I-Appliance BBS
The Official Source for Internet Appliance Upgrades and Mods		 Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More
BBS Main List | Sign In | Sign Up | Search | Help | Linux-Hacker.netReply to Thread | Printer |

Home / I-Appliance BBS General / NEWS, Breaking NEWS
BKi810 Book PCs
Small PC with DVR capabilities

New MessageBKi810 Book PCs (modified 0 times) ragefury32
Profile
Hi kids. Just recently picked up one of these Amptron BKi810 machines.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5108665282&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

Basically it's a small PC about the size of a dictionary. It can carry up to a 1GHz Coppermine P3
(With good cooling installed, obviously), 512MB of RAM, takes standard 3.5"/5 1/4" drives, and eats up about 100 Watts of power. This machine has a TV encoder built-in with SP/DIF out, S-Video out, 5.1 Speaker support, 10/100/Modem support, USB drives, and cost less than you think. (I got mine for $120 factoring in shipping charges, with a Celeron 433, 128MB of memory and a 10GB HDD) While it does not have a screen built-in, the overall horsepower of this box is comparable to those long gone $200 GallantWeb boxes, and since it's essentially a small PC, the expandability is better, if not in fact as good, as the GallantWeb boxes. Detailed docs on available "hacks" for the BKi810 is available on M. Tadachi's little page on the series.

http://www.tadachi-net.com/desktop_pc/bki810/


http://www.tadachi-net.com/desktop_pc/bki810/

07-20-2004 13:32:23

New MessageRE:BKi810 Book PCs (modified 0 times) vwbug19
Profile
exuse me? the link on bottom leads to non-english website :)
07-20-2004 17:12:34

New MessageRE:BKi810 Book PCs (modified 0 times) 02U2
Profile
Over the years...

I've noticed that Amptron (AKA PC CHIPS) mother boards and those mini power supplies have been one of the most frequently found items in the OEM trash here. I let them continue there journey to the landfill.

07-20-2004 19:58:00

New MessageRE:BKi810 Book PCs (modified 0 times) inx3us
Profile
I got an earlier model of one of these a few years ago. Mine was black and was the "multimedia" or "home entertainment" version. It came with a dvd player and originally it had a remote control/mouse unit. It hasn't been a bad little pc. It did have some problems switching between tv out and vga. I also ran into problems when I needed a pc with a serial port which these do not. The only problem with the one mentioned here is that I paid less for one with the same specs (maybe even a 533) and a dvd player 3 years ago!
07-21-2004 10:48:50

New MessageRE:BKi810 Book PCs (modified 0 times) JayEl
Profile
I've enjoyed mine for four years now. During the first three it was on pretty much continuously crunching SETI@Home units in the background. No problems to report. The tiny CPU fan has been replaced twice and the floppy doesn't work (too much cat hair) but otherwise its 533MHz Celeron is still chugging away.

There's an active BookPC discussion group at:

http://communities.msn.com/BOOKPC

Lots of information there for those interested.

I'm considering modifying my Version 1.6 (the oldest one) motherboard to allow lower CPU voltages with a PowerLeap adapter and a >1GHz CPU. For now it still does fine browsing the Web and email for us.

Best to all!

Jim Horn, WB9SYN/6, California

07-21-2004 12:43:22

New MessageRE:BKi810 Book PCs (modified 0 times) ragefury32
Profile
Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I managed to pick up a version 7.3 BKi810E with the 66/100/133 FSB support. I discovered the reason why these Amptron barebones ended up so quickly in the recycle heap...Basically, their PC100 100 Watt power supplies tend to be on the flaky side (Especially the Version 1 Yellow label models). The later revision Green label supplies are better when it comes to reliability. Then we came to the problem of power budgeting. A BookPC (assuming v3.3 with 100MHz FSB support) with a 1GHz Celeron, 2 sticks of 256MB SDRAM and 2 HDDs are close to pushing 90 Watts of power. That's not exactly a good thing to run the power supply so close to capacity, so most people would probably want the 185 watt PSU off the BookPC2 series. Even if that doesn't defeat you, the later marks of the BookPCs (3.3 onwards) have really silly layouts, like placing the floppy drive on top of the CPU, thereby trapping heat under it, so any usage of a more powerful CPU would preclude pulling the FDD out and using a Dremel or a Nibbling tool to punch a hole through the chassis to let it breathe. As for me, I'm testing my BKi810E as a BitTorrent terminal/DVR/PSX emulator box. Celeron 900MHz, 512MB of RAM, 10GB Primary HDD/200GB HDD in a removeable caddy, and a USB Wifi adapter will go onto it later. I'll probably have to do some serious modding but I think it'll be quite worth it.

However, the board itself is quite a quality piece of work. Stable and speedy for an i810 based machine. If you have some knowledge in EE you can modify a power supply so the machine could be used as a CarPC, like this one.

http://www.bobblick.com/techref/projects/mp3book/mp3book.html

Oh yeah, the BookPC series 2 barebones are around $100 on eBay and can take either a Athlon or the Pentium 4/Norwood128s. Another interesting piece of semi-propietary i-appliance work.

07-28-2004 01:21:43

Reply to Thread | Printer |
All times are PSTPowered by UltraBoard v1.62


Copyright © 2000, Netmake Inc. All Rights Reserved.
See Terms and Conditions for more information.




i-opener opener laptop notebook computer help drivers dll free windows dos repair fix linux mac macintosh 2000 95 98 nt pc configure hardware software sound video netscape explorer network networking lan wan software cmos fat bios printer card mouse modem ide scsi cd rom controllers scanner tape hard drive cgi scripts source code mp3