Zotac MAG ION Nettop

[ste_b_79]

Hi

I just saw the Zotac MAG ION Nettop on http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=58 and wondered if anyone has one of these.

The picture of it looks great, and it looks so good sitting behind the TV/Monitor on the VESA mountings.

It has the same chipset as the Zotac ION-ITX motherboards, so it should work just as well as them.

It mentions having the Dual Core Atom N330 processor, but doesnt mention about a fan.

Ste

[totallymaxed]

Hi

I just saw the Zotac MAG ION Nettop on http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=58 and wondered if anyone has one of these.

The picture of it looks great, and it looks so good sitting behind the TV/Monitor on the VESA mountings.

It has the same chipset as the Zotac ION-ITX motherboards, so it should work just as well as them.

It mentions having the Dual Core Atom N330 processor, but doesnt mention about a fan.

Ste

The Mag ion indeed uses a standard Zotac board and in that respect it will work as well as any of the other Atom/ion based hardware out there. The Zotac mobos generally have more I/O than most others so that is there USP...and the 330 model does have a fan. Dianemo & Cascade Smart Home support these already.

All the best


Andrew

[ste_b_79]

Cheers Andrew (and thanks for the quick reply).

I was just reading this review http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/MAG_ION_Nettop.

How do you find the heat that comes out of the top of the unit when playing HD 1080p movies? Does the fan work ok in there?

Have you noticed any other things with Zotac motherboards (and specifically for the Mag Ion Nettop), or is a higher I/O the only problem.

Do Dianemo & Cascade sell these units and if so for how much?

I am thinking of getting one for myself before the end of the year (before the UK VAT increase on 1st Jan).

Thanks again

Ste

[totallymaxed]

Cheers Andrew (and thanks for the quick reply).

I was just reading this review http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/MAG_ION_Nettop.

How do you find the heat that comes out of the top of the unit when playing HD 1080p movies? Does the fan work ok in there?

Have you noticed any other things with Zotac motherboards (and specifically for the Mag Ion Nettop), or is a higher I/O the only problem.

Do Dianemo & Cascade sell these units and if so for how much?

I am thinking of getting one for myself before the end of the year (before the UK VAT increase on 1st Jan).

Thanks again

Ste

Well I think the reviewer in that article was pretty accurate and I agree with what he says for sure. All the Ion based pre-built machines have almost identical hardware so in reality they all throw out a little more warm air when working harder and they all get a little warm when used for a while - but thats what they are designed to do. I would just look at the price and the I/O options that are on offer and pick the unit that has the best mix of these for your particular needs...you cant really go very wrong at all ;-)

We dont sell these units currently but we do support them in the Dianemo / Cascade Smart home - so that means you can go buy them at the best price you can and add them yourself to one of our NerveCentre's.

All the best

Andrew

[ste_b_79]

I see Zotac have now released the ZBOX HD-ID40. I am wondering what the real difference is between this and the HD-ID11.

From the Zotac website I can see:

HD-ID11:
CPU - Intel® Atom™ D510 (dual-core) (1.66 GHz)
FSB - 667MHZ
Memory Slots - 1 x 200-pin DDR2-800 SODIMM

HD-ID40:    
CPU - Intel® Atom® D525 (dual-core, 1.8 GHz)
FSB - 800MHZ
Memory Slots - 2 x 200-pin DDR2-800 SODIMM (capacity up to 4GB)
Cooling - Passive (without fan)

I would like one of these as a Media Director, and am looking for anyone's opion (ie is the HD-ID40 much better for playing 1080p movies on?)

According to the Zotac website: "ZOTAC® listens to feedback from our users. As a result, the ZBOX HD-ID40 series follows the same award-winning formula as our previous mini-PCs but delivers new features that have been requested such as a faster CPU, improved WiFi and thermal performance, and more memory slots," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC® International.

My question on that statement: Does the faster CPU and thermal performance make a big difference when playing 1080p movies on these Zotac ZBOXs? Does anyone have both the ID-11 and ID-40 that they can compare playback with?

Reference:
HD-ID11 - http://pden.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=240&category_id=118&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1
HD-ID40 - http://pden.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=287&category_id=118&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1
Zotac Website - http://www.zotac.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=531%3Azotacr-introduces-new-zbox-hd-id40-series&catid=1&Itemid=268

[gtsupport]

Hi, I just bought the Zotac MagHD ND01 and of course it comes with no OS.  I'm wondering how to make it boot from the LAN as required by LinuxMCE, as the boot options only mention the HDD.  Google hasn't been very forthcoming, and I'm still waiting for a reply from Zotac tech support.  Anybody using one of these successfully?

Thanks

Matt.

Well - what do you know, tech support got back to me first thing on Monday morning with a solution.  In case anybody else is interested in using one of these...

"Dear Sir,

The MAG system supported remote boot through PXE. Please enable PXE ROM from BIOS > Chipset > Southbridge configuration > PXE rom boot support."

[daballiemo]

gtsupport,

I am curious if and how you got HD up and running I own an Atom system myself and while it runs SD as sunshine the HD part I still haven't covered.

rgds

Han

[bongowongo]

Hi, I just bought the Zotac MagHD ND01 and of course it comes with no OS.  I'm wondering how to make it boot from the LAN as required by LinuxMCE, as the boot options only mention the HDD.  Google hasn't been very forthcoming, and I'm still waiting for a reply from Zotac tech support.  Anybody using one of these successfully?

Thanks

Matt.

Well - what do you know, tech support got back to me first thing on Monday morning with a solution.  In case anybody else is interested in using one of these...

"Dear Sir,

The MAG system supported remote boot through PXE. Please enable PXE ROM from BIOS > Chipset > Southbridge configuration > PXE rom boot support."

Just go into the BIOS and enable it, or put in in the boot order, or press f11 or something in POST screen to get into the boot menu

[gtsupport]

Will let you know how I get on, at the moment I have problems with the internal network on my core, so haven't actually managed to get it to netboot yet

Thats a story for another thread!

[nite_man]

gtsupport,

I am curious if and how you got HD up and running I own an Atom system myself and while it runs SD as sunshine the HD part I still haven't covered.

To run HD on Atom box you should have a strong graphics, i. e. nVidia ION. Because it'll decode video instead of CPU.

Guys, who own some Zotac boxes, can you tell me if they have some fan inside? And if so how noisy they are?

[DragonK]

Hi,

I have a Zotac MAG HD-nd01. Its got a fan, but havent heard it yet......

Karel

[FedExGuy]

I am running 15 Zotac MAG HD-NS01's they have no Fan. These units are in an industrial environment subject to extremes of heat and cold ( Northern California ) and HIGH Dust Levels ( FedEx and Customer Boxes ). They have been running approximately 6 months now no problems at all.

But they were VERY Difficult to get setup, the drivers that Zotac provides do not work on Linux 8.10 and since LinuxMCE does not work on newer Linux distro's I was up a creek with no paddle. As a result I am so far completely unable to get Audio through HDMI and was forced to use an external audio cable. Linux 8.10 does not recognize the internal WiFi at all so all HAD TO BE Hard wired even though I installed 8 WiFi routers (802.11 N ) just for that purpose. I hard wired 4500 Feet of Cat 5 this is a 500,000+ Sq/Ft Building.

In order to setup for netboot you have to go into the BIOS Setup - in the SouthBridge setup is the option for PXE Boot ROM Support. You have to enable it then save your settings and reboot back into the BIOS Setup a second time to set network as the first boot option ( it does not show up in the boot options menu until after a reboot ). I have a crazy bug that is really a trivial issue but it is confusing - it seems that randomly over long periods of time ( weeks ) a new drive will be found on one of my MD's so far about 7 have found drives and the others do not. I have not gone through to try and get these drives setup because the idea of having all of my media spread across 15 MD's just would not work ( these MD's will go out eventually due to the environment ).


I am eagerly awaiting the upgrade to a newer Linux Distro.

[totallymaxed]

I am running 15 Zotac MAG HD-NS01's they have no Fan. These units are in an industrial environment subject to extremes of heat and cold ( Northern California ) and HIGH Dust Levels ( FedEx and Customer Boxes ). They have been running approximately 6 months now no problems at all.

But they were VERY Difficult to get setup, the drivers that Zotac provides do not work on Linux 8.10 and since LinuxMCE does not work on newer Linux distro's I was up a creek with no paddle. As a result I am so far completely unable to get Audio through HDMI and was forced to use an external audio cable. Linux 8.10 does not recognize the internal WiFi at all so all HAD TO BE Hard wired even though I installed 8 WiFi routers (802.11 N ) just for that purpose. I hard wired 4500 Feet of Cat 5 this is a 500,000+ Sq/Ft Building.

In order to setup for netboot you have to go into the BIOS Setup - in the SouthBridge setup is the option for PXE Boot ROM Support. You have to enable it then save your settings and reboot back into the BIOS Setup a second time to set network as the first boot option ( it does not show up in the boot options menu until after a reboot ). I have a crazy bug that is really a trivial issue but it is confusing - it seems that randomly over long periods of time ( weeks ) a new drive will be found on one of my MD's so far about 7 have found drives and the others do not. I have not gone through to try and get these drives setup because the idea of having all of my media spread across 15 MD's just would not work ( these MD's will go out eventually due to the environment ).


I am eagerly awaiting the upgrade to a newer Linux Distro.

The standard HD-NS01-U's do have an internal fan (its very quiet and thermally controlled too) - at least all models I have seen do. Maybe Zotac made a variant that was fanless. Are your's the 'U' variant?

http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-mag-hd-ns01.html

By the way we have transitioned to Dianemo 10.10 (which is based on Ubuntu 10.10) and we have an experimental none pxe booting MD that boots off its local drive and can use WiFi for its LAN connection if required. We have this config in a small commercial customer installation currently (ie not a domestic home automation installation) and its performing very well.

All the best

Andrew