AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Foxconn Foxconn NT-a3500 mini review (CHEAP HTPC)
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Foxconn Foxconn NT-a3500 mini review (CHEAP HTPC) - Page 3

post #61 of 65
Are there any fanless passively cooled heatsink nettops out there?
post #62 of 65
Dont think I've run across any suitable nettops lately, but there are afew passive ITX boards w/cpu between the atoms and zacate. One of those thrown in an ITX case w/pico psu will be small and totally passive.
post #63 of 65
My Kingston SV200S3D7/64G died today! I had Win 7 32-bit loaded using a G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Memory Model F3-10666CL9S-4GBSQ. It ran fine for a couple of days although I had to use the HP Pin and Win98 flash to get BIOS from 7 (as delivered) to ver 08 they have on their site. I also noticed the BIOS would occasionally have issue seeing the SSD, if it didn't identify a Hard Drive: Kingston... in the BIOS it wouldn't boot, just recycle into SETUP. On those occasions it would list simply "Hard Drive" and couldn't boot. Switching between IDE and AHCI sometimes would trigger it to "see" the SSD. Then, a couple o' days ago it started crashing overnight! I'd go to bed leaving a file playing in MCE and the system would sleep in 2 hours... next morning I'd power on the 30" and the system was crashed! This happened several nights which concerned me. Then I began having issue with the CCC.exe and MON.exe crashing or not being able to run and was going to reload my OS today... no luck, before I could get this done it lost the SSD entirely! No matter what I did it couldn't see the SSD. I removed it from the system and connected it to another PC - no dice. It couldn't be seen there or in an external SATA to USB enclosure. It's just dead! Those pesky lil' mail in rebates will keep me from returning it to Adorama since they want the UPC intact! I've initiated a RMA through Kingston.

I sure hope these issues were all manifested in the faulty SSD, although I did wonder if the heat in the Nettop could have killed the SSD? Has anyone had drive issues on their system? One other thing, the WEI was 3.8 due to the processor eventhough the graphics was at 5.7 & 6.1 (as I recall). Also, it said I have 2.5 GB usable RAM (including the 512MB I "forced" for the video in BIOS) for a total of exactly 3GB of the 4GB stick it sees. I thought the 32-bit OS "limit" was under 4GB not exactly at 3GB - in fact, my main HTPC sees my 4GB and says 3.25 GB usable on its 32-bit Win 7 OS.
LL
post #64 of 65
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Hornfeck View Post

My Kingston SV200S3D7/64G died today! I had Win 7 32-bit loaded using a G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Memory Model F3-10666CL9S-4GBSQ. It ran fine for a couple of days although I had to use the HP Pin and Win98 flash to get BIOS from 7 (as delivered) to ver 08 they have on their site. I also noticed the BIOS would occasionally have issue seeing the SSD, if it didn't identify a Hard Drive: Kingston... in the BIOS it wouldn't boot, just recycle into SETUP. On those occasions it would list simply "Hard Drive" and couldn't boot. Switching between IDE and AHCI sometimes would trigger it to "see" the SSD. Then, a couple o' days ago it started crashing overnight! I'd go to bed leaving a file playing in MCE and the system would sleep in 2 hours... next morning I'd power on the 30" and the system was crashed! This happened several nights which concerned me. Then I began having issue with the CCC.exe and MON.exe crashing or not being able to run and was going to reload my OS today... no luck, before I could get this done it lost the SSD entirely! No matter what I did it couldn't see the SSD. I removed it from the system and connected it to another PC - no dice. It couldn't be seen there or in an external SATA to USB enclosure. It's just dead! Those pesky lil' mail in rebates will keep me from returning it to Adorama since they want the UPC intact! I've initiated a RMA through Kingston.


I sure hope these issues were all manifested in the faulty SSD, although I did wonder if the heat in the Nettop could have killed the SSD? Has anyone had drive issues on their system? One other thing, the WEI was 3.8 due to the processor eventhough the graphics was at 5.7 & 6.1 (as I recall). Also, it said I have 2.5 GB usable RAM (including the 512MB I "forced" for the video in BIOS) for a total of exactly 3GB of the 4GB stick it sees. I thought the 32-bit OS "limit" was under 4GB not exactly at 3GB - in fact, my main HTPC sees my 4GB and says 3.25 GB usable on its 32-bit Win 7 OS.
525x525px-LL-fb73c7c4_vbattach242904.jpeg

I just bought this at Newegg and am using a OCZ SSD and Win 7 32 bit. I just installed this with 4gb ram and whenever I wake from sleep I get a BSOD. This is a clean install and I was wondering if this was from a bad SSD. I tried two different ones and they both crashed my system.

Thanks.
post #65 of 65
I have had a copy of this little fellow for about 2 months now and think is is a very good deal for the $155 I paid (NewEgg.ca) .

Had a surplus 120G SATA III SSD and bought a 8G el cheapo stick and a $19 wireless mouse / Keyboard at a local computer shop and it was set.

Right now it is straight version 12 - XBMC (for the last month) This weekend I will be wiping it for a XBMC / Win 7 dual boot PC.

Bios update was required to get 5.1 audio through HDMI for me. As noted previously the Foxconn site up time is spotty.

My projector is 720p so 1080p is not that important, that said I have been pleasantly surprised with the 1080 performance for the content I do play on it. Net streams of PBS et al and content from my Dlink box mostly.

Having built many bare bones kits over the past 20 years, I found this one fantastic for the price paid..
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers
AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Foxconn Foxconn NT-a3500 mini review (CHEAP HTPC)