The Incredible Shrinking Motherboard

DrGonzo was among several who submitted news of the new Mini Motherboard from via. The Mini ITX standard is just 170mm squared, and this motherboard has audio, ether, IDE, video and tv out. Not bad for something so tiny. Here's an article about the small wonder.

Comments

Heatsink? What Heatsink

[baptiste]

Anyone notice how the CPU in the pictures says 'Fan/Heatsink Required' yet there are no apparent mounting mechanisms for them? Guess you could use an adhesive heatsink - but I'd rather not! Ah OK - they've got two screw holes - but they don't seem to be in the usual spots? I guess VIA will ship a heatsink with this baby too? Site doesn't seem to mention it

Perfect for "hidden" home systems.

[MajroMax]

The summary failed to mention that there's a 10/100 ethernet card built into the board, and a PCI slot to boot, making the board useful for things beyond simple embedded systems.

Although I wouldn't use it as a desktop system (although perhaps for non-techies...), something like this might be perfect for small network-access terminals of the kind used in stores and universities. Even in the home, something like this might be good as a stereo-system replacement (using the PCI slot for a decent soundcard, vs. integrated sound).

Are there any cases that would work decently with this design, though, or would something have to be custom-built?

This mobo is just begging for a beowulf cluster mention, but I suspect that the release price will make conventional solutions less expensive for quite some time.

Re:Perfect for "hidden" home systems.

[adolf]

Also perfect for in-car systems.

Low-power, low-cost, very small, and very few electrical connections to worry about. Also plenty fast enough for anything you'd ever need to do while driving on the highway.

All it takes is a handfull of regular PC parts, some manner of enclosure, and a reliable power supply. The whole thing should end up being small enough to fit under the front seat, which is nice for a variety of reasons (not the least of which that it is climate controlled).

I envision a plain steel box, perhaps from a company like Sescom, or just whatever I can find at a local surplus house. It doesn't have to be easily modified, only solid.

Does anyone know of a source for an appropriate power supply, or a kit, or even just plans for one?

-

Supports 2 PCI cards?

[cybergibbons]

Just before the site got completely /.ed , I saw that it said that it could support 2 pci cards, but only one slot? Is this some form of riser card arrangement? Did anyone see it before it stopped working?

What do you need PCI for?

[BLKMGK]

Its got quite a bit of onboard I/O on it already. AGP video, sound and ethernet have been taken care of as has TV out. What would you use the PCI slot for other than maybe a modem or second NIC? This isn't meant to be a mainstream gaming machine or desktop box... However at the price they've quoted I'd bet it would work well as a portable MP3 box for the car or whatnot. It's ogt lot's of possibilities IMO. Maybe slap a wireless card in it and go wardriving with it? :-)

P.s. Looks like one of the optional modules was a cable for a "2nd PCI device" so perhaps it's more flexible than you realized?

Thanks, but no.

[Bonker]

From the video specs:

* Integrated Macro Vision 7.01

Macrovision is a feature on just about every TV-out card you can buy today. This means that you cannot do any of the following without macrovision interference:

- Tape a video game. Sure, who would do this without being a complete gamer luzer. I can think of a few reasons to tape video game play. The one that comes to mind most readily are the occasional tournaments that happen on the MMORPG's and Shooters. Wouldn't you like to have a permanent record if you were the victor or a high ranker in such a tournament?

- Produce your own video to tape. You produce an original video, but you can't tape it without interference patterns or light noise. This doesn't even aid the hollywood studios, other than cutting potential amature video producers out of the loop. Mostly it just aids producers of high-end video hardware which gives the user control on the kind of output and copyprotection he wants on his stuff.

- Reproduce non-copyrighted or grey-area video. Anime fansubs are very rapidly becoming an all-online phenominon. Non-english anime videos are recorded from TV or other sources, subtitled, and then distributed for free in areas where that video is not otherwise available. Suppose you wanted to share such a video with someone who doesn't have a computer and can't play back Divx files? Unless you have a way to bypass macrovision, you're SOL.

- Play DVD's from your computer's DVD player on your TV. If you had a perfectly good Computer DVD setup and TV out device, why should you bother buying a separate standalone DVD player? Ease and convenience, sure, but many who don't care or are trying to save money, this is an extra expense.

Until I can get a video-out card that doesn't have macrovision enabled, I'm sticking with my pre-macrovision Matrox PCI card for TV out purposes.

Smaller Still

[guamman]

I bought a smaller motherboard from Freetech a while ago with everything, and I mean everything, on board. It will take any PIII processsor and even includes firewire. The dimensions are about 150mm square. If anyone is interested, you have to buy it from Freetech directly, in Japan. Fortunately, VISA gives great exchange rates from dollars to yen. Check out this for more info.

Smaller boards with the same features

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay the boards I list below are OLD NEWS. I've owned a PC-2553 for over a year, and a friend of mine picked up the PCM-5822 long before that.

http://www.lannerinc.com/pc-2553.htm
size: 90 x 96 mm

http://www.advantech.com/products/PCM-5822.asp
size: 145 x 102 mm

Re:Heatsink? What Heatsink

[Svartalf]

Screwholes those aren't- they're those plastic rivets like you see on some of the earlier fansink setups on display cards. Also of note, the info on the chip says "Fan/Heatsink Required", but this beastie is just perfectly happy with a properly sized passive sink. I've seen boards with this CPU (with slightly different parts choices for ethernet and sound) that have this nifty gold colored heatsink that extends only about 3/8-1/2 of an inch above the chip- and they work very well.

The Shuttle FV-24 is MUCH better

[Akardam]

(Specs here)

This thing has PS/2, video, audio, 2 USB, 2 firewire, an expantion slot (PCI), takes up to a 1100MHz S370 CPU, and a gig of ram.

Contrast this to the mobo from the story, which has an integrated CPU (yuck!, plus it's a Cyrix based, double-yuck!) and no firewire.

I'm using the FV-24 for a project of mine and am VERY happy with it. Plus, it was only about 150USD retail, and it's already out there, available.

iMac mobo spanks it!

[Refrag]

The iMac mobo is small and circular! Beat that!

Re:Will serial/parallel ever die ?!?

[PhotoGuy]

Could easily be smaller if they got rid of the serial and parallel i/o. Ps/2 needs to go too! There's enough usb stuff out there that something like this shoudln't need them.

I haven't used serial/parallel/ps2 in over a year at least. Disable them all in the bios to save interupts.

Hey, this is Slashdot, and a lot of people here use Linux :-) USB support for Linux devices isn't exactly, ahem, what I'd call "universal" yet.

One of the biggest disadvantages to the latest breed of laptops, IMO, is the lack of built-in serial (and to a lesser extent parallel) ports. Switches, filers, servers, and many other devices still have serial consoles these days, and for a lot of embedded purposes, serial is even more useful.

One smart approach to get the best of both worlds is to just have jumpers or other small connectors on the motherboard, to allow people to wire up a serial/parallel port if they wish, but they don't take up much space if you choose to ignore them.

PowerLeap's Renaissance product does just that, and while it's designed to use your existing motherboard (as just a benign card holder, with no power to it), and hook up to your existing power supply, it could rock as a single board computer, giving the Mini ITX a run for it's money size-wise.

-me

Re:Cheap book PCs?

[Com2Kid]

Dude, this includes Proccessor NIC and Video Card.

Hell, for a $50 case + PS combo (ok likely A LOT more expensive for a limited market like this product) and a $30 wirelss Keyboard Mouse combo from A4Tech I would be set.

Oooh yaaah.

Hehe, it already comes with TV out too.

INSANLY cool.

I am thinking Digital VCR here folks. :) Especialy if you outfit it with some sort of hot swappable IDE Hard Drive system, LOL!

Hehe, actualy with Flash Memory cards approuching (at as I recall) 1GigaByte now days, hmm, hehe! The MoBo has build in compatability with Flash Memory from what I can tell, LOL! Though some sort of internal mount USB unit could be used as well with a port for the Flash memory to fit into.

Hehe!!!!! Digital VCR! MPEG4 video, w00t w00t! :)

Man that would rock, though using Flash Memory would compleatly negate any sort of cost savings, LOL!

Still be pretty nice to have a 120GB or so drive installed in this baby and use it to go around with your movie collection sitting in something that you can almost carry in a small backpack, LOL!