Thread: Flex ATX motherboard, power supply - can someone confirm

You can determine whether it will work by using this: FAQ: Will <insert PSU model> Power Supply work with my system?

There's a link to CPU electrical specs, where you can determine the max power draw against the availabel 12v power for various DC-DC power supplies.

GPS isn't a PCI card. It's most commonly a USB device.
Also, the power draw for your optical drive is probably for a full-size drive, not a slim laptop drive, so expect a slim drive to draw less power (and only from the 5v rail!).

I believe the M2-ATX would be just fine for your project.

This may be a dumb question, but why are you putting a Celleron in a motherboard that already comes with a Via C3 Samuel processor? I'll be interested to see where you plug that Celleron in.

Check out the manufacturer's web page for that board:
http://www.mercury-pc.com/product-de...&productid=439

I think you don't have a choice about the processor. I don't think the samuel is socketed. I think it's soldered on the board.

Check out the manual at their product download page:
http://www.mercury-pc.com/downloads_...?productid=439

According to Via's web site www.viatech.com, the Samual processor is a low power consumption (20W) cpu. That's about it's only claim to fame. I have no idea what it might benchmark at, but I'm betting it's similar to the Nehimiah processors.

One other thing to think about is: why a FlexATX motherboard? You do know that you'll need a special case to put it in, right? microATX cases won't take flexATX boards. But Shuttle XPC cases take them . . .

Originally Posted by tom2112

One other thing to think about is: why a FlexATX motherboard? You do know that you'll need a special case to put it in, right? microATX cases won't take flexATX boards. But Shuttle XPC cases take them . . .

Be careful with that.
The FlexATX spec allows for a motherboard to be a maximum of 9" wide x 7.5" deep. Most Every Shuttle case I've seen is only 8" wide. My FN41 (the motherboard in the SN41G2 barebones system) is 254mm (10") deep and 185mm (7.3") wide. It doesn't meet the size spec for FlexATX.

If you check out page 8 of this spec document, you can see the mounting holes for ATX, microATX and FlexATX specifications. The Shuttle units almost look like a FlexATX board turned 90 degrees, with the backplane on the narrow side, not the wider side as the diagram indicates.

Also, the manual for my Shuttle motherboard states that the motherboard is the "Shuttle ATX form factor", not FlexATX, although I've seen many Shuttle units incorrently marketed as flexATX.

Originally Posted by canadiandream

If anyone can compare this processor to the via mini-itx M10000 in terms of processing speed and/or ability for video playback it would be much appreciated.

Datasheet for C3 Samuel 2 says that the speed ranges from 700 to 800mhz.
Datasheet for C3 Nehemiah says that the speed ranges from 1.0ghz to 1.2ghz.
The M10000 uses the C3 Nehemiah and clocks at 1.0ghz. There's a 1.2ghz version of the board, as well - MII12000. The SP130000 uses a different variation and clocks at 1.3ghz.

Hope that sheds some light on this for you. Good luck.

I stand corrected! Thanks DP. I thought that the Shuttle cases were flexATX.

Someone told me that at some point before, so I did some digging then. It appears that they are marketed as FlexATX, for some reason, although that's inaccurate.

Here's something you could do if you lacked some scruples:
Buy a Shuttle unit off ebay that is advertised as flexATX, get the product, then go after the seller for falsifying the ad.
Don't know if it would fly, but would be interesting.