Rudy's Computer Corner: Biostar iDEQ Computer
SFF (Small Form Factor) computers are one of the latest rages in hardware. Shuttle was the first SFF computer I'd seen at a local computer show, and it was a bit pricey. Now, Biostar has begun making these as well, calling them iDEQ, and offers them with four different configurations for AMD or Intel processors. I saw one that used the AMD Athlon processor but wasn't impressed because it had the dreaded VIA chipset. I looked around online and found a brand new iDEQ, model 200N, that uses the Nvidia chipset, similar to my current Asus motherboard. One online dealer had "refurbished" 200N's for sale, and I bought two, bringing the price to just under $200 each.
The Ideq has a lot on board. The small motherboard accepts two memory sticks and runs them in dual-channel mode. It has one PCI slot and an 8X AGP slot. The Ideq has on-board audio and video, but if you wanted to kick this machine up another notch, you still are able to add in audio and video cards. Front panel has one firewire and two USB ports, a headphone jack, mic input, and an S/PDIF optical connector. Back panel has two more USBs, two monitor outputs (one for analog, the other a "DVI"), outputs for 5.1 channel surround, another S/PDIF connector, two more USB 2.0 ports and another firewire port, and an ethernet jack. :thumbsup: The board supports IDE as well as SATA drives. You can order optional cables for parallel, serial and game ports, which install in the knock-outs in the back of the case. The case itself measures a mere 8¼" wide, 7½" tall and 13" deep...its package size is smaller than the 15" monitor I have it attached to.
This is a "barebones" system. What you need to add are an optical drive (CD, DVD, etc.), floppy drive, hard drive, memory and CPU. I was impressed by the design and build of this unit. The front panel slides down to expose the drives. Unlike the Shuttle system, you can hide your drives in this system if you don't get matching silver (I got black). The chassis and side/top panels are aluminum; rigid yet very lightweight. The top channels are perfect for hiding wiring. All cabling inside is clearly marked, and neatly tied or wrapped. The heat sink is clever, incorporating a special copper heat conductor and fan that clamps on. Due to the clean design, air flow is much improved and this computer runs cool to the touch. The panels are attached by thumbscrews, two for the top panel and one each for the sides.
I used the AMD Athlon XP2500+ CPU with the Barton core (512KB L2 cache), two 256MB sticks of 400MHz PC3200 memory (which takes advantage of the dual-channel memory architecture rather than using one 512MB stick), a Lite-On combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, and Maxtor 120MB IDE hard drive.
I haven't run this computer too hard yet, but so far it's very smooth and fast, even using the on-board video and audio. DVD video plays back without any hesitating. It runs very cool, and the fan isn't too overly loud. A nice little package! It's good as a "casual" computer for everyday use, but with added audio and video cards, it really could be a serious work or gaming computer. I'd have no problems hauling this around on a trip with an LCD panel. 
A few pictures of my completed iDEQ:
You can get more information at Biostar's website.
Posted on Dec 27, 2003 at 11:31 pm by Rudy.
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