ECS VX900-I (v1.0A) VIA L2007 (1.6G, 800MHz) VIA VX900 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

Pros: Rather cool and quiet running board using Ubuntu 12.04, even with the cpu fan running full throttle. Idle temps were around 32C, which is pretty decent for a 65nm cpu being cooled by a chipset fan.

Ran 360p flash videos with about 75% cpu utilization, also not bad for a low power single core.

Cons: HDMI port was bad, filling the screen with nothing but multi-colored bands.

As for VGA, the Ubuntu driver did not support res over 1024x768. A recent PCI video card should rectify this problem, as I have a GT 610 coming (which also has an HDMI port).

No AHCI support in bios that I could find. Forced to run my sata drive in IDE mode.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your feedback. It is appreciated. We need your feedback in order to improve the quality of our products and service.

For the video issues you are experiencing, please check the VIA Linux Portal for any possible driver solutions. See the included link.

For AHCI, unfortunately this is a limitation of th VX900 chipset.

*** Please take a few minutes to review our products. We want to hear from you! ***

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this or any ECS products, please contact us. We are here to help.

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-771-0284
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

VIA Linux Portal|

Pros: A very affordable system that still sports DDR3 memory and HDMI output. A quick trip to the manufacturer web site shows that Win 8 is officially unsupported, while Win XP, Vista and 7 are, both in 32- and 64-bit. Attaching a disk with a Win 8 RC installation (from another computer) allows the system to boot to a working desktop without any driver installation, but YouTube HD videos playback is choppy. Similar story with Win 7 64-bit, but spotless performance in XP 32-bit (after driver installation). The system consumes 30-40W when working and 4 W at idle, the somewhat noisy CPU fan only works during start-up, but is idle during normal operation.

Cons: only 2 SATA ports, single expansion slot is PCI

Other Thoughts: Scores of computers were bought to control a piece of equipment that usually still works when the original computer failed. This is a great find for those who resist upgrade from Win XP because "if it ain't broken, do not fix it". Apart from spotty graphics (for HTPC use, anyway), it is a cool and compact replacement for a whitebox minitower that failed.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Deaf_Beaver,

Thank you for your feedback. It is appreciated. We need your feedback in order to improve the quality of our products and service.

*** Please take a few minutes to review our products. We want to hear from you! ***

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this or any ECS prodcuts, please contact us. We are here to help.

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-771-0284
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

The ECS MODMEN|

Pros: Inexpensive board that can handle HD video playback. Using this as a Plex Media Player to connect to my server and it handles the Plex environment well (the default theme seems to be slower but I changed to Alaska anyways) and the playback flawlessly.

Cons: Not really a con because I expected it given the CPU but working in Windows 7 64bit (which for my use case as a Plex Media Player isn't too often) can be a little slow. I only have 2GB or game so maybe maxing out the RAM and an SSD would help. Definitely NOT a board for daily driver type machine though. Other than that I could maybe say no built in WiFi but hey, for the price what do you really expect?

Other Thoughts: For my use case, a Plex Media Player steaming from my server, this board has been the perfect solution. Seriously, RAM is dirt cheap if you don't have some lying around. Same for the PSU and HDD. Can we say $40 media center???

Pros: Cheap (especially with rebate). Looks to be constructed well. Low power draw. AES acceleration. Serial port.

Cons: Not dual core.

Other Thoughts: I bought this to use as a custom Linux router. Perfect for that purpose. The VIA Nano CPU has AES instruction support which seems to be working correctly in Linux. This CPU is not the dual core Nano. You might want to take that in to consideration if you were planning to use this for Windows (no extra core to run your virus scanner without slowing down other things).

One strange thing is that the serial port on the backplate is not the first serial port, COM0 as I expected, it is actually the second, COM1. Not a big deal but at first you might think it's not working when you expect it to be COM0...

Another strange thing is the BIOS passwords. They have a limit of 6 characters and don't seem to accept symbols? Kinda strange for 2012. Could be fixed by a BIOS update but probably no one else in the world will notice except me.

Nice board though. Would recommend it so long as it fits your needs.