Anyone Know anything about Single Board Computers?

[Shinare]

I've built a couple Mini-ITX comptuers now and was looking for something else to do. I constantly lug both my PC and a game server to our LAN parties once a month.

While looking around, I stumbled on whats called a "Single Board Computer" or SBC. Heres a link to a PCI one for example.

If theres anyone in the know about these things, can you just plug one of these into a regular PCI slot in your motherboard, or are these completely diferent animals? I'd love to take the HDD out of my current server, add it in with the others in my gaming computer, add this card and have two computers in one.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Shinare
I've built a couple Mini-ITX comptuers now and was looking for something else to do. I constantly lug both my PC and a game server to our LAN parties once a month.

While looking around, I stumbled on whats called a "Single Board Computer" or SBC. Heres a link to a PCI one for example.

If theres anyone in the know about these things, can you just plug one of these into a regular PCI slot in your motherboard, or are these completely diferent animals? I'd love to take the HDD out of my current server, add it in with the others in my gaming computer, add this card and have two computers in one.

Huh, never heard of that before, bet it's expensive. It does appear to have IDE ports onboard though. Has a VGA slot too, I'm betting it just draws power from the main PC (thus the need for the ultra low voltage pentium m) and is otherwise a completely seperate computer.

 

[Shinare]

Yah, thats what I'm thinking it is, a wholy seperate computer that plugs into a PCI slot. But what I am not sure about is:

Can you put it into ANY PCI slot like on a regular motherboard, or do you have to buy a special case that houses many of them such as this beast?

As far as price, I'm betting something like that is on the order of $500 or more just for the card. You have to add on memory and a P-M on top of that.

Edit:Heres another one from commell.

 

[snoturtle]

they are not cheap thats for sure

and yes most were made to go into a backplane like you link
there are some that get there power from a molex and can be put into a cd drive bay and run from there

here is one that will fit into a hard drive bay
here

Also check out this site
link

 

[bwnv]

These are for building rack mount servers. The backplane has no circuitry on it, just trace paths for the cards and power. I've never seen one with more than one single board computer on it. Doubt it's even workable as the PCI signaling would have to be synched up somehow.

 

[Fox5]

Why not email the company and ask?