Foxconn nt-A3550-0H0WBANA AMD A45 (Hudson D1) 1 x 204Pin AMD Radeon HD 6310 Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: It will play 'HD' netflix movies on a 21" monitor @ via DVI, but it cannot do the same via HDMI to an HD TV without stuttering. Need to reduce the screen resolution then it works reasonably ok (but some detail is lost). Pretty good as normal activities such as serving the web, etc. Renders complex pages quickly. Can handle one HD IP camera with audio at full frame rate at about 60% cpu . Can handle two IP cameras at full resolution but just barely. Others have reported the box gets excessively hot but I'm not experiencing that at all. It appears to be designed to be mounted vertically so there is an airflow from the bottom of the case towards the top. It runs warm but nowhere near 'hot'. The small size of the box and the very low power requirements are great; we have it on a 30" deep kitchen counter behind a 21" monitor without any problem. All of the coiled-up wires from the monitor, etc. take up more space than the computer itself. Overall, I wish it had a little more horsepower but otherwise not bad.

Cons: The wireless is unreliable for the 'n' speed but reliable for 'g' speed. The 'n' speed drops off occasionally even when the router is 20 feet away and on the same floor.

Other Thoughts: Using Windows Vista 64 bit

Pros: Cheap, Small, Decent Hardware

Cons: Only posted on 1 out of 10 boot attempts
Only 1 Memory Slot
Cheap Construction

Other Thoughts: The price is similar to other competing products, but this product is more cheaply constructed (cheap plastic). My biggest problem was that it didn't POST or bootup correctly. The power light was lit, but there was no monitor or keyboard (num lock light) response most of the time when I tried to boot it up.

When it booted, it appeared to work fine, but it would hang like this even on a "restart" instead of a "shutdown".

Manufacturer Response:

Please try with a different RAM stick. Also refer to the link below for memory compatibility list.
http://www.foxconnsupport.com/NanoPClist.aspx?models=en-us0000003&type=MEMORY&Series=en-us0000012


Also please call us at 714-626-6909 for further assistance or submit your email to the link below. Our hours of operation are from 830am to 530pm PST, Monday through Friday (excluding public holidays).

http://www.foxconnsupport.com/inquiry.aspx

Best regards,
Barebone support team.

Pros: Size. Smaller than the Novel War and Peace.
Cost. Dual Core, Full 1080 HDMI output, USB 3 support for less than $200? No brainer.

Cons: Numerous. Heat. This thing gets very warm. Could use a bit more vents cut into the case to help it breath a bit better.

Linux/Ubuntu/Xbmc/Xbmcbuntu support is not ready for primetime. Could not load openELEC at all. Loaded Xbmcbunu and I kept getting freezes and lockups and it would sleep and not wake up, So then I installed ubuntu with xbmc on top of it, same problems, finally was forced to just install win7 and load xbmc on top of that. It works, but..
Xbmc still locks up from time to time. Not had any problem with win7 locking up though, just the xbmc.
Looks great and love the features of xbmc though. This may possibly be a heat buildup thing though, will keep tweaking it, and possible remove the top to the box and see if that makes the problem go away and if it does, break out the dremel and start cutting a few vents on the top.

Wifi is weak, I mean, very weak. I've got 40 mb download cable with a ubee n wireless router and I can barely get over 5 mbs of download speed on it, while my laptop, with a weak connection 12 feet further away is downloading at 18 mbs. I check my router interface and saw the connection type and the speeds and its showing this device connecting with G and Not N and only at 1000 kbs, while my phones, connecting at 18000 and numerous other devices showing high numbers this one still showing poor throughput, I checked the support site, No newer wifi drivers exist as of yet, Not sure if the unit is defective or I have a driver issue or what. I contacted support today and hopefully their will be some kind of workaround or fix. On a lark, I had an old usb 2 wireless G adapter that I threw on there and I was able to get 12 mbs of download speed with it and am using that for now. I will update this review once I find out what's going on. WEI numbers on this thing are pretty weak, with the CPU being a big bottleneck, although I ran some older games on it, like Open Gl Quake and got FPS around the 200 mark, not checked it with any steam titles yet. Also the foxconn support number listed here is no longer in service.

Other Thoughts: I really want to like this thing. But so far, it's been a pain, hopefully I can work out the kinks and when I do, I'll try to share them, if anyone has had similar issues and found fixes for them, please post them up here.

Manufacturer Response:

We are using Intel Centrino Wireless N-1000. Please refer to the link below from Intel.

http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/sb/CS-030709.htm
http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/4965agn/sb/cs-025643.htm

Best regards,
Foxconn support team.

Pros: This thing is TINY! I am using it as a HTPC in my living room and you can barely notice it setting under the TV. Great audio/video for a device that is so small.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate x64, 4gb of RAM. Every thing runs smoothly.

Cons: Only things that run slow are Youtube and Windows Update. As others have said, this thing runs HOT! From running Speedfan, I got temps of over 80 degrees Celsius just by installing updates from Windows Update.

Other Thoughts: I decided to cut slots into the top of the case above the APU fan for ventilation with a Dremel and dropped temps down to 40- 60 degrees Celsius.

Pros: Great, compact machine for XBMC. Will play videos in 1080p and 720p. I couldn't get the latest XBMCbuntu 12 RC3 to work, as the video was choppy. However, I had an old copy of xbmc-10.0-live-amd.iso which worked great.

Cons: Had to buy a remote and memory separately, but really it's not a big deal.

Pros: size
easy to install RAM & hard drive

Cons: documentation
drivers on mini-cd, need a tray loading drive to access
lacks bluetooth

Other Thoughts: What I did:
Installed 60GB SATA III SSD & 8GB 1333 DDR3 (although Newegg states 4GB max, Foxconnchannel states 8GB, both agree 1066 but 1333 works fine)
Updated BIOS from P08 to P10 (download from Foxconnsupport) with FreeDOS on USB flash drive
In BIOS advanced tab, disabled Deep Sleep and set HD to IDE
Installed Win7 64 from USB flash drive
Installed Chipset driver (download from Foxconnsupport, although included CD seems to have the same version)
Installed Intel WiFi driver (download from Foxconnsupport, although included CD seems to have the same version)
Ran Win update (several times)
I then found a newer Intel WiFi driver (uses Intel WiFi Link 1000) from Intel download site and installed that

Pros: Small
Light
Powerful...for it's size
HDMI & DVI connector

Cons: Linux? Forget it. (see below)
Runs a bit hot
Wireless card isn't the strongest

Other Thoughts: If you're not thinking of putting Linux on it then you need not bother reading past this.

Basically, it's a neat, extremely small little box BUT...if you're planning on putting some flavor of Linux on it, beware.

The problems?

1) Wireless card drivers are junk. Don't expect to get acceptable speeds with the current, out of the box drivers for Linux.

2) I had the lastest BIOS from their site installed and I noticed it had problems booting and rebooting. First off, you wouldn't see the BIOS screen and I had it set to show it (quiet off). It looked like it would reboot several times before getting to the OS (Linux Mint, in this case). Sometimes you would get a blank screen but the monitor had it's back-light on. Hibernation wouldn't work.

I thought it was the memory and ran memtest from the grub loader. Errors AHOY! OK, that's it, bad memory. Took the memory back and got a different brand. Ran memtest and the same result occurred. I phone their support number and talked to a tech who suggested running it from a bootable CD or USB stick. He was right, it passed the test. But why would memtest from the grub loader fail?!?! That was my first indication of BIOS problems.

(BTW, he said it wouldn't void your warranty to remove the heat sink and apply your own thermal paste. I plan on doing that in the future.)

It would seem that the BIOS' DSDT is faulty for Linux. This isn't the first time that Foxconn has done this either:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249

Bear in mind that that article is from 2008 but after extensive testing I can tell you nothing has changed. I pulled the DSHT, decompiled it, had a look at what was going in it then, without changing anything, tried to recompiled it and it wouldn't recompile. 11 errors, most of them stupid. I fixed them with the help of the web and recompiled. This time it was fine. Rebooted into Linux (Mint 12.4) and got the same stuff happening. So back to the drawing board. I made some changes according to suggestions made in the article above and tried again. Some things were improved and some weren't. Sleep via the button would now put you in a constant sleep/wake-up cycle.

Anyway, I decided to try Win 7 on the little box and guess what? It works perfectly. Hibernation, sleep, everything works as it should. Not to sound cynical but I wonder how much Redmond sends to foxconn every month to make sure that new Linux users walk away thinking the OS is garbage because of bad DSDTs?

Still, because it does work well with Windows and is quite powerful for its size I can't give it less than 3 eggs.

Come on Foxconn, Linux is an up and coming OS and you'd better start following ACPI standards in your BIOS or you're going to lose a portion of your business. I know I won't buy Foxconn again because of this even though I'm pretty impressed with what you wrought with this little mighty mouse of a box.

Pros: I have had this system a short time, but is awesome. Don't listen to some of these newbs. No Offense.

It opens easy peasy. 4 screws and it comes with a tool to pop the lid open so you don't have to use you thumb if you don't want.

Yeah, it gets a little warm but only on the very top where the CPU is. CPU fan/heatsink is tiny tiny. It is quiet, these chips can get warm, so nothing to worry about.

Only one RAM slot, but I only need 4GB so not a con for me.

CPU isn't anything special, don't complain if you don't know what you are buying! I am going to use this to host an 8-Bay HDD enclosure so this CPU is PLENTY. As far as HD content for a media center, it can be borderline on playing 1080p smoothly. Depends on what app you are using and if it off loads to the GPU really. So know what software you wanna use first and it it supports GPU acceleration or not. For example, in Chrome Youtube 1080p is unplayable, but in IE Youtube 1080p is just fine as IE offloads more of the work to the GPU. The CPU alone is good for 720p though.

Looks like it has an additional mSATA slot. One is there for the wifi, and it appears there is a second free slot.

Has Intel My WiFi drivers so this thing can actually act as a hotspot. Nice bonus feature I will use. Won't be too powerful as the antenna is nothing speacial.

Packs a lot of punch for less then $200.

USB 3.0
Gigabit networking
SD Reader
HDMI
Wireless Card
Wireless Hotspot
Tiny
2-year Warranty

Cons: Nothing as of now. Will report if something goes awol.

Using Windows 7 64-Bit w/ 4GB RAM and 160GB 7200RPM HDD.

Pros: Small and powerful. HDMI, USB 3.0. I use this for my HTPC system. I run OpenELEC Frodo and stream my content from my NAS over gigabit ethernet. Most of my content consists of BD50 rips, and this system plays them flawlessly. I previously was getting my content through a USB 3.0 HDD dock, which also worked without problems.

Cons: Does not support larger VESA mount sizes. Will not mount to the back of my 42" Vizio

Other Thoughts: Great system for a compact HTPC

Pros: SMALL! This unit is about the size of a double DVD case. 4 USB 2 and 2 USB 3 ports, DVI and HDMI, Card reader, Audio inputs, Wired and Wireless. Open Mini PCI express slot.

Cons: Slow processor, low end graphics, 1 slot for memory, weird way to open case. Instead of having to pry the case apart, Foxconn could simply have used the four screws to keep the bottom in place.

Other Thoughts: Obviously I bought this for a HTPC media center...with the included (free) 64gb SSD, I plan to use a 1TB usb drive and network connection to my main PC for media. As some have noted, this PC will accept an 8gb memory card, I am using this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313237 The bios and windows 8 have no problem seeing the whole 8gb.

Along with the free Crucial 64gb SSD, the PC booted up flawlessly

Also, Netflix HD is choppy, but SD plays just fine...I plan to get a Mini PCI express HD decoder for the available slot...

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this...previous HTPC was a shuttle XPC that died 6 months ago...