Since our computer began playing possum early last Spring, we’ve been searching for green alternatives to nursing along the old desktop or just giving in and buying a whole new system. Compounding the problem has been the wife’s departure for a month of clinical training taking her laptop with her. By nature, laptops and netbooks consume less power because they are partly rated on battery life. You could search and find any number of options there if you like. But they also tend to be expensive for the technology you receive, you pretty much have to buy the whole package, and when you are done, throw away a whole package. So with a mind toward reducing, I’ld begun talking to my eldest son (the resident tech wiz) as he handed down equipment and software to get us through the summer. During our discussions he told me about an exciting new product that would come out before August.

So, most of the summer, we were waiting for the availability of the $200 Zotac Ion ITX A Mini motherboard. We ordered one and it came in last week. Now as far as motherboards go, it is relatively expensive for an Atom based system. Atom is the brand of processor in most netbook computers. It doesn’t come with an integrated screen or keyboard. But we had the full sized versions from our desktop which I prefer. We still need to add DDR2 memory, a mountable mini itx case sans power supply, and a hard drive which all comes to about $150. Yes, we considered a netbook for $350, but we would be stuck with a 10″ screen and poor internet video capabilities. No, we won’t be able to surf at Starbucks on battery power. But then again, we could unplug the brick and pick up the monitor with pc attached and go somewhere that has wifi and an outlet. What came in the package runs on very little power, and has awesome video capability. It is recommended for use as a home theater personal computer. The motherboard includes the graphics circuitry, and the package includes an external 90 Watt power supply (the brick) similar to what you would use to charge your laptop battery. It even has Wifi on board, and 6 USB ports. The case we found is small enough to mount on the back of our LCD screen, and can be purchased with the mounting hardware for very little extra.

Now, there are lots of mini motherboards, so what makes this unit so special? Due to the integrated Ion 9300 graphics circuitry, this tiny motherboard can stream video from the internet, which it does it without taking up much space, fits in a small cabinet, won’t require liquid cooling or lots of fans (heat = inefficiency in electronics), and it may even run most video games without so much as a fan. In fact, it resembles a video game system in size. You may want to use the fan that is included, which quietly pulls air across the heat sink. But the fact that it isn’t required means this unit is very efficient in terms of energy use, and without the fan, the only noise comes from the hard drive.

I didn’t do any checking on Zotac’s reputation as a manufacturer in terms of it’s environmental record. It also takes a bit of DIY to assemble even a mini computer, but you would be surprised how little. We’re going without an optical drive attached once it is set up with linux. If you are like me, you have working computer parts you hate to throw in a landfill, and you may prefer to minimize the footprint on your desktop. Since everybody is posting digital video these days, the Zotac Ion ITX Mini A may be a pretty good option.