[hpsdr] Nano-ITX

Sat Mar 3 11:38:33 PST 2007

Eric and Brian,

I purchased a VIA SP13000 board about a year ago
with the intention of using it with PowerSDR and the SDR-1000.  The
whole setup was a VIA SP13000 MB, 512Meg of Memory, a laptop 80 Gig
Hard Drive, a laptop DVD drive, a Delta 44 soundcard and a Travla C138
case.  Despite hours of fiddling I was never able to make it work
correctly.  The root of the problem appeared to be the Unichrome
Windows driver for the CN400 integrated video chipset on the
motherboard.  It seems to be incapable of efficiently handling
DirectX.  With the video displays turned off, the audio processing in
PowerSDR worked with no problem.  However, when either the spectrum,
waterfall or panadapter displays were activated on the PowerSDR
console, the CPU usage went to 85% plus and the audio began dropping
out. 

The
SP13000 is now used as a Linux box interface to a Bitscope PC
oscilloscope on the workbench.  Bitscope has  a Linux version of their
Dso software (written in Kylix) and it runs very well.

So. I
guess the moral of my story is if you are going to use a mini-ITX or
nano-ITX form factor MB for the Power SDR console, it is probably best
to not use a board with a VIA CPU and chipset.  Also, the Northbridge
(video) chip and its video driver are very important.  

73,

Dan N4XWE

Brian

Yes, these look VERY nice. I am using a Asus P4P800VM for several years in
an Aria case, with a 3.2 gig processor. I've been pleased with it's size and
performance. 

I think the Nano's have better performance than the 1 gig processor implies,
but have not followed it recently. The size is really attractive for remote
embedded systems. With Ethernet and 2 USB onboard and potential to use the
small 12 V powered PicoPSU's this would be the ideal for mounting in an
enclosure with an Atlas based SDR systet

Just dreamin of the future!

Eric

Eric,

I agree that nan-ITX boards are very small. :)  Unfortunately, they
appear to top out in the 1GHz range.

I was thinking along the lines of:

http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/products_id/735

and

http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/products_id/552

I'm favoring the first one.  Those are mini-ITX units that support a
Core2Duo mobile chip.  Plug a decent dual-head graphics card into the
slot and you'd have a very competent system for running PowerSDR.

73 N5VFF/YI9VFF - Brian

On 3/1/07, Eric Ellison <ecellison at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brian!
>
> Check out the Nano's instead. I've been trackin' them but not lately. They
> appear to have come a long way.
>
> http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.83/.f
>
> Someone also asked about LCD's and such. This kinda cute and apparently
more
> are coming.
>
> http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.490/.f
>
>
> We did discuss 'stacking' dual Atlas at one point, but it got complex, and
> the power connector would have had to go to the rear of the connectors
> rather than as current, potentially interfering with plug in cards. Also
> unknown effects on the buss. Atlasi is probably a better choice.
>
> Thanks
> Eric
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ZPO [mailto:geekdownrange at gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 5:49 AM
> To: Ben Hall
> Cc: Eric Ellison; hpsdr at hpsdr.org
> Subject: Re: [hpsdr] Pandora's Box
>
> One of the advantages of a 7-8 slot computer case would seem to be the
> possibility of mounting a mini-ITX board in the case along with ATLAS.
>  The mini-ITX boards I've been looking at have a single PCI-E slot
> along the right-side  (when viewed from the main I/O plate).  That
> would put the mini-ITX board on the far left (viewed from the slot
> side) with ATLAS on the right.  An appropriate RF shield would likely
> be required between the two.
>
> This could give a 19" rackmount case that would hold both ATLAS and a
> dual-core mini-ITX processor board to do the dttsp functions.
>
> Stepping up to a larger slot-count passive backplane rackmount case
> might bring the possibility of a dual-ATLAS installation and still
> have room for a 4-6 slot PICMG passive backplane for the processing
> portion.
>
> 73 N5VFF/YI9VFF - Brian
>
>
> On 3/1/07, Ben Hall <kd5byb at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
> >
> > ... clip ...
>
>

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