Customer Reviews

CompuLab fit-PC2 Linux, Atom Z530, Ubuntu Linux, RAM 1 GB, HDD 160 GB

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm really happy with this little thing, but only rated it 3 stars because it didn't live up to its claims for being a HTPC (Home Theater PC). The HDMI output was high quality in terms of resolution, but stuttered and jerked. The onboard graphics just doesn't have what it needs to drive video streaming. But...that's not what I bought it for, so that didn't bother me much, other than the fact that this is supposed to be one of the prime usages for this PC.

I wanted something small (it is REALLY small) with WiFi that I could put out of the way in my house. I use it as a monitor and controller of my other machines. Though it is advertised as having wireless "g", mine came with full-blown wireless "n", and it works very well. Maybe this is a late upgrade to the product, but it was an unexpected bonus. It runs hot, but it's supposed to (passive cooling with a cast aluminum case -- no fan). I installed Windows 7 on it and it runs like a champ with only 1GB of RAM.

Other things...

For some reason, it doesn't support wakeup after hibernation. Creating scheduled tasks and marking them as "Wake the computer to run this task" doesn't work. It supports hibernation, but you can't wake it up (like I can any other PC I have). I like to set up all of my PCs to hibernate at night and wake up in the morning. Can't do it with this one.

Because this is a custom board, RAM is soldered on and not upgradeable. Don't buy one thinking you will upgrade RAM to 2GB. With Windows 7, however, 1GB is plenty...but keep this in mind. You can upgrade the hard drive, however. I didn't need to, but if you want more than 160GB, you can.

The last thing I wanted to mention are the two mini-USB ports on the front. They are a little weird. Of course, no device plugs into a PC with a mini-USB plug, they all have USB-A. You can buy adapters (I bought the two official ones available on Amazon) but you may have a surprise if you expect to use these two front ports for a USB mouse and keyboard. One of the ports supports USB 1.1/2.0, and the other only supports USB 2.0. This means that only one of your two devices (USB keyboards and mice are USB 1.1) will be detected. Lastly, there's not a lot of current in these ports, so you may need a double-headed USB cable if you want to hook up an external USB hard drive.

So there you have it. I guess it sounds like I'm not happy with it, but that's not true: I love it. If nothing else, you can amaze your friends with it -- they won't believe it's really a PC. It's not without it's quirks and limitations, but with something this small, there are tradeoffs. Just don't buy it as a HTPC.

This machine is the final result of two years of searching for the right machine:

I wanted a low-cost, low-consumption pc able to work as file server and music box. I got even more: Running Linux I can use it as a music player (running mpd and some remote clients on my iPhone and Laptop for controlling), a media center (connecting it to a HD-TV) and a file server. I can control almost everything with an IR-remote control. With its hardware acceleration i can even play 1080p videos! Next step will probably be to get myself an USB-DVB tuner to turn the machine into a digital video recorder - just everything.
In Fact, i just threw out my desktop pc. Only laptop and fit pc here.
Also: No fans, no mechanical parts except for the hard drive. And the quality seems perfect, too.

The Fit PC came with Ubuntu 8.04 and RTlinux on it. Really spunky machine. Out of the box the Wifi and ethernet worked with no problems. The only gotcha was the video interface HDMI->Digital, the only spare monitor I had was the old VGA Analog. I bought an adapter and all is well. Don't forget to keep this little machine well ventilated because it creates some heat. For a small box, it does a good job.

Recently I decided to buy a second computer to use for web and multimedia (99 percent of what I do) and to leave the gaming machine off when not in use. The main reason for this was to reduce the my energy consumption while performing these low power tasks - the gaming machine was overkill. I combined the Fit-PC2, Thinkvision L1940P, and Windows XP. My energy consumption dropped from 240 watts to 30 with this combination. The Fit-PC2 is about one fifth the size of a laptop - tiny. I purchased the Fit-PC2 pre-loaded with Ubuntu 8.04. It ran well out of the box but certain applications were quite sluggish - Firefox web browser, and particularly multitasking. I upgraded to to Unbuntu 9 to see if the sluggish operation issues would clear up. Unbuntu 9 was much worse than Unbuntu 8.04 and in my opinion unusable. Over the next 3 days, I installed every version of Linux there was to see if I could get this machine working at an acceptable speed. Only 2 were fast on this machine: Slax Linux and Puppy linux. Both operated very fast with this machine and had the tools that I wanted to use for multimedia and web surfing, but some of their applications are out of date, particularly the web browsers would not support flash or other add-on type programs for web surfing. As a last resort, I pulled Windows XP Professional off of the shelf and installed it on my Fit-PC2 machine. I was certain that this machine would not have the power to handle a Windows install. To my surprise, when I booted up Windows XP this machine performed faster than even the tiny Linux installs. Windows XP Pro installed without a hitch on this machine, and it continues to perform almost as good as my 3000 dollar gaming machine for web and multimedia applications. My current setup uses only 30 watts of power which is less than a third of what a 100 watt light bulb consumes. The Fit-PC2 itself uses about 10-12 watts of power as measured at the plug outlet by a Kill-O-Watt meter. I highly recommend this machine to anyone interested in reducing their energy consumption or reducing their carbon footprint.

I installed Windows Server 2008 on this puppy and I have it running as my domain controller for about 6 months. Plenty powerful. Verified it runs at FIVE (5) watts! I love the metal case. Will not run Server 2008 R2 as it's not a 64bit processor.

Problem: The audio jack will disable itself if you try to plug it into a home theater receiver with a 3.5mm>RCA adaptor. The stupid software doesn't detect that it's plugged into anything so it turns off the audio. No way to override.

WARNING: This will NOT reboot after a power failure so make sure it's behind a UPS if you're using it as a server!

I bought this device for its form factor, low power and even portability. My kids play some games (flash kind from web) and I thought it would be a good fit, if it worked. I also wanted to have as few wires as possible. I initially opted for the option with Ubuntu installed. It worked but when I upgraded Ubuntu, things fell apart. So, instead I tried Windows 7 and it just worked. It sure is small enough to be portable and still usable like a netbook.

I would have loved it if it could take care of 3 things out of the box. First, the hdmi to dvi-d cable (Female) it came with (which is 1ft and is good for hiding this device behind the monitor if only it could connect to the monitor), requires another dvi-d(male) to dvi-d(male) cable to connect it with the monitor. If it even had a dvi-d male to male converter, it would have helped. It is not easy to find the connector in most shops. Second, if it had some sort of power splitter so it could be directly used with monitor power, this thing would absolutely hide behind the monitor. Lastly, I am still searching for video drivers so I could use the 1080P capability. It isn't available out of the box and I am yet to find it. If I try playing a high def video, it misses a lot of frames.

Other than that, I am happy with the device. My kids use it to play the (flash) games and love it.

It is really small computer box. You should use it as a 7x24 server rather than a desktop box. Because the display is really slow, even I use remote desktop in same router.
Another problem is the box so hot, I recommend you should install a external fans to cool it down.
PS. This box should be preinstalled ssh server or remote desktop server in the factory.

Ok! 8 watts, took the OEM hdd out with the Ubuntu (You-BUN-too) for safe keeping, and installed a 160 hdd and loaded XP Professional, now my Media Center Share and Virtual Weather Station Internet Ed. can exist happily on my LAN and run till my mentality cringes at 8 watts like I currently cringe at 190 watts. This setup is under my kitchen bar placed on a perforated metal bracket for support and air circulation. Utilizing Remote Desktop to manage and view the GUI from the living room Media center.

This device is getting easier to spot on the Net and drivers for your flavor of OS are to be found. Good Luck, have fun, psst... keep this thing between us and be quiet!

I purchased the fit-pc2 linux recently through my friend in USA. I am located in India. My intent was to use this PC as a 24X7 online home server that I intended to use as a centralized print server, scanner server, torrent download server and a file server. I had done pretty exhaustive online research before settling on this productfit-PC2 Linux (1.6 GHz Intel Atom, Fanless, 160 GB Hard Disk, Ubuntu Linux).
My key requirements were adequate CPU power and storage with low power consumption. This product fitted this bill ideally with a 1.6 GHZ Intel Atom CPU, 160 GB storage and just 8 watts power consumption.
However after having this item with me for a few days, the video display stopped working. I am pretty sure that it is a hardware problem as even the boot up BIOS messages are no longer displayed on my monitor. This might just be my bad luck or the odd bad product, but I was hoping for better.
I have since shipped this product back to Amazon and waiting for their response.

it is able to do output 1080p video with 2% cpu load. it sounds like the perfect HTPC solution to me. I will run it with VDR client against my VDR server, also use for watching movies over the network.