Test of the miniPC2 from http://www.cool-shop.de:

The ecolog^eenet team has reviewed and tested the miniPC2 itself and is definitivly loving this PC.

General

1.) approx. 90% less power consumption than a standard PC

2.) the performance does equal really (against some contradictional facts on some websites) the performance of a Pentium 3 with 800Mhz (or still a bit better)! At our Test with OpenOffice the CPU-Workload inreases to 80% at a P3 800Mhz it increased to 95%. Livestreams in full-screen mode are no problem, although multitasking is no problem. Hearing Mp3s is no problem, Audio-output is really excellent! Screen resolutions up to 1280*1024 are no problem!

3.) Installation of Windows XP is no problem, simply with the external USB-CD-ROM. Networkinstallation is possible! Optional you can buy the miniPC2 with pre-installed WindowsXP.

W2K Installation, makes some problems due to lack of a USB-CD-ROM driver! BUT: W2K is still a bit faster on the miniPC than Windows XP.

Installation of W2K

=> Let's do it with Knoppix and Win98!
Under http://www.knopper.net you can get Knoppix for free, the Linux-Livesystem.
a.) boot with an adequate Win98-CD (Hint: Win98 boots only in a Floppy-Compatibility-Mode)
create two Fat-partions with fdisk on the harddisk and format them! make one of them bootable, the command "sys" can do this.
This means, the commands fdisk, format and sys need to be reachable.
b.) boot now Knoppix with the option "tohd" (takes a while)
c.) eject Knoppix-CD, insert W2K-CD
d.) remount the non-Knoppix-partition as root, to get write-permission.
e.) copy now the complete content of the W2K-Setup-CD to the non-Knoppix-partition, optimally in a subdirectory, e.g. "w2ksetup".
f.) boot the minimal Win98 from harddisk, change in the W2K-directory and there execute in the "i386"-directory the "winnt.exe", now all following steps should be obvoius (if you have already installed W2K), it simply equals any normal W2K-installation.

The following other ways are thinkable:
a.) create a Win98-CD with USB-CD-Rom-driver, so there's no need for Knoppix.
b.) create a patched W2K-Installation-CD, so a direct installation over the USB-CD-Rom-Drive becomes possible. Patch: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;883114
Tutorial for creating an Installation-CD: http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd
c.) do a networkinstallation from a running W2K/WinXP-System with the PXE-Loader.
You find basic information how to do this here: http://www.msexchangefaq.de/verschiedenes/rispxe.htm ...

The PC in the daily use:

Watching DVDs is possible under Win2K and the correct USB2.0-Driver! but only with the VLC-Player and very less jitter.

Watching videos is possible but only when the hardware-acceleration is set back or is deactivated. If the hardware-acceleration is too high, you will get a bluescreen, when playing a video.

A far longer test with exact performance and power measurements was done by MiniTechNet.de: http://www.minitechnet.de/dtresearch_166lx_1.html (only german) miniPC2 = The future of Computing!