Foxconn NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA AMD Hudson D1 1x204 Pin AMD Radeon HD 6310 Mini/Booksize Barebone System (Black)

by Foxconn

• CPU Type: AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core)
• North Bridge: AMD Hudson D1Memory slot: 1 x 204Pin Memory Type Supported: 4GB
• Serial ATA: 1 x SATA 3.0Gb/s
• Onboard Video: AMD Radeon HD 6310
• Front USB: 2 x USB 3.0, Rear USB : 4 x USB 2.0

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1 x 5.3 inches ; 15.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00556F8BU
• Item model number: NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #6 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Desktop Barebones
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 8, 2011

Product Description

Foxconn NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA AMD Hudson D1 1 x 204Pin AMD Radeon HD 6310 Black Mini/Booksize Barebone System

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for an HTPC October 28, 2011

By W. Kiley

Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this looking for a low-power HTPC. I couldn't be more pleased. I am previously an ASUS OPlay and Boxee Box owner, to set a standard for my expectations.

I had a 2.5" hdd lying around to throw in it, and a 2GB stick of ddr3 as well. I've paired this nettop with my TV (37LG50) and a Logitech K400 keyboard/touchpad combo. With that, I booted it up and installed Windows 7 via USB. Once finished, I updated the BIOS from within Windows (make sure you check the necessary boxes within the updater! follow the directions closely), loaded up the chipset drivers from Foxconn, then updated Windows, then updated the rest of the drivers. Smooth operation. I've recently updated the Catalyst Graphics & Atheros wifi drivers directly from each manufacturer and not Foxconn.

Once up and running, here's how it's doing:

Media playback: 1080p content without breaking a sweat when using a hardware accelerated decoder (DXVA) within XBMC and Media Player Classic Home Cinema.
Boot-up: The BIOS post is super fast, and from there the boot time is dependent upon your hdd/ssd and RAM. I'm to my desktop in about 40 seconds from power on.
Compatibility: 100% with everything I've thrown at it. All on-board devices work flawlessly with Windows 7. Loving the USB 3.0 speeds (to which I've connected two external enclosures with 6 hdds total - it mounts them all, no issues). USB WiFi is great, USB Blu-Ray rom is great. Boots from USB perfectly.
Heat & Noise: Non-issue for me. It's very quiet, imo. My external hdd's drown the lone fan out. Heat is never an issue.
HDMI output: Handshakes with my TV at BIOS post. Never had an issue there.

Small surprise: there's an on-board speaker within the nettop's case that puts out laptop quality sound. Pleasant surprise!...

Side-note: magnetic feet included are totally useless. They aren't strong enough to withstand sliding the unit across a wood surface, so they now sit on my fridge. No biggie. I also dabbled with gaming, loading up some Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour and setting the resolution to 1080p. Handles it like a champ! That's a decent little APU to power the game that smoothly.

My uses primarily entail media playback/file transfers/internet browsing. This does everything I need quietly, efficiently, and does it well. Money well spent!

Lastly, a comment on Foxconn: I've had some misgivings about them, but this hardware is great. The box was laughable, but the product is solid and I even contacted their support for the BIOS update (having not followed the directions closely enough and messing things up) and they were prompt, clear, and very helpful. Highly recommended on both product and service fronts after this experience. Read more ›

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Up and Running September 16, 2011

By Elmonica

Amazon Verified Purchase

Just finished loading Windows 7 on it. I was a little frustrated at first because of the lack of documentation on how to install the hard drive and memory (drive and memory ordered separately). There are four screws you need to remove using a narrow screwdriver and then you have to pry off the top, gently working your screw driver under the edge of the lid.

Since I didn't have an external CD-Rom drive to perform the installation, I used two USB flash drives, one with Windows 7 on it, and the other with the drivers from the CD. I made the mistake of initially attempting the installation using the two 3.0 USB ports on the front of the computer. If you do that, it will prompt you for drivers during the install and you will get stuck. Instead, use the 2.0 USB ports on the back of the computer and the installation will complete fine. At the end of the Windows 7 installation, you will need to install the drivers. Be sure to refer to the booklet provide which instructs you to install one particular driver first, followed by the others.

I don't yet have enough experience with it to comment on its performance, other than to say my initial impressions are positive. You might want to check out Newegg.com which has more feedback. People over there say the unit tends to run hot if subjected to heavy processing.

UPDATE:

I have been using it now as my primary desktop at home for a few weeks and have been pretty happy with it. It is not really a great multi-tasking machine, but for single purpose tasks it is fine. I do streaming video to my Android tablet, and that works well, although transcoding at the desktop results in a heavy load on the processors....

One thing I have noticed is the Wireless Network adapter doesn't support "Wake on Lan" --meaning I can't can't send a magic packet to the IP address assigned to this adapter from my Android tablet in order to wake it up. To resolve this I ran an ethernet cable from the Foxconn PC to my router and enabled the Wake on Lan properties for this adapter. So, I now send the magic packet to the IP address assigned to the ethernet adapter and it wakes fine. Read more ›

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good value for bare bones PC. BIOS update and OS install may be difficult. February 13, 2012

By Keith M. Corbett

Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm using the NTA-3500 (I'm referring to Foxconn's model number) as a MythTV primary back- and front-end. (I can't get MythTV and my TV tuner working together, but that's a separate issue.)

So far I'm very pleased with the NTA-3500. I'm happy to avoid paying the "Windows tax" because Ubuntu Linux offers everything I need for personal use or work.

I would rate NTA-3500 five stars, but it gets at least one star off (maybe should be two) for: 1) poor documentation, 2) lack of support for flashing the BIOS (not entirely Foxconn's fault, but they could do more to help their customers) and 3) shipping units with outdated BIOS containing some serious limitations. Google around, you will see many people struggling to bring up an OS on this thing. Most of the problems are for non-Windows scenarios. Configuring a bare bones PC and installing an OS is not for the faint of heart, and does require some technical knowledge.

Reviewers here and on newegg have pointed out that a BIOS update is pretty much mandatory, and that it's not easy to do. With my new 4gb RAM the PC wouldn't boot; fortunately, I had a compatible 2gb card from a MacBook Pro.

This should have been my first clue: pay more attention to advice from strangers with experience.

I tried to install Ubuntu Linux without doing the BIOS update, and that was a huge waste of time, as I couldn't consistently reboot from my various devices: USB thumb drive, USB CD, internal SATA HD. After the BIOS update I was able to boot readily from any device. Be aware, USB thumb drives (mine were Sandisk) may appear in the BIOS boot screen as both USB and UEFI devices. I only managed to boot consistently after flashing the BIOS and setting the boot order to: USB flash, UEFI USB, CD, then SATA HD....

As for flashing the BIOS? Next time I'd install Windows or FreeDOS first. With FreeDOS on USB or CD you can run fdisk (partition and format) and flash the BIOS. I installed FreeDOS to the HD on another PC, thinking it may be useful for doing repairs later.

Getting back to the limited support from Foxconn: The user manual is useless and riddled with quaint / awkward translations. Their Web site is hard to navigate, and it was down quite often over the weekend.

On a related note, I agree with people who complained about the difficulty of removing the lid, and lack of instructions. (The user guide actually asserts that disassembling the product "may result in malfunction, and void warranty". Here's the trick: use a very thin wedge to "break the seal" (that's what it feels like) and pop up one corner, starting just off the corner on any edge. While keeping an edge propped open, pop the seal and prop open corner, then slide the wedge along the edge, levering the bottom surface up off its attachments. Goal is to pop all the little plastic tabs out of their sockets. You can (must) use a little more force than you might think is safe - but not too much!

Next time I do this I'll know better. Which leads me to the happy ending: I would buy another one. It's a great value for a compact energy-saving PC with HDMI, wifi and Ethernet, USB and SD. This is my first PC I could imagine keeping on a small table or bookshelf, maybe even a kitchen counter. I think it's capable of doing anything a comparably equipped desktop could do. The only serious limitation are a) CPU (there are faster small PCs) and RAM - 4g max, 1066 seems to be the best it can do. Which IMO makes Linux a more suitable OS than Windows - just my $.02 Read more ›