PCB Design

The great number of different ports and integrated devices can’t remain unnoticed. This is a real all-in-one combo! Here you can find USB 2.0, IEEE1394, integrated network, integrated graphics, 6-channel (5.1) sound. There is even one PCI slot just in case (this case will probably be the modem, because VIA didn’t implement it on the PCB). And of course an IDE controller with UDMA133 support!

I was very pleased to see that the platform uses DDR SDRAM, and not the regular SDRAM. No, I am not hunting for performance here, because we shouldn’t look at EPIA from this point of view only. The reason I liked the use of DDR is the fact that DDR SDRAM is cheaper and much easier to find in stores than SDRAM :)

As for the package, in this the EPIA platform arrived into our testlab, there is nothing special inside. In the box we found a mainboard, a bracket for the case rear panel with the additional USB and IEEE1394 ports, a CD-disk with the drivers and a user’s manual. Very simple.

Assembly and Drivers Installation

Well, VIA EPIA is a real masterpiece for assemblers, especially during large corporate orders. Fasten four screws, install the DIMM module, add a few drives and here you are! Yes, and don’t forget the bracket with additional USB and FireWire. That’s it! You may think that they save not too much time on assembling a system like that. However, if they need to assemble a hundred of systems, they will be able to save a few days.

The first attempt to turn on the system ended very funny. When I pressed the Power button nothing happened. Only after I looked at the monitor I saw that the PC had started. Why do I say all this? Well, I am saying this because this computer is completely silent! I simply couldn’t hear it working even despite the active cooler on the CPU. So VIA’s major trump – noiselessness – is still there.

The drivers installation was also a very pleasant thing to do. All necessary drivers are written onto a single CD-disk (which is not at all surprising, actually) and can be installed in no time by simply selecting all items of the Autorun utility. Although I think they could have made it even simpler by creating one single item: Install All.

Besides the drivers, the CD-disk contains nothing interesting. But who actually cares about the bunches of additional software? We can find everything we need online :)