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Mobo for Vertically Challenged Devices
An anonymous reader writes "VIA is shipping an ultra-low profile mini-ITX mainboard suitable for flat TVs, LCD-panel computers, and other vertically challenged devices. The Epia MS uses a minimalistic I/O backplate and SODIMM memory for a slimmer form-factor, and is VIA's first mini-ITX board available with a fanless 1GHz Eden embedded processor. The board has several processor options, but they all include the PadLock Ace hardware RNG and AES encrypt/decrypt features that are now supported by the Linux and BSD kernels."
For a board that concentrates on being thin, I find it surprising that that dimension isn't listed. It's not on Via's product listing for this board and it's not in the user's manual (pdf).
Visually, i'm guessing that it is thicker than the 0.75" base of my PowerBook, but I'd like to know the real size...
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
This would be an excellent board for a quiet mini-system. Toss in something like a thumb drive or whatever and it would stay quiet. BTW Toms hardware said they will sell for around $180 too, which is pretty reasonable.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Besides, the MS is a passively cooled 1GHz processor that performs as well as a 200 GHz pentium. The only thing these EPIA boards are good for is data encryption/decryption. Home users want the kind of power that will decode an Mpeg-4 stream smoothly.
I must admit, the VIA boards/procs severely beat even a 2.4 pentium (and up) and the 32bit XP processors when it comes to data encrypt/decrypt
What the hell do you think an Epia CL-10000 Dual Lan is ?
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_cl_spec.jsp? motherboardId=181
Epia CL
I think they do listen.
You mean something like the Cubit or the T-Cube (a little down the page in orange) with a monitor slapped on? Been done. Many times.
The CPU is barely equivalent to a Celeron 600, the video quality (s-video) is quite low, the control panel (Windows, sorry) for the surround sound is brain-damaged, and the tiny fan is much noiser than one would expect.
That board does not come with any sort of hardware monitor app, and I had to replace the CPU fan with a larger, slower one to cut down the noise to the originally promised "whisper" level.
Not a bad board, but if fails to meet any of the expectations it sets in its specs. Make sure to read the hardware reviews, and buy from a seller with a money-back guarantee.
umm, I've already got two...
What with the aes padlock
From VIA:
PadLock ACE provides world-class performance for the US government approved Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), performing cryptographic functions for securing e-mails, personal files, online transactions, and networks, including the latest high-bandwidth 802.11g wireless networks. PadLock ACE encrypts at rates of up to 12.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) with a 1GHz VIA C3 processor, more than eight times faster than the best software AES implementation from a power hungry 3GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 processor based system that encrypts at a rate of a mere 1.5 Gbps.
does the chip have a FPU?
Of course. It also has SSE instruction compatability and a 16 stage pipeline.
It may come as a surprise to some, but there's quite a lot of interest in very small and very quiet PCs. Just check out this site as a for instance. And there's also this review on Tom's Hardware site.
I think they mean the height of the board if it was placed horizontally. Stuff like the CPU heat sink and fan makes it pretty high then. If the board was placed vertically in a flat screen TV the TV would have to be thicker because of that.
See either chapter 2 of the manual or the paragraph below the second photo of the motherboard on the Linuxdevices article: The Epia MS is the first VIA mainboard available with the fanless 1GHz VIA Eden ESP processor announced last February. The board is also available with a fanless 800MHz VIA Eden ESP processor, or with a "fansink" equipped 1.2GHz VIA C3.
You need to read the article instead of just looking at the pictures. If you put in an Eden processor, the board is fanless. If you put in a C3 processor, you get the "fansink". The photos in the Linuxdevices article is of the C3 processor model.
Great idea, but I'd want to see some serious validation of the claim that their RNG is 'quantum' based.
In fact, looking at the report on the RNG operation (Paid for by Via) here's how it works:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/viac3/via_c3_padlock_eval uation.pdf "3.1. Entropy Source
The RNG hardware comprises two parts: a raw-bit generator that serves as an entropy
source and digital post-processing circuitry. The raw-bit generator produces somewhat
random bits which the design assumes will have imperfect statistical properties. The
post-processing circuitry then uses .whitening. and bit discarding to improve the
statistical properties of the imperfect random bits. .... "
The paper concludes that the VIA RNG is well suited, but says *nothing* about it's being 'quantum' based.
Sounds like some marketdroid really didn't talk to the engineering people before writing the ad copy for this puppy.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
what do you think they did with this one? nic and video only, everything else is a pin header take a look at some of the older boards, everything was onboard, that took one entire side and was a little taller than the HS is on this one
RTFA, there is a version that doesn't need a fan, the 800 Mhz one, you only need a fan if you get the 1.2 Ghz processor.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Quantum Mechanism
The only truly random generator is a mechanism that detects quantum behavior at the sub-atomic level. This is because randomness is inherent in the behavior of sub-atomic particles.
A quantum based hardware generator is practical, with examples that have been used including:
The charge developed on a capacitor during a particular time period.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I think the more important question about this motherboard (rather than the RNG) is the Video Controller. You can live without a properly configured RNG, but given that the kernel support for the CLE266 that came with the earlier EPIA boards is still little more than token, I would suspect not much will be different here.
... you'll see what I'm talking about:6
The DRM support is non-existant, and the X drivers are always so old that they prevent you from using Gentoo. At least NVidia's graphics drivers work (because of the OSS adapter module), but the CLE266 ones are dreadful.
This has latest supported distros
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=325#cle26
After owning the EPIA boards for 2 years, I've given up trying to get X to work with the VIA drivers, and gone back to console only or VESA X11 driver - which means movies are not really an option. Kinda pointless really isn't it ?
Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone