VIA
EPIA M10000 Official Product Page
Review by Erik Pettersen ( reviews AT BYOPVR.com )
This mighty small all-in-one motherboard is certainly feature rich, but is it
powerful enough to be an HTPC/PVR? Read on…
The box it came in was small, and it was good
The first thing about the VIA
EPIA M10000 that struck me was just how small the mini-itx form factor really
is. Its one thing to see 17 cm x 17 cm listed as the size, and another to actually
see it. Being stuck on the standard measurement system all my life I didn’t
comprehend how small 17 centimeters is. No wonder the case mod community loves
sticking these boards into Millennium
Falcon models, toasters, and whatnot.
The obligatory what came in the box shots
Initially I mated the VIA EPIA M10000 with a Casetronic
C137 mini-itx case, 256MB Crucial DDR-SDRAM, Maxtor drive, and a Hauppauge
WinTV PVR-350.
Installation was a breeze. The manual
explained everything in clear detail. Assuming you’ve built a PC before there
is nothing new or exciting here for you. It’s just smaller. One quibble: I’m
convinced that the printed manual has the settings for the s/pdif_sel jumper
backwards on page 2-19. This is the jumper that changes the functionality of
the RCA jack on the motherboard to either be a composite video output OR a digital
surround sound s/pdif output.
Installing the M10000 in to the C137
I had no issue at all installing WindowsXP Pro, or the myriad of windows updates
required on a clean M$ install. Here’s my other minor quibble: I like to check
for updated device drivers on a manufacturer’s website because the drivers on
any given installation/driver CD is obsolete by the time it’s pressed and shipped
with the product. I had some difficulty discerning whether the drivers at VIA's
EPIA M10000 driver page were newer or older than what I had on disk. Some
of the drivers had revision dates, others didn’t. The version numbering isn’t
present or labeled within the directory structure of the included CD. I also
checked out the driver
section at VIA ARENA
but that only confused me more because they use different terminology and revision/dates
and I wasn’t sure what was what. Not a huge deal, I just usually don’t like
to work so hard to find out if I have the latest drivers installed.
WinXP Install: better go brew a pot of coffee
