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In the FAWN system, there are used motherboards with onboard power supplies.

I have two questions about these motherboards.

  1. What motherboards are being used in the FAWN system?
  2. Does anyone have any recommendations or experience with motherboards with onboard power supplies?

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I'm not sure if the FAWN units are custom boards or not -- but from one of the photos, it seems they use AMD Geode SC1100 CPUs; beyond that I can't really find out much about them. Those motherboard don't so much have "onboard power supplies" -- as they accept straight DC (possibly 12V?) from a wall power adapter with a barrel connector.

Most power supplies convert wall AC power to DC power used inside your computer. Typical ATX computers use a larger ATX power supply that supplies hundreds of watts, are larger and generate more heat. These FAWN units only sip power, thus they can get away with a small wallwart and don't need a typical ATX power supply.

ZOTAC makes an nVidia ION board that similarly doesn't require an ATX-style power supply, but use a power brick that you usually see with laptops.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3562

(see the barrel connector for power on the far-right edge next to the audio, and under the Wi-Fi antenna connector)

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  • The term I've found on various web pages for that form of power is "on board power supply".
    – delete
    Nov 15, 2009 at 4:42
  • See, e.g. orbitmicro.com/global/ionitx-a-u-p-11211.html
    – delete
    Nov 15, 2009 at 4:44
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    I knew that was going to come up -- that more or less means it takes the 19V/~4.xA DC input from the wallwart and converts it to nicely regulated 12V, 5V, and 3.3V that the various motherboard components use. Most notebooks do the same thing. In the case of most desktop machines -- that giant 20-24pin ATX power connector from the ATX power supply carries the individual 12V, 5V, etc. When I first read the title I thought you were talking about a motherboard with the full AC-DC phase right on the board.
    – krhainos
    Nov 15, 2009 at 5:07

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