Biostar SFF

[abc]

those IDEQ series... got good review i read.... arent' they supposed to be out in MAY?

haven't seen anybody carry them...

 

[chiwawa626]

I hate how companies do that and tease you with pics and early reviews, then never stick to a release date. Yet i also hate it when they dont provide any info at all.

 

[abc]

i read people from another board say newegg is gonna get them NEXT WEEK!

 

[abc]

as of yesterday, I saw this avail instock at both newegg and googlegear.

I ordered from googlegear, 279.

 

[MetroRider]

give us your personal review of your unit once you're done building your system if you dont mind.

i am highly interested in getting one or two of these units myself, so any extra reviews would be greatly appreciated!

thanks and good luck!

 

[robisc]

I too am almost ready to order one of these over the Shuttle, let us know how you like it.

 

[abc]

okay, i will then. i got the AMD barton Tues. and got the Biostar Monday. Sucks because I was off on Monday and could have put everything together.

I've since flipped through the Biostar manual and it's in color with color photographs.

The IDEQ was nicely packed, and a seperate white box holds all the cables and accessories.


I'll update again when I start building. I have everything already. My harddisk 160GB and memory 1GB DDR and LeadTek tuner card were purchased well over a month ago.

 

[joedivino]

These CUBES are nothing but mini-towers, why not go for the Keyboard PC from Cybernet that has a p4 inside a keyboard?

 

[tokamak]

any idea on when the p4 version will be available, the 200T i believe? the sliding door is a good idea. these machines look good.

 

[joedivino]

A CUBE is nothing more than a mini-tower. just a fancier name. There are better alternatives out there like the Cybernet Zero-Footprint-PC, which is a P4 PC inside a keyboard with lan, cd, hd, ram, ports, etc.

 

[tokamak]

Originally posted by: joedivino
A CUBE is nothing more than a mini-tower. just a fancier name. There are better alternatives out there like the Cybernet Zero-Footprint-PC, which is a P4 PC inside a keyboard with lan, cd, hd, ram, ports, etc.

you're starting to sound like a broken record. if you want to start a thread about keyboard PC's, have at it. this thread is about Biostar SFF's.

 

[robisc]

Yep it seems we are starting to get spammed in the forums now.

 

[abc]

robisc, yesterday i started the build.

there are 2 metal clips that hold down their heatsink/fan combo.

you need to remove this first before installing the AMD cpu. It was about 10 minutes of fiddling by me before I could get the tension clips off so as to remove the heatsink/fan... which itself is surprisingly heavy to me.

I also noticed that the copper colored bottom of the heatsink that is supposed to make contact with the AMD cpu does not do so because of the 4 black circular rubber pads on the AMD cpu.

honestly i have not done reading online... is this AMD cpu meant not to contact a heatsink. I didn't use any compound because it would have had to have been a thick glob, and as we know, a thick glob actually hinders heat transfer.

Anyway, I quickly installed 2 x 512 Crucial memory, a 30GB HD, a cdrom, and inserted a XP cdrom, connected a KB, a MOUSE, Cat5, VideoCable, and booted it up.

Ran XP install fine, and system was ready.

I have not yet tinkered with BIOS much. A nice looking BIOSTAR splash screen appears (you can turn this off).

The CPU temp was about 105F, you can install a software off the cd to control the RPM of the fan or set it as auto... I thought 105F was high.

I found the system to be more quiet than my expectations. I am about 4-5 feet away from the biostar and I cannot hear it much.

The motherboard, if you've seen the pictures already, is RED. wires are pretaped from the factory, everything is very neat. I have not played around with any other SSF before, but this one seems like nice build quality and again, neat and clean.

I have not checked what other stuff is on the included cd, I assume NIC drivers and sound drivers... I noticed that XP installed some NIC driver and supposedly the device is working properly, but I cannot get my router to grant a IP to it. I ping the hostname and I get 127.0.0.1

XP also shows it has not installed drivers for the sound.

I looked at biostar's site and they only seem to have drivers for the Videocard.


Perhaps tonight I will continue checking things out. Hopefully I can get the NIC card issue resolved. I get link light though.


Does anyone have specific questions in mind about the BIOSTAR.

Hopefully this weekend I'm going to start tinkering with some overclocking of this Barton 2500.

ttyl.

 

[tokamak]

on the AMD cpu, the pressure from the heatsink clips should push the rubber pads down enough so that the heatsink comes in contact with the core. at least thats how it is on my 1800+....thanks for the info on the Biostar, these systems are looking more attractive to me every day. one thing that a review i read mentioned was that the power on button felt "cheap." i know that seems kinda minor, but can you elaborate on what the power button is like?

 

[robisc]

thanks for the update, hope it continues to go well. I will probably order one next week.

 

[abc]

toka, i see... you're probably right then regarding the pressure... I'll have to unseat the sink and put some of my artic silver and pwr it up again and to see if the temps are lower.

regarding the pwr button 'feeling' cheap... i'm very surprised at such a comment because it had not crossed my mind at all. it feels normal.

The button is a Chrome elogated circular button that is nice and puffy, feels firm no wiggle to me, presses in deeply, and clicks, and then the ICE BLUE led for HD activity comes on, a amber led that is always on turns Green.

I tried booting up 4 times just to check out the pwr button some more as I was curious about its feel. It's fine to me.

Boots into XP in about 10 seconds on a 30GB 2MB cache Maxtor. I will install my 160GB 8MB cache this weekend hopefully.

hope I 'elaborated' enough about the power on button

 

[tokamak]

hehe yeah thanks. i just remembered that from a review and thought i'd ask. another nitpicky thing: how about the sliding door? does it feel "cheap" or does it seem nice quality? i dunno why im worrying so much about aesthetics

 

[abc]

Originally posted by: tokamak
hehe yeah thanks. i just remembered that from a review and thought i'd ask. another nitpicky thing: how about the sliding door? does it feel "cheap" or does it seem nice quality? i dunno why im worrying so much about aesthetics

HI. The sliding door is covered in a plastic film. I have not peeled it away yet. The bottom half of the case front that is immobile also has the same type of clear plastic film, which I have not peeled off yet either.

Leaving either on as I have does not prevent the door from being able to slide up and down.

The sliding door is nothing fancy, it's just a piece of plastic wit hthe iDeq logo that slides up and down thanks to the grooves on each side of the case frame that holds the panel in place. It does slide into a definite snap to lock itself in place when you are in 'stealth mode', that is, covering the floppy and cdrom away.

I wish the iDeq had plexi side windos such as the gBox though... dual at that... nice. But they are Intel Based. I wanted to support AMD some... the consumer needs them around... anyway, getting off topic.

also tokamak, I've now placed some artic on the cpu and reattached the Biostar Heatsink. The two clips are easy to remove if you have learned to handle them. My earlier post I had a hard time but this time it took seconds.

This time I used my finger to press on those 4 circular rubber pads on the AMD Barton. You are right, they are soft and really seemed as though they would completely compress when the heatsink clamps down, allowing as you say, the heatsink to actually contact with the CPU. Thanks.

 

[abc]

Originally posted by: robisc
thanks for the update, hope it continues to go well. I will probably order one next week.

robisc and tokamac, both of you and myself I just noticed are Anand oldtimers (1999) and we all joined at around the same month


with the covers of the biostar off, the temps were about 48 to 52c playing a mpg with mediaplayer.

now that i have added heatcompound AND set up agressive mode in the BIOS, which allows 12.5x clock setting, (I booted the PC with memory timing at 166, untouched) and playing the same mpg and with the side panels still off, the temp is slower to rise to 50c, abou 20min., then it stays around 49 to 51, hitting 52c a few times... the CPU fan is in automode, 1635rpm usually.

In XP my computer/sytem properties, it now shows

AMD Athlon XP 2800+
at 2.09Ghz.

I am now curious as to upping the memory speed from 166mhz to something faster.

I have yet to install the LeadTek TV tuner, will do this today, and reinstall the side panels of the case to continue evaluating temps with the case entirely sealed and the extra periperhal, and if the whole thing actually becomes even more quiet.

when I shut down the whole thing to apply the artic compound, I had a moment when I held the whole box in my arms. The bottom of the case is very warm, I didn't like that. That MB and CPU seems to generate alot of heat.

I personally would not mind if both the fans inside were larger diameter.

The issue with the NIC not working is resolved.

The driver CD which I thought had the Nvidia audio drivers is duh, drivers for everything, not just audio. So that's that.

 

[tokamak]

thanks for all the info abc. the review i read said that the bottom of the Biostar has indentions that contact the cpu, etc., basically making it a big heatsink. thats probably why the bottom of yours is hot.

 

[robisc]

abc, yep I guess we are "oldtimers" around here, even though I don't have 10000 posts, anyways you've got me sold on the Ideq, continue to keep us updated

 

[abc]

hi, a quick update until more messing around with it this weekend.

I've installed the tv tuner, installed all side panels, and temps are basically around 49 to 52c

and I've overclocked it to 12.5x clock multiplier, leaving memory to 166mhz default speed.

XP sees a 2.8+ Ghz PC... seems stable.

 

[HemoPhilic]

I got one too and have been updating at amdmb.com here...

Linky