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Choosing the right DC-DC PSU

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AMD's Project Quantum

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The Redstone PC is the ultimate Mini-ITX Minecraft Machine

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April 09, 2013
Installing NAS4Free

February 28, 2013
Building an XBMC 12 Home Theatre PC

January 25, 2011
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August 06, 2010
Building a Green PC

February 15, 2010
Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC

October 10, 2008
The "Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 2008"

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September 12, 2008
"Florian", the DVD burning robot

September 05, 2008
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May 22, 2008
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August 31, 2006
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August 05, 2006
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June 26, 2006
Nano-ITX in a Football

May 17, 2006
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April 11, 2006
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February 18, 2006
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October 24, 2005
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October 06, 2005
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August 05, 2005
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July 21, 2005
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July 18, 2005
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July 07, 2005
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May 25, 2005
The "Accordion ITX"

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May 16, 2005
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May 15, 2005
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May 13, 2005
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May 11, 2005
The "BBC ITX B"

May 10, 2005
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April 20, 2005
The "Jeannie"

March 09, 2005
The "Cool Cube"

January 30, 2005
First Nano-ITX Project?

January 17, 2005
The "iGrill"

January 15, 2005
The "Gumball PC"

December 15, 2004
The "Deco Box"

December 03, 2004
The "TERA-ITX"

October 06, 2004
The "Coealacanth-PC"

September 17, 2004
The "Gramaphone-ITX-HD"

August 26, 2004
The "C1541 Disk Drive ITX"

August 25, 2004
The "SEGA-ITX"

August 13, 2004
The "Quiet Cubid"

August 06, 2004
The "BMWPC"

July 14, 2004
The "Moo Cow Moo"

July 02, 2004
The "Mini Mesh Box"

Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page...


EPIA MII 12000 Review
Posted on May 18, 2004 Jump to:

Cardbus Controller and CF Reader

Cardbus Controller and CF Reader

The EPIA MII includes the Ricoh R5C476 II / R5C485 CardBus Controller and Compact Flash Reader, mounted on a daughterboard where the Parallel port would be on the EPIA M.

The daughterboard can be unscrewed and removed very easily, leaving a neat row of PCI header pins - though it is suitably distanced from the 32-bit PCI slot for this never to be a necessity. When we removed ours and booted into Windows, we lost our picture except in safe mode. Lesson: don't remove your daughterboard. It might just be us, though.

Cardbus Controller and CF Reader

The CardBus Controller accepts standard PC Cards, and will probably be most utilised to provide wireless networking without utilising the PCI slot. Here's one we prepared earlier. Underneath the CardBus Controller is a Compact Flash Reader, which accepts Compact Flash cards and even MicroDrives. As the Ricoh unit is PCI based, this isn't easily bootable - and at the time of writing, it isn't possible. To boot easily, an IDE or USB based adapter would be required. However VIA do assure us that it will be possible under Linux and Windows Embedded Edition, but may require a BIOS update.

Back Panel Connectors

Back Panel Connectors

The EPIA MII manages to pack even more connectors into its back panel than the EPIA M. If we look at the two side by side, we can see how this was achieved. The bulky parallel port has been removed, and the audio ports have been mounted horizontally in a smaller and better shielded housing. The serial port is now above the VGA port, and VIA even managed to add a single Firewire port next to the audio ports. The Ricoh R5C476 II / R5C485 CardBus Controller and Compact Flash Reader is mounted where the Parallel port lives on the EPIA M.

The full list of connectors: Standard PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse connectors, 2 x USB 2.0 Ports (USB 1.1 devices will also work), RJ-45 port. The Serial Port is the standard 9-pin affair. The S-Video Port allows S-Video output in NTSC and PAL modes - this will give the best picture quality on a television, unless you are lucky enough to have a Plasma with VGA input. The RCA Video or S/PDIF Port is a dual function port that may be used either as a composite video port or S/PDIF audio port - it is switchable by a jumper behind it. The Audio Port connectors look standard at first glance, but double as 6 channel outputs with a neat hardware trick called Smart 5.1, switchable in software. The Firewire port will come in handy for that digital video camera or additional storage device, and the Ricoh CardBus Controller can accept type I or II PC Card devices, most probably a wireless card. The Compact Flash reader is a useful addition and works well for storage, though as the Ricoh unit is PCI-based, it is not a trivial matter to boot from it as a primary device (more about this later).

Back Panel Connectors

Here's a picture of the rear panels of the EPIA TC and EPIA CL, which feature a slightly different set of connectors to the EPIA M and EPIA MII.

Board Connectors, Headers and Jumpers -->


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