Mini-ITX Thread :D

[Jeriko]

The Nehemiah is such an appealing little chip, but it just doesn't have the power I need. I intend to use my ITX box as a Tivo-like appliance (among other things) and need a processor that can handle MPEG encoding. So, for now anyway, it's the Commell P4 ITX board.

-J

 

[Rallispec]

out of curiosity-- how much can i expect a 60w power supply to handle? am i going to need to find a laptop cd-rom and harddrive for this to work?

 

[PhoenixOfWater]

with 60w i know you can't run a full CD drive and a full HD
i plan on using 60w on just the mobo and a full HD and use a USB cd writer and a USB super-disk drive

 

[Rallispec]

well.. everything except the PSU came today--- have it all set up and running using an old 250w ps i had laying around.... seems pretty good so far-- i was hoping it'd run photoshop a little better, but i really cant complain. 256mb of ram on it now--- might upgrade to more when i get some cash. But at just about 200 dollars for a pretty nice little setup-- i'm loving it so far. Now my dad wants one.

now i've just got to wait for the power supply so that i can work on making a cool case for this.... any ideas? i've got some sheets of plexi glass laying around that i'm thinking about putting to good use.

i'll put up some pictures when pics.bbzzdd.com starts working again.

 

[chiangm]

Originally posted by: Jeriko
The Nehemiah is such an appealing little chip, but it just doesn't have the power I need. I intend to use my ITX box as a Tivo-like appliance (among other things) and need a processor that can handle MPEG encoding. So, for now anyway, it's the Commell P4 ITX board.

-J

VIA is coming out with the new P4 ITX board. See picture.

 

[kami333]

Commell already has a P4 motherboard out, problem is that the only retailers are international so shipping is a pain.


Retailer
ultim8pc

 

[kami333]

Review of the commell P4 board

 

[Athlex]

Looks like Shuttle is also cooking up an ITX board using an Intel chipset...

One of the Inq's stranger letters:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10000

 

[PhoenixOfWater]

Originally posted by: chiangm

Originally posted by: Jeriko
The Nehemiah is such an appealing little chip, but it just doesn't have the power I need. I intend to use my ITX box as a Tivo-like appliance (among other things) and need a processor that can handle MPEG encoding. So, for now anyway, it's the Commell P4 ITX board.

-J

VIA is coming out with the new P4 ITX board. See picture.

nice!!! any price idea?

 

[Crazymayhem]

I'm in the middle of building a small entertainment PC with a M10000 Nehmiah Board.

The Base foundation are 2 aluminium Plates, 300*200*2mm, and 2 Massive heatsinks for the sides at 200*40*75mm.

That leaves me with about 220mm in between the heatsinks for mainboard, 120W Power Supply, 40GB laptop Harddrive and a Laptop DVD/CDRW/CDR.

Basically planning to stick it in my living room next to my 16:9 TFT TV for DVD Playing, DIVX, VCD, SVCD, and maybe as a standalong MP3 player as well.

Pics might hopefully follow....

 

[piasabird]

Check out this motherboard:

FLEX ATX FORM FACTOR

TYAN TOMCAT I845GL, P4, DDR 2100 (2 slots), 2 PCI, USB 2.0, LAN, 2 Channel Sound, Integrated Intel Extreme Graphics. This is a nice size for a compact P4. Also comes with no sound and 2 ethernet ports in a slightly different model.

I saw these for sale on googlegear.

 

[Athlex]

Link?

 

[piasabird]

Tyan Tomcat i845GL

Googlegear Sells Them?

 

[Athlex]

That's a cool little board. I'm loving this trend towards small hardware.
I saw a 486 system in a dumpster at work the other day. I think its 250w power supply was bigger than my Shuttle SK41G!

 

[TEEZLE]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Check out this motherboard:

FLEX ATX FORM FACTOR

TYAN TOMCAT I845GL, P4, DDR 2100 (2 slots), 2 PCI, USB 2.0, LAN, 2 Channel Sound, Integrated Intel Extreme Graphics. This is a nice size for a compact P4. Also comes with no sound and 2 ethernet ports in a slightly different model.

I saw these for sale on googlegear.

$110 and no 800mhz support?!?! No way. I can get the Abit board for %55 with even more features!!

 

[slipperyskip]

Hello to all. After lurking about for a while I decided to join the forum. I'm the guy who does that HumidorPC thing. Some people put me in the category of Case Modder but that's a stretch. I like to call myself an Embedder. It's a lot of fun and from the quantity of e-mail I get I'd say it's getting more and more popular. More so over in Europe right now but it's picking up in the US. So if you are one of those people who have a $2,000 Elie Bleu humidor stuffed in the back of your closet since 1996 (The Great Cigar Fad), then dust it off and put it to use.

 

[PhoenixOfWater]

Wellcome to the forums slipperyskip
I have always loved the HumidorPCs, how many have you made so far? (your trying to sell them right?)

 

[Confused]

Some links for you to add

Mini-Box - Mini-ITX DC-DC PSU
OpusSolutions - 150W DC-DC PSU with Delayed Shutdown, surge control etc, as well as other car-puter bits
LinITX - Vendor for Mini-ITX and other SFF components
MP3Car.com - Lots of useful information on car-puters, excellent forums

That's all for now


Confused

 

[Oblivious]

slippery skip, i just looked at your links to the humidor. that is some awesome work. i have a few questions though. i hope this isn't stealing the thread.

1.) What about cooling? I know you replaced the original cpu fan with a thermaltake and added one more fan. Is that enough?

2.) Do you have anymore projects along the same lines? I may try something similar and see if I can get it to work.

 

[slipperyskip]

 

[slipperyskip]

Well that's one way to accumulate posts.

Anyway, heat is not a problem in most of my designs. I make sure the PSU is mounted in a way that the cooling fan is taking a suction on the upper areas of the humidor. It then exhausts it out the back. I leave designed-in gaps in the bottom part of the back of the humidor to allow cool air in. The Mini-Me was another story. It's components are so compacted that there is less air than electronics in the case. I solved the problem after a lot of work.

I have several projects in the works, one will be coming out as soon as I find someone to host it. Sneak preview here: Pen Display PC #1 and here: Pen Display #2 and finally: Pen Display #3 Dig on the matching external LCD display. It has a six foot cable.

Cheers!

 

[jonny13]

Does anybody know when Via will be releasing their next Epia MB? I have looked around at roadmaps of all products, and nobody ever has a listing for this stuff. I am probably going to be building one in the next 6 months or so and would like to wait till the newest one comes out if possible. Any links?

Jonny

 

[Athlex]

The Neamiah-core (sp?) M1000 is the latest greatest and can be had for <$200. They're relatively uncommon compared to ITX boards based on the Ezra core, but the performance is pretty decent and can full-speed MPEG2 and MPEG4 video.

Down the pipe, VIA has a version with a PCMCIA slot and CF slot, the M2, which sounds good for an embedded device like a Linux-based WAP. They also have another board coming which looks a lot like the current M series with 2 ethernet ports, the &quot;CL.&quot;

http://www.mini-itx.com/ is a great source for news and info on ITX goods.

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/cebit2003-1/ <-- pictures of upcoming ITX boards

edit: Forgot dates... info on these boards started showing up in March and April so I'd expect product releases in a month or two.

 

[slipperyskip]

I'm pretty sure that VIA and others are waiting until Computex next month in Taiwan to announce new products. A lot of product announcements are made around big shows to take advantage of the gathering of media.

 

[Athlex]

It's interesting that there hasn't been much word about ramping speeds up past the 1GHz level. Their new Antaur CPUs look like they'd be great for laptops, but don't sound like they'd be any faster than the current lineup. With Intel potentially bringing the Pentium M to the desktop, VIA would have a lot of competition in the silent/low-power arena.