FAIL. I suppose that it may have been better if they just didn't allow low power mode? It's light on the electric bill for sure, but why not just go the extra step? Seems kind of silly that they didn't.

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"better if they didnt allow low power mode" that would be rather short-sighted considering the device state can easily restored from other methods (e.g WoL, power button, software) it is just wake on USB that is not working.

Sounds like an oversight they thought could be fixed by a BIOS update but did not quite work out that way. It might be a pain for those people adopting the first batches of this board but at least they are fixing it for future revisions! What more could they do?

Reading this article reminded me of the original ATi remote wonder that was usb but cant wake from standby either, what a perfect pairing that would make ;)

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It's not supported by the PCB. It requires a hardware revision. Meaning a BIOS update will not fix this. Have to fix the hardware itself.

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Up your reading comprehension or were you going for entirely redundant?

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I agree with you.


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Zotac did this before with S3 standby on the nVidia 7100 board.

Hey Anand, are they planning to fix this on the Ion AND the LGA socket board?

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A more serious failing is the lack of any BIOS recovery mechanism if one of their BIOS flash fails. Will the updated PCB have this? Can AnandTech ask this of Zotac?

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Unless the BIOS supports SATA drives upon BIOS recovery, it is more of a legacy issue more than a Zotac issue. I messed up on a BIOS flash on an Award BIOS on my Shuttle SG31G2s, and I could either use a floppy with all the usual files on it to flash, or a bootable cd with the same files (.bat file set to flash the exact file).

Since this board and more and more are not coming with IDE or floppy connectors, this will be an issue.

A better question to ask is, when the hell will companies start using EFI?

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If they're going to fix the wake-on-usb feature I sure hope they solder on an ATX power connector on the board as well.

Seeing Atom in a more regular desktop format is refreshing, but being locked in by proprietary power bricks is unfortunately rather stale, and won't help this new flavor of PC to grow.

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There is nothing too proprietary about this power supply, as you can see here:

http://hothardware.com/image_popup.aspx...-ion-12.jpg&articleid=1315&t=a

It looks to have the same specs as my dell laptop power supply, which you can buy on Ebay for cheap. The motherboard has DC-to-DC circuitry that will allow it to take a small range of input voltages (just like any laptop will).

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Well, it would have been better for them to use 12v, as this is more in line as to what most onboard DC-DC stuff does. Having it at 19v is kinda proprietary, but 19v is a common voltage for laptops.

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It isn't. You can buy 240/120 to 12v bricks anywhere. Logic Supply sells them, or mini-box. Think pico power supply, without needing the pico part of it.

Besides, you can always buy the normal ATX version of the same board.

If you were into these kind of systems like I am, you would see that having the 12v directly to the board is something the embedded market goes for. Even Intel now has an Atom board that does this.

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I don't see this is beinga big deal. I'm assuming you can still getout of standby by using the power button (how I normally do it anyways). The bad thing about wake on USB is that I've seen computers wake up from inadvertent mouse movements, which can be annoying. I have wake on USB turned off on my desktop computer and just use the power button. I guess you can use a PS2 keyboard as well (alhtough those may be harder to get these days).

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I think a lot of people were looking at this board for an HTPC, where a USB remote would be the sole method of interaction with the system.

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Put another slot in there for a Bluetooth radio!

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Get a case like below for it, then just use a USB BT device.

http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure

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Looking at this issue from another angle...is this a case of poorly written or incomplete specifications?

Shouldn't the creators of USB included this requirement in the specifications?




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My netbook has no Wake-on-USB, under stand-by mode, which really is a minor issue. Furthermore I can still send it to stand-by per USB remote and instantly turn off main power to save stand-by energy for Monitor, PC and all the peripherals. If people care about energy (cost) conservation they will want to go all the way. (1W stand-by is about 2$ a year)

Is it possible (by now) to send a PC to stand-by and turn of main power?
I guess not, which would make Notebooks the best and greenest HTPCs.

Or maybe it's possible to compensate this flaw with a uninterruptible power supply (UPS)?

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Glad I found your blog. I will be a regular reader!


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