass door, and you're in business. There are three things that this has above the Cappucino - pci slot - firewire - cost This is the best candidate so far for my dedicated audio box. Might not be ideal, but better than anything I've seen so far. If it's as quiet as it looks like it should be, we may have a winner.

Apple's Cube

[Migelikor1]

The last really big effort to sell a teensy weensy computer was the G3 cube, and they discovered that there's just not enough of a market to support it. People aren't worried enough about desktop space to make the compromises inherent in a smaller case. Now, I think that the little machines are cute, but it's a little ridiculous to think that pure cute can sell...you need some muscle or a good hook (iMac's integration, G4's power), not just a little tissue box.