A Closer Look - Inside

We had to remove a bunch of screws to take the mainboard out, but the procedure was pretty straightforward, especially since we dismantle a lot of things only to put them together properly afterward.


The chassis plays a key role in cooling down the CPU.


You only have to remove one screw to get to the enclosure for the 2.5'' drive cage. Two more screws attach the drive to the cage.


The mainboard's primary side holds many interesting components we will detail in the following paragraphs.


The Celeron CPU is on the solder side of the mainboard to allow the heatsink attached directly to the chassis to cool it passively. The part of the chassis holding the heatsink uses a special design to dissipate heat more effectively.


Two voltage regulators provide power to the CPU.


The mainboard features two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots that only support 1.35 V sticks.


A close-up of the fully sized mini-PCIE slot.


The monitoring IC is an ITE IT8728F.


Here is the battery that keeps the BIOS data intact.


We found an Intel WGI218LM Ethernet controller on the mainboard. It controls one of two Gigabit Ethernet ports.


The half-sized mini PCIe slot is occupied by a WLAN card. The WiFi antenna can be found at the front, and we had to remove its tiny connector rather carefully in order not to damage it.


Two MAX3243C handle both RS232 ports.


The SD-card reader is controlled by a GL827L IC.


A Genesys Logic GL850G is the USB 2.0 hub controller. It provides four downstream USB ports.


A Realtek ALC662 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio Codec is responsible for the unit's audio capabilities.


An Asmedia ASM1442K controls the HDMI port. On the mainboard is also an Asmedia ASM1480, a PCI-E 3.0 16-to-8 channel switch that allows the PCI-E slot to switch between PCI-E x16 and x8.


Two GST5009 magnetic modules isolate the Ethernet ports.


All polymer caps on the mainboard are by CapΧon. Not our favorite brand, these are polymer caps, so their quality most likely won't cause any problems over the long run.