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Possible to use a VIA EPIA mobo?
http://forums.linhes.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8391		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  lubod [ Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Possible to use a VIA EPIA mobo?
I know that motherboards with VIA chipsets are in the DO NOT USE sticky at the top of this forum, please no flames if this applies to these as well.

But assuming either that this has been fixed in recent revisions of the boards, or there is some way to at least work around it, are any of these boards usable as KnoppMyth hardware?

http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.94/.f

The link is for convenient lookup, I have no connection to the site, not even as a customer.

It seems VIA intends to have these boards used as PVRs, what with:
1) small Form Factor
2) low heat/noise
3) built in MPEG2 (or 4 with the 1000?) encoder (or maybe decoder?)

I would think that maybe with a low profile Hauppauge PVR 150 this should make a small, convenient KnoppMyth Box. Probably SDTV only as I read HDTV takes 3Ghz+ on either Intel or AMD CPUs.

The site that sells these seems to have their own EPIA specific Myth distro, so they obviously thinks it is workable, but they're biased because they want to sell the hardware :-)

Suggestions/opinions welcome, no flames please.
Author:  Xsecrets [ Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:15 am ]
Post subject: 
the old epia boards based on the cle266(mpeg2 only) chip work just fine with knoppmyth. However the video drivers for the new cn400 (sometimes called pro mpeg2 + mpeg4) chip are not in knoppmyth and appear at this point to be very difficult to get going. there is a long thread about the cn400.
Author:  willem [ Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:27 am ]
Post subject: 
I have played with EPIA-M9000 and EPIA-M10000 boxes. Such platforms are marketed as very silent, but the reality is different I'm afraid. The problem is that these small motherboards are fitted in small cases and come with small fans. These fans make a lot of noise. Undervolting these fans is not an option. Even at full speed the sides of the small case feel quite warm as the heat builds up quickly in a small case.
Apart from that the BIOS settings are very picky. PXE booting fails after ACPI poweroff (on EPIA-M10000 at least) and the older sub 1GHz processors (Ezra core I believe) only run on kernels compiled for i386 even though they're recognised as i686 processors.
I must admit I haven't tried KnoppMyth on these boxes. The two M10000 where borrowed and when I returned them with a FC4 mythbackend and diskless frontend setup I got a M9000 for the effort. When I find the time, I'll try one of the KnoppMyth releases on this board.
So personally I am not too enthusiastic with this platform although there is a big group of happy users judging from various EPIA project sites.
If you're looking for a quiet / small(ish) setup then personally I'd go for a micro ATX board in a case that allows fitting of 80mm or rather 120mm undervolted fans.
Author:  cameraready [ Thu Feb 09, 2006 7:36 am ]
Post subject: 
It really depends on how you plan to use the EPIA board. A lot of people are using them as frontends for SD TV. They work great in this role. If you want to do HD, I would look at something else. I'm using a M1000 board, with a larger CPU fan and the loudest part of the system is the 2.5" HD when it read/writes. Knoppmyth works fine with the cle266 boards, but I'm tempted to try that distro that mini-box has on their site to see if it's compatible with knoppmyth.
Author:  plbarton [ Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:40 am ]
Post subject: 
What about the even older VIA EPIA V 533MHz boards? They do not use the cle266 but rather use the ple133. I have one of these older units and I would like to use it strictly as a frontend.
Author:  cesman [ Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
I maybe wrong, but I don't think the "PLE" offers any type of hardware acceleration, so you may be hurting. I'd probably want to use a video that is XvMC capable.
Author:  coreyt [ Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:55 pm ]
Post subject: 
I'm planning on using this VIA C3 mobo for frontend only for SD and DVD playback off a backend.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813185043


Will it have any problems?
Author:  cesman [ Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:10 am ]
Post subject: 
No guarantees, but it looks ok.
Author:  Algenon [ Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:24 am ]
Post subject:  EPIA MII 12000
I am using an MII 12000 as a backend and frontend and it works a treat. I have a PVR350 installed to do the bulk of the work, CPU load is low at only 3-4% when playing back. The CPU fan is noisy, but I installed a fan speed control to slow it down and fitted an extra 80mm fan to cool the PVR350. Both fans run very quietly whilst keeping the CPU temperature at about 40 degrees C.

Algenon.
Author:  coreyt [ Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
We'll if it does not work as a front end I can use it as a firewall and free up my other AMD based shuttle xpc for a second front end.
Author:  gr8nash [ Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:37 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
the old epia boards based on the cle266(mpeg2 only) chip work just fine with knoppmyth. However the video drivers for the new cn400 (sometimes called pro mpeg2 + mpeg4) chip are not in knoppmyth and appear at this point to be very difficult to get going. there is a long thread about the cn400.


i have buildt and rebuildt the cn400 boxes.. and have it down to a 20 min process.. following the howto i wrote.. i am not in love with the boxes.. (i have 2) but.. they are VERY VERY VERY quite and also do 1080i nicely. Just wanted to say that the information is out there to do the cn400 mobo's in knopmyth.. by just copy and pasting from the howto.
Author:  numbski [ Tue Mar 28, 2006 8:42 am ]
Post subject: 
gr8nash, could you post a link for reference? I don't have any of this hardware and would like to read over your writeup. I searched by author and your username and turned up nothing. ?
Author:  coreyt [ Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:56 am ]
Post subject: 
Ran into a gotcha... it did not have svideo or composite outputs :(


So it's chugging along just fine running ipcop..


So now I have 2 spare shuttle xpc's free to do my bidding *evil laugh*
Author:  gr8nash [ Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:50 pm ]
Post subject: 
lol thats funny you mention IPcop because i have been tempted several times to make my via cn400 boards into ipcop boxes!!
Author:  coreyt [ Thu Apr 06, 2006 3:27 pm ]
Post subject: 
yeah does a good job.. used a 256mb flash drive and it works just fine.
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