Anyone know what board is in this guy?

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... id=7754614

Too bad they stuck it in such a huge case.

An unfair jab at Walmart patrons:
"... Even at the low end, however, image is everything. The gPC is built using tiny components, but put inside a full-size case because research indicates that Wal-Mart shoppers are so unsophisticated they equate physical size with capability."

It's probably the VIA VB7001 without any of the options; video out, S/PDIF/RCA, etc. Um.. I found one here for $123.

Is this even possible? If so, that would be great!

If it is a mini-ITX board, who cares what case it's in? For $200, given the rest of the components you're getting, consider the case a freebie. Take out parts. Throw the case away. Buy your own mini-ITX case. Reassemble system. Enjoy smaller form factor.

Helloooooo, new sexy.

No, I had a think about it: two watts at idle is impossible. They probably mean stand-by power consumption.

VIA ID-PCM7G ITX mb (not mini-ITX). 4400 rpm CPU cooling fan.
Seagate ST380215A IDE hdd.
Sony CRX32 DVD combo drive.
1 memory module 512MB DDR2-533 4-4-4, one slot still open.
Unknown PCI modem (untried) and one free PCI slot.
200W unknown manf PSU. Very quite, not very efficient, not PFC.
System runs 38W idle, CPU temp 40C.
53W was the highest I could get playing a DVD movie while running burnMMX. CPU temp 58C.
Super PI 2**20 digits in 128 sec, 130sec while playing DVD movie.
gOS a little rough around the edges, had to remake xorg.conf to get monitor to work properly, had to hand edit sensors.conf to get xsensors working properly. Had problems cut and pasting files between different file manager windows. However all the main stuff, web access, play and rip CDs, play DVD movies, print over the web to a printer attached to a WinXP box worked fine right out of the box. Now why can't Ubuntu.org do that?
Opinion: After proper tweeking, works fine for basic use (web, cd, dvd, openoffice stuff). $200 price good, not great (I think I could match the material cost with a DIY, but with a lot of labor.
Only real complaint is noise, mostly the CPU fan. A project for a later date.

more details about the board here:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5305482907.html

it can be purchased here:
http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cf ... =A4842001#

from the first link:
Like the Everex PC, the gOS Dev Board supports XP, Windows 2000, and Windows CE, but not Vista.

I wonder if it will run Windows Home Server?

So there has to be others out there like me looking for inexpensive small cases for this motherboard. Anyone have any tips on a case that is small... maybe takes a single 3.5" hard drive and not much else? Something in the $30 range...

Something like footprint of Mac Mini or a router.

Well, you can't put this thing into a case the size of a Mac Mini or a router; the post above yours links to the actual hardware used: it's a micro-ATX form factor motherboard. (No, RichardR, it's not an ITX form factor.)

There are lots of existing threads on the smallest, slimmest micro-ATX cases around here; just put some terms into the search bar. You should be able to find something you want.

WTF, I thought they said '20W at peak use'? Do they mean just the CPU? This is just plain greenwash to me!

Wired magazine article -- "Hands-On With Everex's $200 gPC" ---
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/11/hands-on-with-e.html
cites Via page ---
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/empowered/pc2500_mainboard/index.jsp

Wired -- "UPDATE: Details on the motherboard, Via's Micro-ATX pc2500G, are here. Yes, slightly disappointed it wasn't Mini-ITX after all."

Not a bad little low-end server motherboard: 2xPCI slots, 2xDDR DIMM 400/533, 2xSATA, 2xIDE, 4xUSB, 1xParallel, 1xSerial, cheap uATX cases are easier to find than cheap mini-ITX, and the mobo is only US$ 59.99 at ---
http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001&cmp=AFC-CJ_CBIT

More --- Google "iDot PC2500G" and see ---
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5305482907.html
http://www.thinkgos.com/products.html

Chipsets are well-supported by various Linuxes. Some additional useful info (and some incorrect info) in the Wired article comments.

Dumb question: Is there any way to adapt a larger, slower fan to the mount points of the (apparently) 40mm fan?

Well, if it was a case fan, zip ties are a good way to work with different mount point placement.

But you're talking about the little CPU fan on the developer board, right? I say . . . why bother with it at all? Just leave it off! Look at the pictures in the review of the actual gPC. The CPU is passively cooled; only a heatsink. So why not make like they do? I mean, come on, this is VIA we're talking about. Their chips don't get hot like Intel and AMD.

Their 1.2ghz chips always seem to come with passive coolers; frankly, I can't think of why a 1.5ghz chip would be all that different. The passive HS looks decent enough; why not just run it fanless no matter which VIA chip is used? I can't imagine that it would ever require a standard HSF.

strap a scythe ninja on that thing. It would be hilarious.

This thing is actually 9" by 7.5" exactly. Smaller than uATX.

RE: cpu heat sink/fan: the ID-PCM7G MB in Everex TC2502 does have a 40mm fan bolted to the side of the CPU heat sink (on the side next to the north bridge heat sink). It runs at 4400 rpm and is the loudest thing in the box. I soldered a 100 ohm resister in the fan power line and dropped the fan speed to 3300 RPM. It is now much quiter. I can't decide if the hard disk or the psu is now noisiest.

RE: comments on board size, while VIA says the board has a microATX form factor, board is dimensionally smaller than microATX, flexATX or even ITX.

RE: small case, nothing appears cheaper than a microATX case, newEgg has one for $13 including PSU, the shipping more than doubles the cost.
The Morex 2699 or 2766 expandable mini-ITX cases might work, if you can figure out where to relocate the psu, However thay cost $70 to $90 plus shipping.

RE: OS. I got tired of fooling around with the rough spots in gOS and loaded Ubuntu 7.10 instead. Works fine and I am much happier.

ID-PCM7G measures in at 216x183mm, miniITX is no larger than 170x170mm, so chances are the board will not fit in a miniITX case without modding. Should fit in flexATX cases, though (max of 229x191mm).

RichardR -- Thanks for the info.


Good to know. What sort of performance do you get? Suitable for general office/net browsing/email? Watch flash media in browser? Watch DVDs?

I tried the GlobalWin YCC-S27 Aluminum Slim Desktop Case (http://www.svc.com/ycc-s27.html) with the guts from the Everex TC-2502. The case has only about half the volume of the Everex case and only cost $20. I have mixed feelings with the result. There were some fit issues with the case (fortunately aluminum is easy to bend) and the PSU makes more noise than I like, but what can you expect from a $20 case/psu. I need to think about what would be reasonable to try to reduce the noise. I mean a $60 Seasonic PSU would fix the psu noise issue but blow the low cost target. However a quieter fan ($10) in the existing psu might be worth the cost. Also some hand made ducting might allow me to remove the cpu fan.

re: previous question about performance: the Via mb does a great job with full screen DVD video (I am using a 1600x1200 monitor) and CD playing. It is a little slow on CD ripping and I have not tried DVD ripping. It plays stuff like Youtube and flash movies just fine. With approbate codecs it does a good job with internet radio. Does fine with "Battle for Wesnoth", "FreeCiv", Sudoku class games. All the Openoffice stuff works fine (by fine I mean as fast as you can type). However the super_pi results show the flat-out cpu performance is not great (about half the Intel D201GLY and about one third my 2GHz Athlon 64). But nothing else I have tried comes close to the low power consumption of the Via mb.

11/28: Replaced the ADDA AD0812MB-D70 fan in the psu with a Silenx ISP-52-11 fan. Much quiter. There is still a faint unobtrusive hum, but I don't think it is enough to do anything about. I have decided I really like this VIA system. I think I am going to make this my main system because I can leave it on 24/7 (33w and quiet) and it will do what I need 95% of the time (email, word processing, spreadsheets, internet radio, and casual gaming). When I need some real horsepower I will fire up one of my big systems.

what mods did you have to make to get the motherboard to fit into the case richard?

thanks

re: Slim Desktop Case. I didn't have to make any mods to get the motherboard mounted into the case. I had to bend a little metal (push hard with my thumbs) to get the power and reset buttons into the correct distance from the front of the case. Also I had to drill some new holes into the hdd bracket to get the hdd mounted the way I wanted.

I also removed the case fan, replaced the psu fan with a slower one (Silenx IXP-52-11), removed the cpu fan and remounted the cpu heatsink using AS5 thermal compound, and crafted some ductwork so that the psu fan sucked air through the cpu heatsink.

@RichardR: How are the temperatures without the case fan? And can you post a few pictures? I was looking at that case for a D201GLY2 build. Thanks.

"Reviewing The gPC and gOS -- The First 12 Hours and Beyond" has lots of great information and links.

Note: scroll down past the first five paragraphs for the article at
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080112084017526

Interesting -- the OS, as imaged by Everex, does not have a swap partition which severely impacts the performance of a 512 MB system. Apparently not a problem for gOS installed from CD by users.

Some rough performance measurements are surprisingly good.

FWIW, the author points to lots of issues with gOS and Enlightenment and suggests Xubuntu Gutsy as an alternative.

Board from this system on sale. See http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=45713

I'm looking at the sata drive in gparted right now. There's a 2.5GB swap partition.

I ordered this box from WalMart a couple of weeks ago expecting to put it into a box that'll fit under the pax seat in my Jeep, but the mobo is slightly too large. Hopefully the picoITX cost will come down soon. I know for a fact it'll fit - plus it's just so danged cool!

So far I've swapped out the 512MB stick with two 1GB sticks and added a second 150GB drive. I now use it as my electronics bench PC and for listening to podcasts while not actually [dis]assembling stuffs. I have a number of old vid cards and at least a few have to be PCI, so I'll eventually get around to dropping in something more powerful than the embedded UniChrome Pro. Once that's done, I'll install Kubuntu; gOS isn't quite cutting it.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with it.

Glad you like yours. I'm also glad the Everex/gOS added a swap partition.

The cited information about lack of swap was from 12 Jan in http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080112084017526 The author was pleased with his, after he twesked it a bit. (Still one of the most informative reviews of the box.)

Not terribly unusual to see tweaks required to "early days" uints. Everex/gOS also seems to have some rough edges in the early CloudBook laptops. Again, not fatal, but annoying and non-trivial for Linux newbies to fix.

I installed windows xp (the home version) I want to play the sims 2 on this computer but DirectX won't work because the drivers aren't installed for the video card. So my question is there any drivers that I can install so this video card will work with XP?

-Thanks In advance, happyasabunny

You might want to take a look at "VGA (64MB): VIA Graphics Driver Set for Windows 2000/XP" on page
http://www.everexstore.com/everex/support/gpc/gpc.php

Another place to look is the VIA CN700 drivers at page
http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1160&SubCatID=158