Most helpful client reviews
10 of 10 humans found the following review helpful.
Perfect for an HTPC
By W. Kiley
I purchased this looking for a low-power HTPC. I couldn’t be more pleased. I am antecedently an ASUS OPlay and Boxee Box owner, to set a usual for my expectations.
I had a 2.5″ hdd lying around to throw in it, and a 2GB stick of ddr3 as well. I’ve paired this nettop with my TV (37LG50) and a Logitech K400 keyboard/touchpad combo. With that, I booted it up and installed Windows 7 by way of USB. Once finished, I modified the BIOS from within Windows (make sure you check the necessary boxes within the updater! follow the directions closely), loaded up the chipset drivers from Foxconn, then modified Windows, then altered the rest of the drivers. Smooth operation. I’ve not so long ago modified the Catalyst Graphics & Atheros wifi drivers directly from each manufacturer and not Foxconn.
Once up and running, here’s how it’s doing:
Media playback: 1080p content without breaking a sweat when using a hardware quickened decoder (DXVA) within XBMC and Media Player Classic Home Cinema.
Boot-up: The BIOS post is super fast, and from there the boot time is dependent upon your hdd/ssd and RAM. I’m to my desktop in with regards to 40 seconds from power on.
Compatibility: 100% with everything I’ve thrown at it. All on-board widgets work flawlessly with Windows 7. Loving the USB 3.0 speeds (to which I’ve connected two external enclosures with 6 hdds total – it mounts them all, no issues). USB WiFi is great, USB Blu-Ray rom is great. Boots from USB perfectly.
Heat & Noise: Non-issue for me. It’s very quiet, imo. My external hdd’s drown the lone fan out. Heat is never an issue.
HDMI output: Handshakes with my TV at BIOS post. Never had an issue there.
Small surprise: there’s an on-board speaker within the nettop’s case that puts out laptop quality sound. Pleasant surprise!
Side-note: magnetic feet included are completely useless. They aren’t strong sufficient to withstand sliding the unit all over a wood surface, so they now sit on my fridge. No biggie. I likewise dabbled with gaming, loading up a heap of Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour and setting the solution to 1080p. Handles it like a champ! That’s a decent little APU to power the game that smoothly.
My uses primarily entail media playback/file transfers/internet browsing. This does everything I need quietly, efficiently, and does it well. Money well spent!
Lastly, a comment on Foxconn: I’ve had numerous misgivings with regards to them, but this hardware is great. The box was laughable, but the product is solid and I even contacted their support for the BIOS update (having not followed the directions closely sufficient and messing things up) and they were prompt, clear, and very helpful. Highly commended on both product and service fronts after this experience.
10 of 11 persons found the following review helpful.
Up and Running
By Elmonica
Just finished loading Windows 7 on it. I was a little frustrated at original because of the lack of documentation on how to install the hard drive and memory (drive and memory ordered separately). There are four screws you need to remove using a narrow screwdriver and then you have to pry off the top, gently working your screw driver beneath the edge of the lid.
Since I didn’t have an external CD-Rom drive to carry out the installation, I applied two USB flash drives, one with Windows 7 on it, and the other with the drivers from the CD. I made the fault of initially attempting the installation using the two 3.0 USB ports on the front of the computer. If you do that, it will prompt you for drivers for the duration of the install and you will get stuck. Instead, use the 2.0 USB ports on the back of the computer and the installation will finish fine. At the end of the Windows 7 installation, you will need to install the drivers. Be sure to refer to the booklet provide which instructs you to install one queer driver first, followed by the others.
I don’t yet have sufficient experience with it to comment on it is performance, other than to say my primary impressions are positive. You might want to check out Newegg.com which has more feedback. People over there say the unit have a tendancy to run hot if subjected to heavy processing.
UPDATE:
I have been using it now as my necessary desktop at home for a few weeks and have been pretty happy with it. It is not actually a great multi-tasking machine, but for single intention tasks it is fine. I do streaming video to my Android tablet, and that works well, though transcoding at the desktop results in a heavy load on the processors.
One thing I have noticed is the Wireless Network adapter doesn’t support “Wake on Lan” –meaning I can’t can’t send a magic packet to the IP address assigned to this adapter from my Android tablet in order to wake it up. To resolve this I ran an ethernet cable from the Foxconn PC to my router and enabled the Wake on Lan properties for this adapter. So, I now send the magic packet to the IP address assigned to the ethernet adapter and it wakes fine.
3 of 3 persons found the following review helpful.
Great HTPC – With a good deal of Quirks
By B. Shockley
I purchased this barebones system to use as a very low power HTPC. I wanted a Windows 7 System that was powerful sufficient to run Windows Media Center and a few other things like ESPN3.com (flash) and whatnot. I use it 95% of the time for WMC. For what I use it for, it’s been doing great recently, but that wasn’t always the case.
Hardware:
Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 500GB SATA II 7200 RPM 16MB Cache
Corsair Memory CM3X4GSD1066
OVU412002/00 IR Receiver (Called a Dell Microsoft CX071 – they are generic)
Connected to home theater receiver thru HDMI, both audio and video.
First, set up was a pain. I’ve built a number of PCs over the years, so assembling and loading up a barebones scheme seemed straight forward…nope. During Windows installs it hung assorted times using a USB based DVD drive. I in the long run got it working. Install all the driver updates you can. Most are found on the Foxconn website, but for the audio driver, check the chip makers website – Google Realtek ALC888S Driver. Also, for video drivers go to AMD directly, search for A350 Drivers and it will include the video drivers for the HD6310.
Once I in the long run got it setup, it was still a bit quirky. A few times it wouldn’t wake from sleep, or it would wake, but the audio would drop out or the Ir receiver would not function (not sure if it was the IR receiver or the NTA350). Nothing major, but when you want something to just work, it was a bit aggravating. One last quirk is the system speaker (just a little single speaker) while helpful if you don’t have it connected to a home theater has a nasty “pop” when going to sleep. It’s a nice indicator, but doesn’t sound good…first time I thought I’d done busted a capacitor it was that loud.
However, after the latest driver installs and updates, everything the last few weeks has been great. When introductory waking the system it takes a few seconds to completely wake. Maybe a SSD would speed that up, but it’s not a huge deal. Once it’s to the full or entire extent awake transitions from screen to screen are fast and accurate. Loading a recorded TV show is fast, skipping, ff, rw etc all work great.
95% of the time it works well for what I want it to do. Every now and then, it’ll have a hiccup still, but I unquestionably am enjoying the purchase.
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