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Recommend a good Mini-ITX motherboard?

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Steve Conner

Tue Nov 20 2012, 11:37AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Hey all

I have an "all-in-one" PC that I built around a cheap Mini-ITX mobo and 17" touchscreen. I would like to build it into a case that looks like an old-fashioned TV, and use it for watching YouTube, BBC IPlayer, DVDs and so on, as well as playing my music collection with foobar2000.

Unfortunately the motherboard was too cheap, and doesn't have enough power to play full-screen Flash video. It chugs at about 10fps on a good day.

It has an Atom CPU soldered directly to the board, so can't be upgraded. Can anyone recommend a better board? Ideally with a big heatsink that can be run passive or blown with a slow-running 120mm fan for low noise.

Ash Small

Tue Nov 20 2012, 03:12PM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

Raspberry Pi?

EDIT:

"Can I add a touchscreen?

We havenâ€™t experimented with any touchscreens yet, but thereâ€™s no electronic reason why it shouldnâ€™t work. Thereâ€™s lots of discussion about this on the forums. The main issue people are encountering seems to be one of cost; touchscreens are very pricey!"

"GRAPHICS

What display can I use?

There is composite and HDMI out on the board, so you can hook it up to an old analogue TV, to a digital TV or to a DVI monitor (using a cheap adapter for the DVI). There is no VGA support, but adaptors are available, although these are relatively expensive.

Why is there no VGA support?

The chip specifically supports HDMI. VGA is considered to be an end-of-life technology, so supporting it doesnâ€™t fit with our plans at the moment."

"AUDIO

Is sound over HDMI supported?

Yes.

What about standard audio in and out?

Thereâ€™s a standard 3.5mm jack for audio out. You can add any supported USB microphone for audio in."

Dr. ISOTOP

Wed Nov 21 2012, 06:00AM

Registered Member #2919 Joined: Fri Jun 11 2010, 06:30PM
Location: Cambridge, MA
Posts: 652

If you're on a budget, the Foxconn H61S paired with a Sandy Bridge Celeron is an excellent combo for media playback.
If you want a fancy board, the Asrock Z77E-ITX is a well-priced board with overclocking support.

Steve Conner

Wed Nov 21 2012, 11:08AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

The Raspberry Pi has even less processing power than my current motherboard. It also has a buggy USB host controller that is the only means of IO, so you pretty much have to resign yourself to losing the odd piece of data.

And that's assuming I could get it to work with my touchscreen. The video is fine as it has a DVI input, but I don't think any of the OSs available for the Pi have a driver for the touchscreen part, which is USB.

I will check out the Foxconn and Asrock boards, thanks. I also found these two: the Asus E45M1-I Deluxe and the Intel D2700. I'm not bothered about overclocking or replacing the CPU.

Avalanche

Wed Nov 21 2012, 10:23PM

Registered Member #103 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:16PM
Location: Derby, UK
Posts: 845

If I were doing this, I'd probably just get the cheapest board that popped up that has a PCI express slot, like this one

then find a decent graphics card that could handle the video. It means you're stuck with the on board sound though.

I'm not sure if it's worth trying to decode video on the GPU yet or not? Some graphics cards can decode H264 by themselves, which might be a bonus for high definition video... Reason I mentioned it is I've just bought an HD camcorder, and I'm surprised at how many 'fast' PCs cannot play back the video! None of the PCs at work can handle it (my work PC is an AMD 3200+ I think and it can't do it)

Ash Small

Thu Nov 22 2012, 12:44AM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

Steve Conner wrote ...

The Raspberry Pi has even less processing power than my current motherboard. It also has a buggy USB host controller that is the only means of IO, so you pretty much have to resign yourself to losing the odd piece of data.

And that's assuming I could get it to work with my touchscreen. The video is fine as it has a DVI input, but I don't think any of the OSs available for the Pi have a driver for the touchscreen part, which is USB.

Yep, I realise there will be problems with the touchscreen, but I'm sure you could figure it out, Steve

And I realise it's only 800MHz.

I'm working on a similar project, using the cabinet from an RGD 'Deep 17' (which came via Freecycle)

, but my 19" Acoustic Solutions flat screen with HDMI input is just too big to fit into the cabinet, so I'm having to use a 17" CRT with SCART input (also from Freecycle) for now. I won't be using my RPi just yet as I have too much else on at the moment, but I could interface it using the RCA video out to the screen via the SCART socket, and 3.5 jack for audio to my Sony DVD home theatre system (also from Freecycle!).

I did get a 17" flatscreen monitor from Freecycle recently, but couldn't get the touchscreen to work, and it doesn't have HDMI input anyway, so I'm using the CRT with SCART input as it's more versatile (read 'easier to interface with my other stuff').

teravolt

Thu Nov 22 2012, 02:05AM

Registered Member #195 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 08:27PM
Location: Berkeley, ca.
Posts: 1111

why not just pick a better itx board like this

you could run ubuntu if you don't care much for windows

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