Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Via Debuts Smallest PC Mobo Format Yet

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Via is readying a media-oriented motherboard in what could be the next popular size for small form-factor PCs: Pico-ITX. The 'Epia PX' board measures 3.9 x 2.8 inches and features a 1GHz C7 processor, along with rich audio/video I/O, albeit mostly on pin headers. Pico-ITX measures 3.9 x 2.8 inches (10 x 7.2 cm) — exactly half the surface area of Via's already small 4.7 x 4.7-inch (12 x 12cm) Nano-ITX standard, and considerably smaller than the original 6.7-inch square (17 x 17cm) mini-ITX standard."

8 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Still ATX power supply? by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is something I don't understand. This should be the ideal motherboard for a Car PC. But this board yet again insists on an ATX power supply.
    Nope, it insists on an ATX format power plug. Surely you don't imagine that there are no small and 12V input-capable power supplies out there?
    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  2. Re:Still ATX power supply? by cazzazullu · · Score: 4, Informative

    I got me one of these for my via epia board. It plugs right into the power connector, is barely bigger than the connector itself, and runs from 12V DC. My Epia now runs for several hours on a small lead acid battery. Also perfectly fit for use in cars I guess...

    --
    int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
  3. Via hw is excellent by dozer · · Score: 4, Informative

    But their drivers are utter crap. I've owned a couple micro-ITXes and none of them ran well, either Linux or Windows. Via just says things like, "well, try not to DMA much." Or quietly push out a bugfix bios three years late. They claim that many of their drivers are open source and then steadfastly refuse to release source. Fiona, just because you promise to release source in 4 months, that doesn't mean you can claim they're open source today. And really, given Via's abysmal past performance at opening source (no a shim plus a binary blob is NOT open), I wouldn't hold my breath.

    I'll never buy Via again, no matter how small they make their boards. It's a crying shame because, really, their hardware is just gorgeous.

    1. Re:Via hw is excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
      Via just says things like, "well, try not to DMA much."

      I wish they did. For a high-tech project, we decided on embedding VIA Mini-ITX motherboards. The one we picked (pressured for lowest COGS) had a C3 and a VT8235 south bridge. We ran into very weird USB and PCI communication problems, and spent almost a man year in total on trying to fix our software. It turns out that the south bridge is the problem. On the VIA Arena forums, this turned out to be a known problem (google for "VT8235 lockup"), mostly apparent when generating heavy network traffic. The "driver fixes" for Windows turn out just to throttle the network traffic.

      Officially, our VIA representative still hasn't acknowlegded this problem, and we were ready to switch to a different, more "industrial" mobo. We still picked a VIA one though (with a C7 and a 8237) because frankly, their prices are hard to beat.

      If you are considering a VIA mobo for an embedded application, make sure you test, test, test and don't automatically blame the SW guys when you find something weird. Don't let the fact that this is "consumer electronics" fool you. We figured that this meant cheap, well-tested, large series hardware with ppm failure rates. Apparently, that's not always the case.

  4. Sounds like a (winding) upgrade path by denttford · · Score: 2, Informative

    You know, I love the format and ruggedness of my CF-M34, but the performance kind of sucks. Since all I really want is the case, perhaps this is a solution - albeit one requiring a bit of hardware hacking.

    --

    Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
  5. Re:Still ATX power supply? by dan+the+person · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nope, it insists on an ATX format power plug.

    Exactly.

    Lookout for pico PSUs if you want something small.

    This one is DC-DC and takes up barely more space than the atx connector itself.

    http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f?sc=8&c ategory=13

  6. Re:Still not impressed by DaveCar · · Score: 4, Informative


    May not be quite the same thing, but you can get a Jetway 1.5GHz C7D (http://linitx.com/product_info.php?cPath=12_138&p roducts_id=1044) for just under £100.

    It's no speed demon, takes just over twice as long to encode an ogg as my 2GHz P4 for example, and even with the openchrome drivers under Linux, window redraws etc are dog slow. Plays video fine though, and 3D graphics appear to work.

    It's pretty usable as a desktop - gnome, openoffice all work OK, and the only really noticable thing is when you draw a window you get a trail as mentioned above.

  7. Re:Via's History by Wdomburg · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, that's what they mean. All of the EPIA boards have MPEG-2 decode and scaling in the north bridge.