X-bit labs

Foxconn E-bot Small Form-Factor System Review (page 4)

Category: Mobile

by Platon Scheblykin

[ 05/03/2005 | 10:37 PM ]

Assembly Tips

Foxconn is known to stick to the “Without Tools!” rule when designing its system cases. That is, it should be possible to assemble the system with your bare hands, without any screwdrivers, pliers, etc. This approach makes the life easier for people who are building their computer system on their own. Why this digression? Because the E-bot seems to have been made by the same rule. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do completely without tools (a screwdriver proved to be necessary), but we had to do much less screwing up than during an assembly of an average barebone. But we’re anticipating…

Before arming ourselves with patience and a screwdriver, we had a glance into the Installation Guide (the E-bot doesn’t offer you any brief versions – only the full version of the Guide). This small orange booklet contains the usual comics with arrows and terse comments. The photographs are colorful and large, but a bit confusing at times. The hand in an antistatic glove covers up just the detail that should have been shown. But overall the Guide is quite informative. Having read it through, we can try to assemble a computer. The bare minimum of things necessary to transform a lifeless barebone into an operational machine includes a CPU, memory and a hard drive. Let’s deal with each component one by one. To install the system’s “brain” (a Pentium 4 3.2MHz on the Northwood core in our case) with its cooling system (we’ll discuss it in a separate section) we had to extract the mainboard out of the system case and remove the back panel of the case. But we did this without unfastening numerous screws and so on. It only took a push on a projection inside the case and the mainboard with the rear panel moved out along the guides. That’s a clear example of the “tool-less” assembly principle! There are special guides in the rear panel the mainboard is attached to. The mainboard already has a plastic retention for the CPU cooler to be fastened to with two steel brackets.

 It’s all right, but the brackets are rather too close to the cooler’s sole and they look as if going to slip off any moment. We have had to use our screwdriver four times only by now, to fasten the cooler’s fan to the rear panel of the system case. The memory modules are installed in the ordinary fashion – just put one into an empty slot and lock it with a latch. Now you can close the side wall of the case.

What about the hard drive? You don’t have to get inside the E-bot to install a HDD. You just turn the barebone upside down and see a cover with many vent holes in its bottom.

Open it up and take out a small container, all vent-holed, too. This is the place for the hard drive to be installed into.

You put it there, fasten it with four screws and attach the IDE and power cables (they stick out of the case), and that’s all – you can put the container back. Frankly speaking, you still have to open the side wall of the case to replace the hard drive, in order to unblock the container with the installed device. After you’ve gone through the above-described procedures, attach the necessary external cables and power the E-bot up.

All in all, the design concept the E-bot is based upon is clever, but not quite well implemented. The details of the system case do not fit to each other perfectly, so you will often find yourself applying some force to fasten or move a component. We hope, though, that upcoming barebone models from Foxconn will have a higher quality of manufacture.