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The Equipment
Via EPIA-M
Product: Via EPIA-M Motherboard
Manufacturer: Via Technologies
Website: http://www.viatech.com
Price: $130.00
Release Date: Available Now
Photos:
About:
First thing in my search for parts for the CarPC was a small form
factor motherboard. I was surfing the net one day and came across
a press release for the new mini-itx form factor motherboard from
VIA. After checking out all the details on the product, I inquired
of VIA about getting a unit for use in my project. They responded
back and were kind enough to send one along.
What makes this board so great is the fact it is so small (17 cm
x 17 cm to be exact), gives off little heat, and requires very little
voltage to run, something that is very beneficial when it comes
to utilization in a car environment. I don't know about you, but
the last thing I want to do is install a power hungry PC in a car
and have it drain the battery. Granted for normal use this would
be fine, but when installing it into a car that has a high-quality
aftermarket sound system, less power consumption is better.
The board comes with some great features including: onboard RCA
out, Firewire and USB 2.0 support for hooking up countless peripherals
including portable MP3 players. It also features onboard audio with
5.1 support, onboard 10/100 LAN, and Integrated VIA Castlerock AGP
graphics with a built-in MPEG-2 decoder. Because of its very small
size, it only features 1 PCI slot which I decided to populate with
the new Soundblaster Audigy 2. However, there is a riser card that
can be purchased to expand the PCI slots from one to two, however
with the case that I had purchased, this was not supported. As far
as performance goes the board features a built-in Eden ESP processor,
supports DDR266 memory, and onboard IDE up to ATA133.
Overall, the board seems to have some nice features, especially
for the project I will be utilizing it in. Since the board only
features one PCI, all of the other peripherals I will be utilizing
will need to be connected via USB, FireWire or Serial connections.
Since the processor is embedded, there are no future expansion possibilities,
however at this point I see no need for high processing power for
what I am going to be using it for.
Features and Specifications:
- Processor - VIA C3/EDEN EBGA Processor
- Chipset - VIA CLE266 North Bridge - VT8235 South Bridge
- System Memory - 1 DDR266 DIMM socket- Up to 1GB memory size
- VGA - Integrated VIA CastleRock AGP graphics with MPEG-2 decoder
- Expansion Slots - 1 PCI
- Onboard IDE - 2 X UltraDMA 133/100/66 Connector
- Onboard Floppy - 1 x FDD Connector
- Onboard LAN - VIA VT6103 10/100 Base-T Ethernet PHY
- Onboard Audio - VIA VT1616 6 channel AC'97 Codec
- Onboard TV Out - VIA VT1622 TV out
- Onboard 1394 - VIA VT6307S IEEE 1394 Firewire
- Onboard I/O Connectors - 1 USB connectors for 2 additional
- USB 2.0 ports
- Front-panel audio connectors (Mic and Line Out)
- CD Audio-in connector
- SIR connector
- CIR connector
- Wake-on-LAN, Wake-on-Ring
- CPU/Sys FAN/Fan 3
- System intrusion connector
- 1 I2C connector
- 1 LVDS connector (Optional)
- Serial port connector for second com port
- 1 PS2 mouse port
- 1 PS2 keyboard port
- 1 Parallel
- 1 RJ-45 LAN port
- 1 Serial port
- 2 USB 2.0 ports
- 1 VGA port
- 1 RCA port (SPDIF or TV out)
- 1 S-Video port
- 3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in; can be switched
to 6 channel output
- Form Factor - Mini-ITX (4 layer) 17 cm x 17 cm
Additional
Information
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