AndyCunningham
Member
Hi there
I've seen this sort of topic come up a lot recently, seems an appealing thought, and I'd just like to know if anyone has ideas on how plausible some of these technologies are to create a smaller PC.
1) Serial ATA: Heard about this quite a bit but I've never seen any hard discs / CD type drives using this technology. As far as I know, the motherboard connector would be a small jack type plug, saving quite a lot of motherboard space in comparison to a ATA-100 or -133 connector.
2) USB2.0: I know this has been released and software support is on the way. I saw on an intel legacy-free concept PC using internal USB2 connectors to attach previously PCI components. Is it viable to for instance have perhaps 4 internal USB2 connectors for connecting devices such as TV cards, sound cards and so on (is the bandwidth sufficient) and leave just perhaps AGP and 1-2 PCI slots (64-bit maybe?) for high bandwidth devices such as RAID cards. This alone would be enough to reduce the motherboard size to mATX size without sacrificing upgradability (though where to put the cards themselves?
3) Half height CD-ROM drives: Looking at personal CD players, I assume this should be relatively easy. A modern PC really could do with the space for at least 2 CD drives, and it would seem sensible to fit them into a half height bay.
4) Smaller PSUs: They seem to take up quite a bit of space really - any reason why they can't be compressed?
5) Remove the floppy connector: Not sure about this one - is there any particular reason why the floppy interface has remained so similar over the years - could it be put on a serial ATA connector?
Also I doubt that the serial ports see much usage on a modern PC, possibly even the parallel port could be removed, though that would definitely annoy many people still running parallel printers.
Any other ideas on removing the stuff that takes up so much space?
I've seen this sort of topic come up a lot recently, seems an appealing thought, and I'd just like to know if anyone has ideas on how plausible some of these technologies are to create a smaller PC.
1) Serial ATA: Heard about this quite a bit but I've never seen any hard discs / CD type drives using this technology. As far as I know, the motherboard connector would be a small jack type plug, saving quite a lot of motherboard space in comparison to a ATA-100 or -133 connector.
2) USB2.0: I know this has been released and software support is on the way. I saw on an intel legacy-free concept PC using internal USB2 connectors to attach previously PCI components. Is it viable to for instance have perhaps 4 internal USB2 connectors for connecting devices such as TV cards, sound cards and so on (is the bandwidth sufficient) and leave just perhaps AGP and 1-2 PCI slots (64-bit maybe?) for high bandwidth devices such as RAID cards. This alone would be enough to reduce the motherboard size to mATX size without sacrificing upgradability (though where to put the cards themselves?
3) Half height CD-ROM drives: Looking at personal CD players, I assume this should be relatively easy. A modern PC really could do with the space for at least 2 CD drives, and it would seem sensible to fit them into a half height bay.
4) Smaller PSUs: They seem to take up quite a bit of space really - any reason why they can't be compressed?
5) Remove the floppy connector: Not sure about this one - is there any particular reason why the floppy interface has remained so similar over the years - could it be put on a serial ATA connector?
Also I doubt that the serial ports see much usage on a modern PC, possibly even the parallel port could be removed, though that would definitely annoy many people still running parallel printers.
Any other ideas on removing the stuff that takes up so much space?
