VIA Epia M10000 Mini-ITX Motherboard

Reviews: Hardware

Motherboards | Power Supplies | Memory | Systems | Video Cards

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
VIA
Oct. 10, 2003

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Conclusion

The VIA Epia M10000 is a fantastic board for those seeking a small, low power consuming, quiet PC for a multimedia system, a HTPC setup, or even a small business computer.

Thanks to the built-in MPEG2 decoder, most movies aren't as CPU intensive, and the integrated 5.1 Vinyl Audio does a great job of playing back sounds. The analog TV out does its job, but a digital solution would be much appreciated. The onboard Ethernet is a givin, but still much appreciated due to the M10000's small size.

The lack of an AGP slot is quite understandable, since a high end graphics card wouldn't do much good, and the PCI slot leaves room for a TV tuner or a high quality sound card. One "feature" that makes me wonder is the old floppy connector that still finds its place on this board. It is highly unlikely that the user would visit the BIOS more than once, or even find the need to flash it, and with no other obvious reason to need a floppy disk, there is some very valuable real estate that could have been used for a SATA connection, AGP slot or even a second DIMM slot.

My biggest gripe with this board is the epoxied-on heatsink/fan. Although the fan is fairly quiet, the ability to easily mount a larger passive heatsink would be a welcome addition.

In the end, if you are strapped for space, there are a number of small form factor PCs out there, but none have such low power consumption, low noise levels, or fit a standard like the Epia line does with Mini-ITX.

I would like to thank VIA for making this review possible. Check them out at www.via.com.tw. You can purchase this board from Monarch Computer Systems at www.monarchcomputer.com

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Page 7 of 7

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Page 1: Introduction & History
Page 2: From Erza to Nehemiah
Page 3: Board Layout & Features
Page 4: Accessories
Page 5: BIOS
Page 6: Workstation & Office Performance
Page 7: Conclusion

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9 User Comments

1 - Posted by Kurtis on October 10, 2003 - 6:01 pm

i love that thing. can't wait to see what you do with it soon :)

2 - Posted by handrail on October 11, 2003 - 12:45 pm

yeah, put it in a dukes of hazzard lunchbox. that would be cool! i had this one when i was 7!!!!

http://www.cybermad.com/culture/wobble/duke1.gif

http://www.cybermad.com/culture/wobble/duke2.gif

3 - Posted by Kurtis on October 11, 2003 - 1:29 pm

lolol.

4 - Posted by A Person on October 25, 2003 - 2:16 am

Hey Brian, I got a question about the onboard video. I was reading a review of this board on another site http://www.techseekers.net/modules.php?name=Review... and they said that they could boot using the tv output but once the os loaded it switched back to vga. So they had to have a monitor around to switch back to tv. The thing that confused me was that they said, "Once I switched over to TV out, I could remove the monitor from now on." I was wondering if this meant that they could remove the monitor untill they rebooted or if they didnt need a monitor forever after that. Do know anything about this? (The peeps over there didn't respond to my email)

I am working on a project (in the planning stage) to build a pc inside of something portable, like a nintendo or a lunch-box or something cool so I can take it around to other peoples dorms and play old video games with emulators and watch dvds. I am gonna use an m1000 but if I have to have a monitor around everytime I boot then I'll have to buy a seperate vid card which will totaly change my plans.

Also, where did u get yours from? Or did u get it for free?

5 - Posted by Brian on October 25, 2003 - 11:09 am

Funny thing is, I don't have a TV. I'll see if I can snag one and test it out.

6 - Posted by Brian on October 25, 2003 - 11:34 am

To set up TV output, first attach a TV AND a Monitor and select "CRT+TV" in the BIOS and boot normally. Both screens will boot normally, but the TV will go blank once in Windows. (using your monitor) Go to the Display Properties (right click on desktop and click properties), go to the "Settings" tab, then "Advanced" then "S3Display. Then click on the TV icon/image and it should highlight in blue and tick the box below it. Click "OK" and the TV should display again.

Once you have done that, you should be able to shutdown, remove the monitor, and display with only the TV. I will test this out in a few days and keep you updated.

7 - Posted by A Person on October 25, 2003 - 2:14 pm

cool, thanks so much!!!

8 - Posted by ELiTE KiLLaH on October 25, 2003 - 10:28 pm

hopefully its just a one time thing...otherwise thats just fucking stpuid of them lol

:?

9 - Posted by A Person on October 25, 2003 - 11:30 pm

Ya, if its just a one time thing then I dont need any other video card and then I can stick some other fun stuff in it instead.

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