A while ago I found the Norhtec website and when I noticed that the new microclient was available I ordered one to check it out. It turned out to be a FIC Mini PC Ion A603. It were delivered with an external power supply and a manual. Amongst other things the manual described where to find drivers for both Microsoft Windows (at FIC) and Linux (at AMD).
The computer is very small and very very quiet. The only moving part is the hard drive which is a 2,5" drive usually found in laptops. The only sound I have been able to hear is a quiet rattling when the drive head moves around. You probably have to put your ear next to the case to hear that. However that drive becomes a little warm so you should avoid putting this computer in a closed space without any airflow, like inside a drawer.
When I got the computer I opened it up. The back panel is hold in place by two screws and two plastic holders. The screws are easy to remove but the two plastic parts are easily broken. Inside the case you find a circuit board with almost everything mounted directly on it. The exeptions are the memory (RAM) and the hard drive. The memory is a standard SO-DIMM (256MB) and the hard drive is a standard 2,5" drive usually found in laptops. So those two parts are easy to replace for a trained computer technician.
When opened up the circuit board looks like this. Covering most of it is the hard drive. Removing the drive I found the AMD Geode CPU. The memory socket is on the bottom. Like on many new computers there is no power switch, neither on the case nor on the power supply. There is a button on the computer for turning it on and off but that is the usual soft button, the power supply will be on until you unplug it.
One can see that this computer is designed for network usage in a large company because it is able to boot from PXE. Image from the network setup, which is the first you see when you power on the computer.
Since there is no internal CD player I grabbed an external and connected it by USB. The microclient boots fine, I guess I could have used PXE or a memory stick also. I have installed both Microsoft Windows XP and Xubuntu. Since the hard drive is 40GB there is space for both, at least for an evaluation. Most of the testing has been done using Windows.
On the first boot Windows selected 800x600 for display resolution even though my display handles 1600x1200. I don't know why but it were possible to change resolution so I did that. Without any drivers installed the graphics were quite slow. After installing drivers it turned out to be quite ok. There is no hardware for 3D so all 3D-benchmarks fails and I could not find any benchmarks for only 2D. To do some testing and benchmarking this is what I have tried:
This were written in june 2007.
These instructions originated from this page. Thanks to Ricardo Estrada for the tip.
To access the bios settings you press shift-F10 during power up.
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