ZOTAC IONITX-A-U Atom 330 1.6GHz Dual-Core NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo

Pros: Price, size, performance, power usage, quiet, cool, fast post (as soon as you turn on itll show the OS you're booting; in otherwords this thing skips/has instant POST)

Cons: Requires change in bios to maximize this product to handle 1080p video

Other Thoughts: At first i thought this thing couldnt handle 1080p because it was choking on an Openelec XBMC Build. However i Read on the zotac forum that you have to go in the bios and change the southbridge setting for the iGPU buffer from 64MB to 512MB. This refers to shared memory and after bumping it up to 512, this thing handles 1080p like a charm.

Pros: I've had this mobo for over about a year and a half. runs nonstop. reboots every now and then. sometimes i have to turn it on when the power goes out. has about 2TB of video on it using Microsoft Media Center & Windows 7. it's almost as fast (responsive) as my cable box. Running digital out to an older Parasound receiver - sounds great.

Cons: i wish 1080p playback was simpler to set up in MS HTPC. required other third party application(s) for playback to be successful. i think i ended up paying for one of them.

Other Thoughts: used the following:

APEX MD-100-C Black Metal with piano finish Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200)

StarTech SLSATAADAP Female Slimline SATA to SATA Adapter with Power

one or more of the may not be required for HD playback:
CORECODEC COREAVC 2.0.0 w/ CUDE
Haalie Media Splitter
Realtek HD Audio Drver
ffdshow
DirectVobSub

I also went and picked up a PCI slot fan & wired it up to 12v and used a potentiometer in series to create enough flow of air, but not too loud...so that it stays cool. Helped alot when watching HD. No issues getting hot after that.

mini-wireless keyboard w/ touchpad. i would like to get a Harmony 900

Pros: Lots of features?

Cons: 9 times out of 10 the system fails to boot. IF I make it to Windows I am safe and the board will remain running but usually it does not. Cannot check bios settings since it shuts down before I can browse any options. First piece of cr*p I bought from NewEgg.

Other Thoughts: Tried to RMA but it was like 5 days over the one month cutoff. Should have sent it back right away instead of spending 5 days trying to get it working. Lesson learned.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi Kevin,
I am sorry you have been inconvenienced by one of our motherboards. This sounds like a technical issue and I recommend you visit our forums or contact our technical support team at support@zotacusa.com for more information. Regarding your RMA, you may still be eligible for an RMA through our site. If you haven't already, register your product on our site and submit a RMA request. If you have already done so, contact our RMA department at rma@zotacusa.com with your RMA number and issue and they may be able to remediate your situation. Once again, I apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Pros: Plays HD flawlessly - Typically 3% cpu usage with vdpau!!
Overclocks great, but I can't see much reason to overclock it (except when building the kernel!)

Cons: Zotac made two boo-boos:

1. They stripped off the ATX power connector, forcing you to use their external power supply (works fine, but my case already had a power supply).

2. The rubber standoffs under the heatsink are slightly too tall, so the thermal compound on the GPU is ridiculously thick, and the thermal pad on the cpu is even more so! I did the usual mod:

http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/topic/2306-ion-heatsink-mod

And shaved 7 degrees off my cpu temp. I think you could do even better by replacing the rubber standoffs.

Other Thoughts: Linux users will want to run a recent kernel (I'm running 2.6.36.4) and install libvdpau before compiling mplayer. SMplayer is working beautifully. You will want to add this to your ~/.mplayer/config:

# first try vdpau, fall back to xv
vo=vdpau,xv,
# only use vdpau with h264
vc=ffh264vdpau,
# unrelated, but useful ;^)
[extension.mkv]
demuxer=mkv

Pros: Price, features

Cons: Performance, reliability.

Other Thoughts: This thing is mounted in an old apex dvd player customized with fan ports on the bottom for good airflow. I have since I bought it been getting random shutoff/restarts. I have since replaced the memory, and HDD - (upgraded to 4GB and a SSD). This thing is fast, but it still have occasional restarts during video playback. I have monitored the internal temp sensors during video playback and the thing stays cool.

This machine fails at ANY streaming HD video. Even with the Ion/CUDA it cannot handle it. Netflix needs HD turned off or it is a constant slideshow. Youtube in HD 720p is playable, but 1080 gets choppy at times of heavy movement. Even playing video off a TV tuner in SD takes nearly all the CPU has and can get choppy.

I have it overclocked to 2Ghz and made sure to give it the max available video memory.

If I could do it again, I would love to have DDR3 version running a 2.4ghz dual core Atom.... so I will wait for that to exist.

Pros: Plenty of features, fan is near silent. Streams video over the LAN without a problem. Not the quickest mITX board in the world, but it's an Atom.

Cons: None really.

Other Thoughts: Had to grab the wire cutters and soldering iron to make the DC jack reach the port on my case (old 5.56mm ammo can) but that's not Zotac's fault.

Pros: I purchased this board over a year ago for a girlfriend's christmas gift in a new computer. I built this in an M-350 case and hung it from a VESA mount on the back of a monitor.

Performance/size ratio is quite nice for the time, however it's far beyond outdated now. Running Windows 7 with 2GB of RAM this was capable of driving a 1920x1080 monitor and was primarily used for web browsing but worked well for Youtube (if you had the CUDA drivers enabled) and you can watch movies and blu-rays just fine

Cons: The fan for this motherboard is very high pitched and can become annoying, however it does move a lot of air. Without the fan this board can get quite hot.

The graphics are also sub par for just about anything, although it can handle a few games at 1920x1080 resolutions it's not recommended (L4D2 on low settings ran at 24FPS)

CPU is the biggest bottleneck here as well. While the GPU alleviates some processing when using CUDA supported apps it's otherwise quite useless.

Other Thoughts: Great for a web browsing or low powered computer, just don't expect to get too much performance out of it.

Pros: It's Amazing! I have been using it for over a year as my "Home Server". I have it using a 500gb HDD an OS disk and it also controls a 1tb Raid-1. It will play 1080p mkv movie files as long as you use a video player that supports the nVidia ION hardware acceleration (XBMC does this perfectly, just enable it under settings). I use it to host an iTunes server, XBMC, file server, web server. Can leave it on all the time without racking up a large electricity bill, under full load it pulls between 38-42watts, and around 30-36 idle, measured using "Kill-A-Watt". Works great with custom boot batch file to start applications in an order that leaves XBMC the last thing that opens, so it stays in the front.

Cons: Had problems when using Ubuntu with my TV over HDMI. Using HDMI to my monitor worked great, but it would flicker on my TV. Tried forcing all types of settings, manual EDIDs, different drivers, nothing worked. But the problem seems to be between my TV and Ubuntu because Windows 7 handled it perfectly.

Other Thoughts: 2x Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB
4GB OCZ DDR2 800MHz (2x2GB)
I have heard it can be overclocked, but I like it better to vb

Pros: Works very well with the exception of the wifi.

Cons: Drivers are ancient and there seems to be no easy way to find and update them from Zotac. Wifi only works on "b" protocol.
Zotac's response to my request for help seems to be moving at glacial speed.

Other Thoughts: I wouldn't buy another Zotac product.

Pros: It works and functions. The price was right until I realized the rebate might not come.

Cons: Drivers are old on web site. The biggest Con ( as in Con Game) is that I bought this with a promised $20.00 rebate and never received my rebate after going on line and pre-registering my rebate and sending all the required forms through snail mail. After 8 weeks, I emailed and telephoned with no returned calls. Therefore, I bought this item partly because of the rebate because the price was right. Zotac you deserve ONE SCAMBLED EGG.

Other Thoughts: MB is functional but some HD skips and freezes. Driver support not real good. This company (Zotac) doesn't respond to well to its customers and I thought happy customers defined a sucessful company. NewEgg cares about its customers hence happy customers and sucessful business. Zotac is ....well, unresponsive and it speaks for itself.

Manufacturer Response:

Sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with our product. ZOTAC has technical support available 24/7 to fully assist you in diagnosis and possible replacement if needed. If you believe your product is defective, you can also request a RMA directly to ZOTAC. Rebates inquiries should be directed at rebates@zotacusa.com. Rebates take about 10-14 weeks to process as stated on the rebate form.

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