Are any Celeron 1037U Motherboards actually available?

[nForce2]

Here's another variation on the same case design, the Atom N270-based QOTOM -T27C:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro...i-thin-client-computer/108231_1341036104.html

It's a bit hard to see, but you can tell that the bottom panel of this one is a thicker ribbed heatsink, not the smooth bottom of the T30.

 

[nForce2]

Not sure if this motherboard (the T1037G-P) has already been posted, but here is a nice visual demonstration of how a compact Thin Mini-ITX system can be laid out.

http://www.herogate.com/index.php/taobao/view/id/16550464508

Another version of the same motherboard:
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=19291698504

 

[nForce2]

Another fanless system: the Haxun Technology / PesComm IPC200-D2550

http://lydia0.en.ec21.com/Fanless_Industry_PC--7232523_7251258.html

This one must be a full-size Mini-ITX motherboard, as the external dimensions are 210mm x 188mm x 56mm. It has a wide-range DC input (8V~28V).

 

[nForce2]

One more to keep an eye on: the Quanmax QDSP-1000 and QDSP-1001

http://www.quanmax.com/en/products-detail.php?num=125
http://www.quanmax.com/~quanmax/cmsAdmin/uploads/qdsp-1000_20130802.pdf

Note that it has three digital display outputs- two DisplayPort, and one HDMI! It also has dual gigabit ethernet.

The dimensions are 130mm x 111mm x 35mm, so it is quite a bit smaller than the T30 (205mm x 140mm x 40mm)... and even just a bit smaller than the Qotom-Q100 (138mm x 124mm x 34mm). It's larger than the BRIX (114.6mm 107.9mm x 29.9mm), but this Quanmax has space for a 2.5" drive inside the case. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[nForce2]

The Quanmax QutePC-4001 looks to be the exact same machine, but in a more rounded plastic case instead of the squared off aluminum case.
Dimensions are: 130mm x 116mm x 39mm

http://www.quanmax.com.cn/~quanmax/en/products-detail.php?num=124
http://www.quanmax.com.cn/~quanmax/cmsAdmin/uploads/qutepc-4000_20130702.pdf

Note that for all of these Quanmax products, the same cases are used across several products (the 1037U version being the low-end product), and the product photos are for the "series" and show the higher-end models. So despite the blue connectors and "USB SS" logos, there are no USB 3 ports on the 1037U models. :\

 

[nForce2]

For what it's worth, I sent an inquiry to the sales department of Quanmax, requesting availability/pricing information as well as photos with the case cover removed if possible, for all three of the models I listed above. I'll let you know what they say. :thumbsup:

 

[nForce2]

It looks like a seller in Canada is now selling the Qotom T30:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321222951660

$232.96 (US $) plus shipping.


There is also a catch in the description:

"This is a new product and it is not in stock at this time.
Please contact me if you are interested."

... and the delivery estimate (to the USA) is between November 25 and December 3. So I suspect this seller would just be a middle-man, purchasing it from China when they receive an eBay order, and re-shipping it on to you when they receive it. No thanks. :whiste:

 

[cbn]

It looks like a seller in Canada is now selling the Qotom T30:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321222951660

$232.96 (US $) plus shipping.


There is also a catch in the description:


... and the delivery estimate (to the USA) is between November 25 and December 3. So I suspect this seller would just be a middle-man, purchasing it from China when they receive an eBay order, and re-shipping it on to you when they receive it. No thanks. :whiste:

$232.96 + shipping for a Qotom-T30 with no RAM, no SSD and no Wifi card is pretty darn expensive when any of us could just buy direct from Aliexpress for $165.95 shipped (with 2GB RAM and 8 GB SSD included)

Also notice this:

Returns: No returns or exchanges, but item is covered by eBay Buyer Protection

P.S. I put in a pricing request to "Sally" (Moding Xu at Qotom) a few days ago to see how much the options are . In her first email to me she said the msata brand was Qotom and the memory is OEM from Taiwan. She said I could upgrade to V-color brand RAM for $6.00 more. I am still waiting to find out some more information including:

1. The type of controller used in the Qotom house brand mSATA SSD
2. How much it would cost to upgrade mSATA to 16GB, 32GB, 64GB?
3. Price of optional 150 Mbps Wifi card.
4. Does my location of California qualify for a shipping cost reduction.

 

[nForce2]

P.S. I put in a pricing request to "Sally" (Moding Xu at Qotom) a few days ago to see how much the options are.

:thumbsup:

I'm leaning towards the T30 for myself. I think my ideal machine would have room for an internal drive, the single-voltage DC power input, HDMI + DisplayPort, dual-channel RAM, USB 3.0, internal PCI-Express or mini-PCIe, ability to run fanless (either as-is, or by swapping heatsinks), dual ethernet, and as small of a case as possible.

More and more are popping up each day, but so far nothing meets all of those criteria. They are getting close though. :thumbsup:


The Quanmax boxes that I found earlier are definitely appealing. But I'm also thinking about getting the T30, and cutting a slot to mount a slot-loading DVD drive inside it, since it has the space. :hmm: The BRIX is also very appealing, as it isn't any more expensive than these other options, and is the smallest. Plus it is available from a USA seller. But the BRIX is just so limited for expansion... :\ Knowing that I will always be chained to a USB hub and a USB hard drive kind of kills the "small size" benefit.

 

[nForce2]

A new one: the Kongine KQ-SBC29 and KQ-SBC29L

http://www.kongine.com/Product.aspx?parentid=14&pid=45

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Well that's a sexy mess of expansion options.

 

[nForce2]

Well that's a sexy mess of expansion options.

:biggrin:

8x USB 2.0
5x RS232
1x RS232/RS485
1x mini-PCIe
1x SIM card slot for mini-PCIe 3G
VGA, HDMI, LVDS
PS/2
12W audio amplifier
headphone, mic ports
2x Gigabit Ethernet
2x SATA + 1x mSATA
12V DC
12V ATX


Basically, it's the complete opposite of the BRIX. :biggrin:

 

[nForce2]

1037U-based iMac clones:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=19619879514

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=26693672813

 

[nForce2]

A 1037U-based Mac Mini clone:


http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=15015299307

 

[nForce2]

... and another:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=25695480916

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Well... yeah. That does happen.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Got my D70S-P in the mail today. There will be info later.

But this looks weird. I think my motherboard may be an undocumented immigrant. I guess I'm SOL for an RMA.

 

[nForce2]

Got my D70S-P in the mail today. There will be info later.

But this looks weird. I think my motherboard may be an undocumented immigrant. I guess I'm SOL for an RMA.

Congrats! Let us know what you think of it! Who did you order it through?

That "China Market Only" page looks like the same thing that 86waterpumper's Foxconn came with:

Ok got it in finally. Packaging and included items were about as expected although I was surprised to see a full sized cd. Alot don't even come with that anymore they want you to download drivers off their website. Two sata cables, backing plate, quick reference guide etc. I am not sure what the "china only market" sheet is about

that piece of paper for China market only is the declaration of warranty coverage, it basically says that buyer needs to register their product before any warranty service/exchange whatsoever.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Congrats! Let us know what you think of it! Who did you order it through?

Amazon / Fusion Imports. Came from Tempe, CA.

That "China Market Only" page looks like the same thing that 86waterpumper's Foxconn came with:

Ah, okay.

 

[nForce2]

That being said, I wonder what the warranty availability is for those outside of China?

In other words, is the "China Market Only" page just informational for the steps to take if you are in China, or does it also imply that the warranty is not available outside of China?

 

[nForce2]

In the I-37C, the motherboard has the heat producing chips on the bottom, and is then installed upside-down into the chassis (which is the top and sides). The bottom cover is just a flat plate, with nothing attached to it other than a 2.5" drive.

I found some more pictures of this one, with the SSD, RAM, and WiFi card in place:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=22548759759

 

[cbn]

Interesting. So are those Habey systems mostly empty inside then? I wonder why they made them so tall?

It also looks like these must require *extremely* high precision in the manufacturing process... as there are two separate thermal interfaces in the heat path, for both the CPU and the bridge chip, and everything is rigidly mounted. So if the top cover is too far away from the motherboard, then there could be a gap between those cylinders and the bottom of the cover, preventing heat transfer. Likewise, if the top cover is too close, then it will put pressure directly on the chips.

http://www.fanlesstech.com/2012/08/habey-bis-6763-review.html

It looks like Habey is using a generous amount of thermal paste on the pillars to help compensate for variation in tolerances:

The reviewer did have good things to say about the cooling (Habey BIS-6763, Core i3-2367M) though:

The cooling system is amazing. Two large circular aluminum heatsinks connect the CPU and chipset to the ribbed case (thermal paste is pre-applied, see picture). The system idles at 26°C over ambient, and up to 38°C at full load. We tried a premium thermal compound (Noctua NT-H1) for a modest but still significant 1 to 4 °C gain. We know that 54°C at idle is perftecly fine, but we sure would like to see lower temperatures in the fanless world.

This other review of Habey BIS-6761 (Celeron 857) got higher temperatures:


http://unconventionalmoney.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/review-of-habey-bis-6761-fanless-pc/

An Atom-based PC would not be able to handle the demands of HD streaming with Flash or Silverlight. There are no set-top-box-type media streamers that can handle Silverlight either. The integrated HD Graphics core provided by this PC’s Celeron 857 is up to the task though. The cost is about 40 degrees of temperature swing from idle (45 deg C) to HD streaming load of about 70% (85 deg C). This temperature delta is likely to shorten the life of the components, and the motherboard. But the motherboard is industrial grade and the solid-state components in an SSD may withstand the heat well also.

At Hulu, processor utilization, with hardware acceleration, was up to 91%. Processor core temperatures rose to 83 deg C. The system temp rose to 78 deg C. The hard drive, in a separate chamber under the processor, remained 49 deg C. Even at these high temperatures, the processor did not throttle, or otherwise degrade the smooth HD graphics.

At Hulu I was using Flash integrated in Chrome. At Netflix, I was using Silverlight. The processor utilization with Silverlight was lower, just a max of 63%. The quality appeared to be slightly lower also. Processor temperature was 88 and system temperature 83, building on the Hulu movie before.That is starting to be serious heat. Pausing the movie for a minute brings the system temp back to 65 and the processor cores to 70, so the heat, while high, dissipates rapidly.

It looks the the first reviewer got a swing of 12 degrees C (38-26= 12) swing from idle to load.

The second review claims a swing of 40 degrees C from idle to 70% load. (with a weaker Sandy Bridge CPU nonetheless)

So yeah, that is pretty big difference in results. I'm not sure what is going on here? How much of that difference is due to variation of tolerances vs. testing methodolgy? How long was the processor tested under load by Fanless tech? Was it a short duration under load to get that 12 degree swing from idle to full load?

 

[nForce2]

http://www.fanlesstech.com/2012/08/habey-bis-6763-review.html

It looks like Habey is using a generous amount of thermal paste on the pillars to help compensate for variation in tolerances:

So yeah, that is pretty big difference in results. I'm not sure what is going on here? How much of that difference is due to variation of tolerances vs. testing methodolgy? How long was the processor tested under load by Fanless tech? Was it a short duration under load to get that 12 degree swing from idle to full load?

I think this picture in the link you provided actually tells us a lot:

I cranked up the contrast so that we can see the thermal paste: (click the top bar for full-size):

It looks to me like only the larger pillar actually made contact with the heatsink lid... and it didn't do it across its entire surface. Like you said, they used huge amounts of thermal compound to try to bridge the gaps.

I also wonder how even the contact with the chip surfaces is, or if the uneven pressure against the pillars could distort that flat plate?


I would bet that the thermal differences in the reviews are just down to tolerances. It could even be that one of the review units had the bridge chip pillar being slightly taller, being the only one making good contact, and the CPU pillar didn't have as good of a thermal path to the heatsink lid?

 

[nForce2]

Here's a cool embedded 1037U system: the FOX EPIC-N80.

Compact (148mm x 102mm), fanless, two ethernet ports, 12V power input. It's basically the same sort of layout as the NUC, where the motherboard has components on both sides to fit more into the limited space. Memory is limited to 4GB (soldered on).

http://www.lcd-tvpc.com/EnProductShow.asp?ID=560

It looks like this one is available for purchase now.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1307693303/Ultra_thin_High_performance_Intel_1037u.html

 

[nForce2]

Hold the phone... I found another one. Nano-ITX this time.

Qotom Q1037U
http://www.qotom.com/zhongduanji/view_Q1037U.html

The item pages for this one on aliexpress have been updated with more pictures, and it looks like they simplified the design for production.

It looks like this has had a few more revisions:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1385763315/wholesale_newest_2013_nano_itx_ddr3.html


The missing connectors have returned, the fan now has three screws holding it in, the heatsink is now covered over the top to direct the airflow, and the mini-PCIe and mSATA connectors are black instead of beige. It also looks like it comes with the SATA drive cables now.