Hello, This is an inquiry to all your smart hardware people and expert link gatherers. MarkusB wants to purchase a brain for the MAAHRs project, which I will be installing MRL. Several of us came to the conclusion that a mini-atx computer would be the best choice. But we don't know which one. Do you have experience in these? Even if you don't, can you give us an idea & link of what might be a good start?
The Pros are that its completely silent, has USB 3.0, and a bunch of other features... The bad part is that it appears to be extremely picky about its memory .. you have to get exactly the correct kind....
I noticed, it was up when I linked it. VIA Has some nice embedded boards, they are really small, but also have some larger, Mini ITX and Nano ITX boards, all are good and X86 based.
I grabbed one similar to this and threw 4 gb and a 250gb drive. I use it as my mini server though not my dev system. It’s quiet, the one I have has wifi,as well as hdmi and dvi…though I didn’t plan to use the hdmi, it’s a nice addition for later. The proc is one of the slower ones, but honestly, for what I’m doing, I don’t need blazing speed. It also runs better than the current vm I run on an older pentium4 system, so it was a nice upgrade. I also have another system thats about half the size and with the more recent 525 atom proc, but seriously, I didn’t see much of an improvement other than the video was a bit better…it’s also a bit noisy since it has a plastic case and less venting. that was one of the jetway systems. Honestly, thats sitting on my printer doing nothing since I found the noise annoying… :/ Getting one in a case may be more economical as well…One of the other brands I was looking at was Zotac…they have several models so I would search that in newegg and see what you can find.
I work on a sickly snail in comparison… Maybe it’s a good thing that I do, so the software I make will be optimized as much as possible to work on tired dying computers…
I think were moving ahead. I believe we’ll go with TinHead’s suggestion, except dual core (for $20 more why not??) Please check me on the Memory and PSU - still need suggestion for a disk … gettin close…
Without a working knowledge of the software you plan on using, I can only ask questions. Do you think there will be a great deal of drive access (R/W) or will it be mainly for reading? How much storage would you seriously require on the robot? I ask this because something like compact flash or sdhc are relatively inexpensive and if you don’t need a lot of onboard storage, along with relatively low writing, it could be a useful direction.
I think you can get a decent setup with the case, adding memory and hdd would be another 30 and 45 for hdd. I don’t know if I’d go with the usb drive which will only give you what 32gb at a decent rate, but with read/write, you’ll go through the cycles pretty quickly. HDD would be a better option IMO
Looks pretty good, however I personally have that little picoPSU unit and it cuts out on me with a regular HDD and CDROM drive. You may want to go with a solid state solution for the Hard drive.
Found this review - (I been using Linux for years and have found it typically safer to be on older hardware, because it often took time for the developers to hack proprietary drivers) … Of all the MB manufactures Intel has been one of the most Penguin Friendly…
This review is from: Intel Atom Dual-Core D525/Intel NM10/DDR3/A&V&GbE/Mini-ITX Motherboard, Retail BOXD525MW (Electronics)
I have this board running my NAS and ushare under Ubuntu 10.04.1. No issues with drivers or anything and it works MUCH better for streaming than my windows 7 PC that consumed over 5x the power. I can’t comment on the graphics however as I have the system headless and use webmin for remote administration.
Behold, the cutting edge uber capable super robotic brain (on a decent budget !)
If your project succeeds and you need a little upgrading and detailed customization when it comes to parts, resorting to custom embedded boards could be an option.
I’ve checked ASUS AT5IONT-I and I have to agree that the memory part is extremely picky. While you could resort on it for now, you’ll most likely look for other choices to fit your needs in the future.
I have found that online but I’m not sure about the price. Any parts that are available in bulk are usually still pricey for me, but if you have the funds, I think its an intelligent choice.
