Fanless, Passively Cooled, Mini / Nano PCs in YOUR Life

By Paul B. Wordman on May 7, 2012 · 10:33 am

Unless you work in the IT industry, or just have a rabid fascination with all things technical, you may not realize that silent, fanless, passively cooled, mini or nano computers are hard at work almost everywhere you go. Most of those PCs go quietly about their business of supporting functions that you use everyday without ever thinking about the computing power doing the job.

Those versatile devices can be put to work as supplementary or full function PCs in home or work environments. One of the most notable, the CompuLab Intense PC Fanless Mini Core-i7, was covered in an article on this site.

They're Everywhere

These ultra-low-power, passively-cooled, fanless, mini / nano PCs are hiding out just about everywhere you go, as well as many locations you will never see. You might think they're secret-agents, and in fact military and government agencies use huge numbers of them, and frequently for ordinary, mundane tasks. Like any good special-forces or covert-ops units, these devices are frequently ruggedized to handle hostile, dusty environments. Likewise, every industry, business, and non-profit organization you can name has them working behind the scenes. They are present in such a huge number of venues and applications that 'ye olde list' is required to prevent a series of run-on sentences.

Partial List of Mix-&-Match Applications & Venues

Advertising
Airports
Assembly Lines, Automation, & Manufacturing
Automotive

Broadcast Media Systems
Chemical Industry
Defense
Dusty Environments
Education, Schools, Universities, & Academia
Embedded Control Systems
Extreme-temperature Environments
Food & Beverage Industries
Government Offices & Processes
Green - Ultra-low-power Applications
Healthcare, Hospitals, Medical Documentation
High-vibration Environments
Hotels
Industrial & Commercial Processes
Inventory Tracking
Media Players

Military
Mining
Museums
Newspapers & Print Media
Non-profits
Petroleum Industry
Public Displays, & Information Screens
Public Safety
Pulp & Paper Processing
Retail Stores, Kiosks, Point-of-Sale
Scientific Research
Telecommunications
Transportation Processes, & on Trucks, Trains, & Ships
Utilities
Water-proofed Applications

Foxconn Fanless, Passively Cooled, Mini / Nano PCs

Two recent arrivals in the nano PC category are the Foxconn nano PC AT-5300, and AT-5600. Foxconn claims that these Nano-PCs "are 40 times smaller than a typical Micro-ATX PC". Both models are compatible with Windows and Linux, and weigh only 1.32 pounds which is equal to 600 grams. Available in various colors, and with dimensions of 7.48 x 5.31 x 1.5-inches these nano-PCs can be mounted on the backside of a monitor or flat-screen TV with a VESA mounting bracket, and are suitable for "smart TV" media-centers.

The Foxconn AT-5300 runs on an Intel 2.13 GHz dual-core CPU, while the AT-5600 uses an AMD 1.65GHz dual-core APU. Expect improvements, however, as both Intel and AMD release new generations of CPUs and APUs. Users must supply their own HDD or SDD, and an optical drive if needed. Two USB 3.0 ports, a multilingual card reader, built-in 802.11n WiFi, and Gigabit LAN are included. A SO-DIMM socket supports up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM.

Short List of Fanless, Passively Cooled, Mini / Nano PC Resources

CappuccinoPC.com
http://www.cappuccinopc.com/solutions/fanless.asp
iDOTpc.com
http://www.idotpc.com/TheStore/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=23
Littlepc.com, a division of STEALTH.com
http://www.littlepc.com/products_fanless.htm

http://www.stealth.com/littlepc_fanless.htm
Tangent.com
http://www.tangent.com/t_minipc/