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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
What the hell do you think an Epia CL-10000 Dual Lan is ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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