MiniITX Resources

po0k

At the moment the only site I know of is www.mini-itx.com
I need to buy kit and read up on the specs, particularly power.
I may need to underclock the board.

Does anyone have any good sources for technical information?
I could care less about cosmetic modding sites for this

I want to get the whole box running off about 40-50W max, though the clock frequency and choice of drive (looking at Compact Flash for the final model) will be a deciding factor.

These are my prices so far.

€56.55 - 200W DC-DC converter
€158.05 - Nehemia MII 10000 (a)
€187.05 - Nehemia MII 12000 (b)
€23.20 - 2 Slot PCI Riser Card

(a) €237.8
(b) €266.8


€56 seems awfully high for the DC-DC converter (converts 12VDC to the +/- 5V/3.3V etc in the ATX connector), as does €23 for the PCI riser card.
I'll be supplying regulated 12V to this converter from a battery array charged off solar/wind power.
I'm unsure if there is a proprietary design in the riser, as the VIA boards' BIOSes allow two cards to share the same INT on one slot.
Anyone have any idea if this will affect the cards plugged into them?
I'm going to be using this board for my FYP and need to get 2 wireless cards into the slots without any hassle.
These cards will be driving ~19dB directional antennae or 10-12dB omnis.
Later I'll be using it as a media box at home.
I'm going to be throwing together my own case for now, might pick up a Travela C158 120W later on.

ARGINITE

try the following if you havent already looked at them.
techniz ,via, epiacenter,
sfftech,
viaarena.

po0k

Thanks James

I'll save myself a few quid with that
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk seem to be, on average, a few quid cheaper than mini-itx.com, though not on everything.

Must investigate shipping costs

I'm still concerned about the PCI riser card.
"Official" Via riser:

£15.39 inc VAT @ itx-warehouse.co.uk

£18.80 inc VAT @ mini-itx.com

"Whitebox?" riser

£5.58 (inc VAT?) @ icp-epia.co.uk

po0k

On second thought, they all look very similar, albeit with different lighting conditions.

At the moment I'm estimating that the system will run at ~40-50W
Spec:
MEII 12000 (1.2Ghz C3 fansink) - will probably experiement with underclocking to remove the need for a fan)
Ituner PW120M Power board (conflicting descriptions between two sites, one says 200W, other says 120W - assume latter to be correct)
Running off a regulated 12V supply.
Temp: some sort of IDE drive
End-result: CF drive - difference is 0.5W compared to about 10W and less change of failure.
2x PCI Orinocco Silver/Gold 11g cards with external antennae
1x PCMCIA Orinocco Silver/Gold 11g cards with external antenna
Running GNU Debian Linux

ARGINITE

which one are you considering more solar/wind power?
How are you connecting the battery array to the power source?

po0k

tbh, I can't afford a wind generator, and solar power would cost too much to be effective in this country, so in theory wind power.
Wind Generator -> [possibly some intermediary converter if needed - dependent on generator output type] -> Battery array -> DC-DC converter + regulator to ensure smooth 12V supply -> 12V ATX snap-in 120W DC-DC converter (to divvy up the +/- 5 and 3.3V supplies to the board)

Dancing_Priest

I believe I may have a riser like that handy, but I'm not sure.
I pulled it out of an old siemens box (7-8 yo) , all the pci components were mounted horizontally attached to the card but I believe that there was also an isa slot along with the pci ones. If you want I can leave it to you at the Galway LAN.