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Hardware Technology

Mobo for Vertically Challenged Devices 197

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."
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Mobo for Vertically Challenged Devices

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  • by Braingoo ( 771241 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:26PM (#9520058)
    now we can install computers in the most ungodly places!
  • Theres plenty of room in a flat screen TV if you place the card verticly, am I missing something??
  • by Anonymous Coward
    There are a few new words I see popping up that I find entirely disagreeable, such as blog, mebi, gibi, etc. But mobo I can handle.
  • Thickness??! (Score:5, Informative)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:30PM (#9520112) Journal
    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 [viavpsd.com] and it's not in the user's manual (pdf) [viavpsd.com].

    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...
    • I think the thickness is not listed as it could be variable depending on what's plugged into the board: PCI card, IDE cables, power cables, etc.
      • ATX Connector (Score:4, Insightful)

        by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @02:45PM (#9521675) Homepage
        It seems a bit daft that it still uses a vertical ATX power connecter, as once you have plugged it in, you will have the combined height of the plug and the curvature of the cable increasing the overall height.

        Surely they could have come up with some means of side-mounting the ATX connector?
    • Re:Thickness??! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kenja ( 541830 )
      Based on the big ass heat sink I'm betting its around 1.5" tall. This is not a very "low profile" looking board. In fact I think my older 600mhz fanless VIA Mini-ITX board is shorter.
      • Re:Thickness??! (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sCreeD ( 34863 )
        According to the _article_, there are two CPU models : one requiring the "fansink" (oy!) and one without (800MHz).

        What perfect timing! I had a Netgear modem gateway die on me and its metal case is small (7" x 10")and sturdy. However, it's a skosh too shallow to fit an Epia 800 because of the serial and parallel ports (stupid legacy ports!!!!).

        Screed
  • ummm.......? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Osgyth ( 790644 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:30PM (#9520117) Homepage
    Aren't flat TVs depth challenged rather then vertically challenged? Unless of course you lay it on the ground and stand over it to watch it.....
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Cant do that, it'll get in the way of the mirror!

        [puts on his leisure suit]
      • Or mount it on the ceiling and lay in bed and watch it.

        You couldn't pay me enough to sleep under one of those. I met the guy who installed one like that for Shaquille O'Neil, and although he claimed it was mounted good n' solid, I noticed that the man never had his shoes tied. I'd never hang a 300 pound flat screen over my head in earthquake country, trusting that the guy assembling 500 TV mounts an hour for ten cents a day was doing a good job, and trusting that a guy who can't figure out simple shoelace

    • by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:04PM (#9520483) Homepage
      All televisions are depth challenged, no matter what their dimensions. You need only turn them on to see the problem!
  • by SkyWalk423 ( 661752 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:31PM (#9520129) Homepage Journal
    It's so nice to see that you finally quit referring to them as "midget" devices and went with the much more PC "vertically challenged" devices.
    • And when I first read the title of this article I thought they came out with PC devices made for those who are vertically challenged - and then the bells started flying "Do vertically challenged people need specially made computers? Don't they just put it on a desk that fits their size?"
      Damn misleading title
  • Yay! (Score:2, Interesting)

    Now we can finally build our own WiFi Surfboards [bbc.co.uk]!!! Apart from the crazy ones, mobos like this will probably open up a whole slew of new uses.
  • Nice little board (Score:5, Informative)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:32PM (#9520142) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • Could this lead (Score:5, Interesting)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:33PM (#9520155)
    To a linux-y iMac? IE a very small, compact all in one computer that runs linux? Could make some serious inroads for linux on the desktop. A think the appeal of the iMac lies in that it is small, easy to hook up(no rats nest), and has astehtic value.
    Making a cheap version of this could definatly have market potential(esp. since you can control the hardware, it makes plug and play linux even easier)
    • Re:Could this lead (Score:3, Informative)

      by marnargulus ( 776948 )
      You mean something like the Cubit [mini-itx.com] or the T-Cube [mini-itx.com] (a little down the page in orange) with a monitor slapped on? Been done. Many times.
      • 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.
        I'm not sure that you know what an iMac is...an iMac has a lcd arm that is attatched to the computer WITHOUT cables(it is also adjustable). All you need to plug in 1 power cord(optionally keyboard, mouse and ethernet but you can get those wireless.) It also makes it very easy to transport between rooms or to put into a kitchen etc. The small form factors are nice, but lack
      • Gateway [gateway.com] has all in one systems too and with full powered desktop processors too. I don't see this being very useful for PCs. The base on most LCD monitors is already big and heavy enough to fit some decent desktop CPU hardware. Have you looked at a monitor base? It's all dead weight to balance to LCD panel.
    • Re:Could this lead (Score:3, Insightful)

      by grahams ( 5366 ) *
      Being that the iMac can run Linux, I believe the iMac itself is a linux-y iMac.
    • IE a very small, compact all in one computer that runs linux?

      and it doesn't run on linux either
    • by dr.badass ( 25287 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:34PM (#9520869) Homepage
      A think the appeal of the iMac lies in that it is small, easy to hook up(no rats nest), and has astehtic value.

      You just listed three things that are not true about Linux.
    • The next iMac has been redesigned with the motherboard behind the LCD, but don't tell anyone.

      While I completely agree with you, the biggest draw of the iMac to me is OS X. But I'd have to say that it would be cool to have an all-in-one machine with an LCD that was cheap, linux or OS X. The iMac is not cheap at 1200 dollars. The flat screen accounts for just 300-ish dollars of the price.

      • hmmm...the discussion boards on macrumors.com has been floating with all sorts of different ideas. I like the current design of the iMac(or as people dub it the iLamp) because it's small, and you can adjust the screen easily, ie when I am sitting at the desk I can look directly at the monitor, or if I am lazy I can lay on the couch with my wireless keyboard(mouse a little bit more difficult) and play a game if I want.
    • You mean like that flat-panel I-Opener internet appliance that everyone hacked into Linux boxes a few years back?
  • Firewall? Please? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SpootFinallyRegister ( 787720 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:35PM (#9520176)
    i love the small, quiet, cool boards, but why cant anyone make an EPIA board with two network interfaces? VIA, are you listening?
  • Is it just me, or wouldn't Vertically challanged tend to mean something that has a hard time standing up, or something that is horizontal most of the time? Seems like flat panel monitors and the like are horizontally challanged, if anything.
  • "Vertically Challenged"

    I'm a dwarf you insensitive clod!
  • by xanadu-xtroot.com ( 450073 ) <(moc.tibroni) (ta) (udanax)> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:44PM (#9520268) Homepage Journal
    So this is a laptop mobo without the lap?

    oh, you can put it sideways (as if the electrons would fall out)?

    So it's a lap-side?

    Am I missing something here?
    • oh, you can put it sideways (as if the electrons would fall out)?

      My personal theory...
      The layout and orientation of the computer can affect the speed of same. If the drives are above the processor the electrons going to the drives have gravity assist, so the processor reads faster (or is it the opposite? depending on the flow of electricity), of course when writing to the drive this is the opposite effect, so depending on the type of operation you're performing it'd be cool to see a computer that can ro
  • by magefile ( 776388 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:47PM (#9520304)
    Aren't flat-panel monitors and TVs *horizontally* challenged?
  • Buyer Beware (Score:4, Informative)

    by Meniconi,Nando ( 666243 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:48PM (#9520312)
    I am the not-so-proud owner of a VIA M10000 motherboard.

    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.

    • Re:Buyer Beware (Score:2, Informative)

      by Lontas ( 64435 )
      Also, the linux 3D drivers are useless. You must be running one of their "approved" distos, and even then there is no support for vsync. This renders the board practically useless for running emulators, unless you like having the screen-flicker tear your eyeballs out.

      I bought the M10000 to build a small, quiet, reasonably powerful machine. Instead the box is big, loud, expensive, and doesn't support vsync! Grrrr!

      Methinks these smaller boards just aren't quite there yet.
      • The DRM (kernel) bits are in the DRI-trunk cvs (and probably snapshots) now, so you can build for any kernel you want. Thus no need for the 'approved' distro.

        unichrome.sf.net has the 2d driver (sources, and binary snapshots) and is much more up-to-date than what VIA distributes.

        The 3d bits source is floating around for, but I've not attempted to build - the via_dri.o as shipped works fine with the unichrome 2d driver and the DRI-trunk modules.

        Unfortunately getting all this checked in seems to have gotten
    • Think of how an online store would have to handle this. This would be awful for them, and would destroy any small business distributing these things, it is best to have a manufacturer warrenty, since it isn't the warehouses fault, and then you would probably expect them to cover shipping it back, and pay your original shipping too? You people need to look at the source of the problem, not the wholesaler.
      • Um, if you're selling something that gets brought back so often it's not doing any profit you stop selling that crap, not continue till you've got nothing left and let yourself be destroyed.

        Manufacturer warranty is fine, but the warehouse was one who sold YOU the product and it's they you are doing the business with. Warehouse can then deal with the people who sold them the faulty thing (manufacturer, or import company) and ask for compensation or whatever.

        Every mail-order company (and yes, that includes
  • by Benanov ( 583592 ) <brian,kemp&member,fsf,org> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:48PM (#9520313) Journal
    Sounds like a good fit for a lot of security-related applications--rackmount DMZ servers, firewalls, central controller for various physical security devices (biometrics controlling electronic locks on doors, etc.) I knew that the hardware RNG and AES-encrypt/decrypt functions were supported by OpenBSD a while ago (don't ask me when...I think by the time 3.4 came around. Confirmation?) It's no small feat to have them in other kernels, and bodes well for OSS applications. I'd assume it's also low-power due to the small form factor, which is another plus. Can't check the article, as my manager's about to breathe down my neck. :)
  • That big ass heatsink is reminiscent of old Sun hardware. Perhaps I should go drag those Sparc 2s out of the dumpster.
  • by Rick.C ( 626083 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:56PM (#9520392)
    "Please pay no attention to the pictures. These were taken from a weird camera angle the produced a fan-shaped distortion in the heatsink grid." - a deep booming voice from behind the curtain.

    While there are indeed fanless mini-ITX systems, this ain't one of them.

  • by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:56PM (#9520399) Journal

    Via needs to get rid of all onboard connectors and replace them all with handy-dandy pinouts on the mainboard instead. Would make for some WAY easier modifications, as you can mount the connectors wherever the hell you want them and then wire them to the mainboard, instead of trying to force the mainboard into some awkward angle just so you can plug in the mouse and keyboard...

    • 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
      • I know, I know... But that's still two rather vital connectors. I want to be able to wire something as I please, which includes pinouts for both the VGA signal and the NIC. Granted, VGA pinout will be a nasty mess of 15 pins, but a NIC pinout would be only 8 pins... Maybe even 4 pins.

        • The two on-board connectors are "high speed" devices, which don't like to be transported by a cheap cable/connector. Don't think about connecting a monitor via a flat ribbon cable to a VGA header as the signal will be messy. The only way to get a descent signal quality, it to use a solid connector and a good cable. Both of them are way more expensive than an on-board VGA plug.

          I personally think their choice is well chosen. VGA/network is something you want on the back as it's ugly, but needed. Anything els

    • what you are looking for is the PC104 formfactor.

      it's been around for over 20 years now.
  • Fanless? Thin? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Karamchand ( 607798 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @12:59PM (#9520430)
    According to the pictures on Linuxdevices.com this board is neither specially thin (why make only one row of I/Os on the backplate if the power connector and CPU cooler are thicker?) nor fanless (apart from the fact that a fan needs room above it as well!)
    • If you put an Eden processor [via.com.tw] into the board, it's fanless and requires just a heatsink. If you stick in a C3 processor [via.com.tw], it requires the "fansink" shown in the Linuxdevices article photos.

      See either chapter 2 of the manual [viavpsd.com] 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 wit

  • VIA pulled their version of WASTE from the webpage. Their version had an alternate encryption library which was GPL-licensed, but it was still non-GPL-compliant because they did not GPL all the interface code or something. I did of course preserve the source... But the point is, where did it go? Is it coming back? Et cetera.
  • by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:01PM (#9520457) Homepage
    I wish they'd gone with the CN400 northbridge [via.com.tw] instead... oh well maybe for the Epia MS II =)

    e.
  • Great Idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hattig ( 47930 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:02PM (#9520460) Journal
    But ... that heatsink it quite large, they might as well have put all the interfaces on the back panel!

    Maybe it they removed the PCI slot and put some of the other interfaces along that side of the board they could truly make it an expandable thin system? Also if they upgraded to the CN400 chipset in addition...

    * reasonably happy owner of a VIA Epia800 - mainly because I got it 20 months ago and it hasn't depreciated one bit since *
  • Proving Randomness (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mscalora ( 226843 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:02PM (#9520469) Homepage
    From VIA's PR on RNG:
    ... for instance, [using] mouse or keyboard timing input [as a source of entropy] ...

    While these physical activities may look random, their randomness cannot be proven, and they run the risk of generating poor entropy (or no entropy) if the sampled physical activity is dormant or repetitive. ...

    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.

    Has someone really proven that the apparent quantum randomness is really random?

    -Mike
    • by Erik Lindahl ( 789700 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:49PM (#9521039)
      Has someone really proven that the apparent quantum randomness is really random?
      That depends on what you mean by random. In principle the answer is no, since there is no such thing as "random" in physics. The question is rather if it is possible to predict an observation.

      The heisenberg uncertainty principle (which can be proved if you accept the postulates of quantum mechanics) means you cannot observe both position and momentum (velocity) of a particle exactly. If there are small errors in any measurement, it will be impossible to make a perfect prediction of the future motion - no matter how expensive your equipment is.

      However, even if quantum mechanics is somedays proven wrong, statistical mechanics saves you, and this relies on basic mathematical properties rather than physical models: If you consider the 10^23 atoms in a gram of matter and take millions of random samples of their thermal noise (velocities) I think you'll agree that it's perfectly random for all intents and purposes - much more so than throwing a dice, which is considered random in normal life.

      Nevertheless, in contrast to mathematics physics relies on models that might be incorrect, so you can never really "prove" anything in physics (apart from within the scope of a certain theory, like quantum mechanics).

      Cheers,

      Erik
  • by Zoinks ( 20480 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:04PM (#9520486)
    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 [mini-itx.com] as a for instance. And there's also this review [tomshardware.com] on Tom's Hardware site.
  • Just look at the way they do 1U rackmount servers. They are I think 1.75 inches deep, which is about 10%-50% thicker than a laptop. Or perhaps use a laptop motherboard.
  • by fw3 ( 523647 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:17PM (#9520677) Homepage Journal
    I gotta say I'm dubious on this claim.

    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.

    • Yes 'Quantum' (Score:3, Informative)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) *
      From the linked to page.

      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 interval between the emission of particles during radioactive decay. This source generates only 30 bytes per second and requires a cumbersome (and dangerous?) collection of hardware.
      • The t
  • as normal PC components get smaller and cheaper, why not just let them use standard device? so that we can hook the digital tv to the internet, which will update its codec periodically in case there's something new out.
  • by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig.hogger@gmail ... m minus caffeine> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:24PM (#9520763) Journal
    Will we see DIY laptops soon?

    The first guy who will come out with a laptop-form factor chassis for those motherboards will make a killing, a bit like the "lunchbox" chassis of yesteryear.

    We'll be able to crank-out custom laptops make to suit our desires without having to contend with proprietary crap which won't properly run [insert favourite non-proprietary open-source/subversive operating system]...

    • No, he won't make a killing - people want thinner than 2" thick without screen, and lighter than 10lbs. Also, the performance is DREADFUL on these. Don't take this as a troll, but they just don't perform as well as the Pentium III they're classed against, and they only ramp to 1.2GHz so far (VIA is migrating to a 200MHz bus, though, which should help).

      I think a formfactor FOR LAPTOPS needs to be developed. Lots of technicalities though - for one, we have to pick AXIOM (ATI PCI-E mobile graphics, also accep
  • Real real thin - except of course for the LOX chiller pump !
  • Okay, so what's with this 'fanless' claim? Fully half of the mobo is covered by a heatsink, yet there IS a fan right there in the picture. I'm confused.

    Also - can this thing boot from that CF connector? That's the problem with several of these things lately - no bootie from CF.

    I'm fully intending to make a nice MAME box out of a system like that, booting a massively stripped-down Win98/ME hybrid off a CF card.
  • by stvangel ( 638594 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:35PM (#9520889)
    I own several of the VIA boards ( M10000's in particular ) and this doesn't seem to be any smaller than what I've already got. The size of the heatsink and fan in the pictures seems to make it about he same height as any of the other motherboards. It looks even a little bigger if you consider you've now got a separate SODIMM socket on the bottom for the memory. It looks like if you just went with a regular memory socket on the top, it'd still be shorter than that huge chunk of aluminum.

    I also don't understand the "minimalist backpanel" with only a VGA, Ethernet, and cardbus connectors. Everything else ( all the usual suspects - audio, USB, TV-out, etc ) are headers on the motherboard. I'd be much happier if they made -everything- use sockets or pin headers on the motherboard. This way you could mount the motherboard and sockets separately any way you wanted, without having to have access to the edge of the board. I ran into this problem with one of my projects where I was trying to mount a motherboard flat in the bottom of a toolbox. The motherboard fit fine, but I didn't have room to plug the cables into the motherboard backpanel. This was an unusual project that is trying to be as small and unobtrusive as possible and keep all cables hidden inside the case, which is a tupperware type storage container. I would have loved to be able to plug all of them directly into the top of the motherboard. As it is, I had to mount the motherboard on edge with the backpanel facing up, because that was the only way I could get the room to plug the cables in ( VGA, USB and network ). Made the whole thing a lot bigger than it had to be.
  • by Knight2K ( 102749 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @01:54PM (#9521113) Homepage
    Anybody have any experience using the VIA EPIA boards for DVD and video playback? I'm specifically interested in the MII 12000 for creating a MythTV box. I was also thinking MicroATX, but Pentium 4's and Athlon XPs run hotter and draw more power than the C3. I'd like to keep the power supply and CPU Fan and as quiet as possible.

    Extreme Tech was decidedly underwhelmed by the M10000 while mini-itx.com seems to think is fine [mini-itx.com]. The mini-itx review seemed a little hand-wavy though.
    • DVD playback under Windows (sorry!) it's fine; AC3 ok, too. Video quality is a bit poor IMHO (not very sharp). XVID, DIVX are fine, too, but software AC3 decoding will result in many skipped frames and video/audio desynch. For some reasons, the hw Dolby decoding is active only when using PowerDvd or WinDVD playing a "real" DVD. Go figure.
    • here's my review of the VIA EPIA M10000 [byopvr.com] (the earlier revision before the MII's)

      the M10k (and presumably the faster/better MII12000's) handles DVD's fine assuming you have a software DVD decoder/player that lets you enable "hardware assist/accelleration"

      *shrug* YMMV =)

      e.

  • Finally those old Emachines E-One computers [nifty.ne.jp] can get an upgrade.
  • The heatsink on that thing looks bleedin humongous. And then what if I wanted to use that pci slot? I could put a card directly in it, eliminating the whole purpose behind the design of the mobo, or I could get a huge riser and place the card parallel to the heatsink, which would still make it pretty high, I would think. And then what about the heat from the sink on the pci card?

    The only interesting thing about that mobo is the elimination of the backplane, but what difference does it make if the heatsi

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