Fujitsu Siemens X300: Hardware 

• Hardware
• Firmware
• Linux

The Futro X300 I find interesting in one respect - Google can only find me two types of reference to the X300:

1. Items being sold on sites like eBay.
2. References to it being UL tested. (Personal Computer "Futro X300", Model(s) TCS200)

I'm surprised that I can't find a single piece of publicity material or a data sheet that mentions it. On Fujitsu's own support pages you can find mention of it, but having selected it as an option you can't progress any further. Select anything other than the X300 and you'll end up on a download page offering updates for the BIOS and/or operating system. Weird!

I note that, in physical appearance, the case style seems to match that of the Futro S100.

The Futro X300 is based on a Mini-ITX motherboard which sets the size of the case. The BIOS identifies the board as the 'D2457'. In a similar way the BIOS in the A300 identifies its Mini-ITX motherboard also as a 'D2457'. In practice the A300 board (silk screened vVX900t-MD) is very similar to the X300 board (silk screened vVX900t-MVP), the significant difference being in the monitor output: DVI for the A300 and VGA for the X300.

Specifications

The Fujitsu Siemens X300 is a neat unit that is based on a Fujitsu Siemens mini-ITX motherboard (D2457). I do not know when the X300 was announced.

The basic specs for the X300 are:

Processor
Type    Speed	VIA Eden ULV 1GHz
Memory
Flash    RAM	CF 1GB 1GB (max 1GB)
Video
Socket    Chip    Max resolution	VGA VIA Vx900 1600 x 900 32-bit colour
Ports
Network    USB    Serial    Parallel    PS/2	10/100/1000 4 x USB2.0 0 0 Kybd & mouse
Power
Power    Plug    Off    Idle    Running	12V 3A (Label) 5.5mm/1.8mm(?) coax 6W 14W 16W
Dimensions
H x W x D (mm)	185 x 42 x 185

My X300 came fitted with the eLux operating system.

Power Supply

The X300 uses a small external power supply that provides 12V at 3A. The connector is a coax 5.5mm/?.?mm coax connector. I'm not too sure exactly what the internal diameter is (1.8mm?) but I can tell you it is less than 2.1mm. Initially I connected the unit up to an existing 5.5mm/2.1mm PSU that I had on the bench and it didn't power up - using the supplied PSU was the only reliable way of powering the unit.

I found the PSU took ~6W on its own before being plugged into the A300.

CPU

The Linux cpuinfo reports:

vendor_id	:	CentaurHauls
cpu family	:	6
model	:	13
model name	:	VIA Eden Processor 1000MHz
stepping	:	0
flags	:	fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm nx pni est tm2 xtpr rng rng_en ace ace_en ace2 ace2_en phe phe_en pmm pmm_en

VX900

The support chip is the VIA VX900. From the VIA website:

The VIA VX900 media system processor (MSP) with an integrated VIA C-9 HD 3D graphics processor offers a world-class DirectX 9.0 HD multimedia platform for graphics-intensive Embedded applications and has been designed to support OpenGL 1.4.

Integrating the high-performance fully programmable VIA C-Motion 2.0 video engine, the VIA VX900 MSP boasts hardware acceleration of the most demanding video formats for both locally stored and cloud based HD video content. The VIA C-Motion 2.0 video engine offers advanced filtering and cutting edge post-processing to perform ultra-smooth decoding of H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1, and WMV-HD codecs bringing crisp, smooth 1080p HD video content to life without hogging key system resources.

Additional enhancements include H.264 HD encoder, motion compensation, transform, de-blocking, full VLD and AVS support.

PCI

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Host Bridge: Host Control (rev 80)
00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Error Reporting
00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 CPU Bus Controller
00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 DRAM Bus Control
00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Power Management and Chip Testing Control
00:00.5 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 APIC and Central Traffic Control
00:00.6 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Scratch Registers
00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 North-South Module Interface Control
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Graphics [Chrome9 HD]
00:03.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 PCI Express Root Port 0
00:03.1 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 PCI Express Root Port 1
00:03.2 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 PCI Express Root Port 2
00:03.3 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 PCI Express Root Port 3
00:03.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 PCI Express Physical Layer Electrical Sub-block
00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Serial ATA Controller
00:10.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0)
00:10.1 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0)
00:10.2 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0)
00:10.3 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a0)
00:10.4 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 90)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX900 Bus Control and Power Management
00:11.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX8xx South-North Module Interface Control
00:13.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VX855/VX875/VX900 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:14.0 Audio device: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A/VT8251 HDA Controller (rev 20)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6120/VT6121/VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev 82)

Motherboard

As noted above the A300 is fitted with a Mini-ITX motherboard that the BIOS identifies as a 'D2457' with board version 0A/A0. It also carries the silk screened designation vVX900t-MVP.

Expansion

There is a limited amount of free space within the case.

Flash: The board carries a Compact Flash socket and so it is an easy matter to upgrade the amount of memory fitted but a limitation here (to me at least) is the cost of high capacity CF cards.

RAM: The board has a single SODIMM sockets for DDR3 1066MHz memory. The datasheet says 1GB max. The VIA datasheet on the VX900 indicates that the maximum supported is 8GB in two sockets - so 4GB for the A300. I fitted an 1GB ADATA part HY73I1A08 that worked. I also tried a 2GB Hynix part HMT325S6BFR8C-H9 that also worked.

USB: There are two USB sockets on the front and two on the rear.

Headers: The board carries two strip-line 'headers' that I haven't explored. There is an 8-pin header labelled SPI_CN and a 10-pin header labelled LPCI.

Unpopulated: There are also a few marked but unpopulated positions on the motherboard. Of note are USB2 and SATA2 tho' the latter seems to have the series capacitors in the data lines missing.

Click on the board for a larger version