We tackled the SEED MA-280 this time around. This impressively small unit has a MSRP in the neighborhood of $70/USD, which is mid-priced for a Mini-ITX nettop chassis. The focus of its design is in light desktop or multimedia use, which is apparent in its form and function.

Features and Specs

I wasn’t able to find the official product specs in English at this point, but here they are as translated from Chinese:

Additionally, our contact at Lutec was kind enough to provide the product manual in PDF format, as a printed version wasn’t yet available in English. Hopefully they will not mind me reproducing it for you here:

MA-280B Instruction Manual

The Unboxing

Unboxings are always a bit tedious for me. The process is rarely noteworthy in my opinion, unless the packaging and presentation are either especially good or abnormally poor. As with many products, the MA-280 is neither. Still, here are some unboxing shots for you in the interest of thoroughness:

Aside from the chassis itself, the packaging contained the following:

• 60-watt AC/DC brick
• Power cord
• 40MM fan
• Plastic stand (for vertical orientation)
• 4 adhesive-backed rubber feet (for horizontal orientation)
• A bag of assorted case screws

Note that some variations of the MA-280 ship with an 80 or 100-watt PSU rather than the 60-watt shown here.

The Build

For the test build, I utilized the following hardware:

• ZOTAC IONITX-D-E Intel Atom N330 Dual Core 1.6 GHz 441 NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
• LITE-ON Black 8X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 5X DVD-RAM 8X DVD-ROM 24X CD-R 24X CD-RW 24X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA Slot Load Slim CD/DVD Burner
• Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9160412AS 160GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

Having disassembled and reassembled the SEED MA-280 several times during the test phase, I believe I’ve got a pretty good idea of its attributes in the process. Overall the assembly went smoothly and I didn’t run into any major snags. The cover comes off easily with only 2 thumb screws, and is replaced just as readily. This may seem obvious, but some chassis I’ve worked with are a real struggle in one respect or the other.

The internal DC/DC board is mounted directly adjacent to the system’s single exhaust fan, which should help with its longevity.

Adding the motherboard and connecting it to the MA-280’s power and the front panel IO was a very simple and trouble-free process. After reviewing the MU-380, I feel it’s also worth mentioning that the included ATX power cables were just the right length.

The optical disc drive mounting bracket was a bit unusual, utilizing a tool-less design. Instead of screws, the drive is held in place with an adjustable plastic component that snaps into its screw holes. The plastic bracket didn’t feel very sturdy, but since replacing an ODD is fairly rare, I don’t think it’s all that relevant.

The MA-280 can house up to two 2.5″ HDDs simultaneously; one on the main horizontal support, the other on its own semi-independent mounting bracket. The thing that really struck me was that in either position they must be mounted upside-down. I’d always been told this was a bad way to mount them which can cause damage. However, in my research I wasn’t able to find any real info suggesting this is actually true.

Note that if you choose to use the central mount location, the HDD will likely hang directly above the main heatsync. HDDs may not mind being hung upside down, but they most certainly do not care for excessive heat. This means a HDD mounted in the position over the CPU may not last as long as it potentially could otherwise.

Should you choose to mount the SEED MA-280 horizontally, you’ll find the optional adhesive-backed rubber feet to be of generally good quality. They stick well, feel quite solid, and don’t detract from the overall look and feel of the chassis. The intended underside of the 280 is scored so you’ll be sure to stick the feet on straight, should you so desire:

It’s not too difficult to spot my fingerprints in the images above. They were intentionally left in the shot so you could see that the finish on the chassis is nice, and comes across as classy, but unfortunately shows fingerprints pretty clearly in most light. This is commonplace, and really more an observation than a flaw, but it does lead me to the MA-280’s build problems…

Build Problems

As with the SEED MU-380, the MA-280 also utilizes some cheap electrolytic capacitors in its DC/DC power board. But unlike the MU-380, the MA-280 has also augmented it with some solid caps, and the Molex connector is removable rather than being soldered onto the board. This is a definite improvement.

Unfortunately, there were some minor manufacturing problems with our review sample SEED MA-280. Most noticeable was some plastic sheeting from the manufacturing process still clinging to the front bezel. I made an effort to remove it, but it was torn off from behind the bezel, and some of it remained firmly wedged between the bezel and the faceplate.

As is my habit, I informed Lutec about this issue rather than ambushing them with it in this review. They were quick to respond as follows:

“About the plastic sheeting on the front bezel issue I will response to our product manager, and contact the manufacturer see if they could improve that part in the next batch of the goods. I’m also appreciating that you have tried to torn it off to show the best appearance of our case.”

I’m normally more than happy to overlook such niggling issues on commodity hardware, but since I actually got right down in there with some needlenose plairs and still wasn’t able to remove the plastic sheeting in this instance, I thought it was at least worth bringing up. Hopefully Lutec can get the issue sorted out at the factory by the time the SEED MA-280 sees production in the west.

There’s actually another issue along the same ilk that I almost overlooked. A minor issue, but certainly one worthy of bringing to your attention. Normally the mic jack on ATX chassis and motherboards are color-coded pink. Likewise, speaker or headphone jacks are coded green. In the case of the MA-280, they seemed to be reversed at first glance. However, after testing I could confirm that the color scheme was actually correct. As it turned out, it was the labeling on the chassis itself that was incorrect…

At first I assumed the issue was a factory defect that was specific to our sample unit. But after digging around a bit, I found the following image on the manufacturer’s website:

Yikes. Looks like QA missed this one right out of the starting gate. Just to reiterate, the colors are correct, it’s the physical jacks that are reversed from what the “MIC” and “SPK” labels state.

Finished Product

Overall, I felt the build-out of the SEED MA-280 went quite well, and I was fairly pleased with the finished look. Whether vertically or horizontally oriented, the 280 looks decent.

The front panel bears the standard mic and headphone jacks (albeit mislabeled), along with two USB 2.0 ports. Unfortunately no card reader, nor e-SATA ports, though honestly they’re features I rarely utilize in chassis that do have them.

As for the front LEDs, they are as bright as most these days, which is to say very bright. Whether you see this as an advantage or a disadvantage is purely a matter of preference, so I’ll leave it at that. The power button feels solid and relatively high-quality, and doesn’t lend itself to sticking when pushed into a fully-recessed position. The reset button is of the tiny pinhole variety, many times too small for a human finger. If you want to reset this thing, you’ll need to use an implement such as a bent paperclip to press the switch.

I think you’ll find the size and density of the chassis is its single most interesting feature. To illustrate, I’ve included a few shots of the SEED MA-280 stacked atop another Mini-ITX chassis. It’s worth taking into account that both systems are actually housing two sets of identical components. Though they are both Mini-ITX standard, the size difference is more than a little noticeable. In fact, the generic chassis looks downright obese next to the tiny MA-280.

On the matter of cooling, the MA-280 is blessed with several vents on the sides in addition to the 40MM exhaust port on the rear. It would have been nice to see filters or at least screens on the intake vents, but this is a fairly rare feature in commodity chassis (especially nettop ones), so shouldn’t be seen as a major detractor.

So much hardware in such a small chassis.

Trial Run

To test out the SEED MA-280, I used the same software compliment as in the MU-380 review. This was largely for the sake of my own convenience, though it is what I would consider typical for a nettop PC. Specifically, Debian Sid, XBMC, Boxee, and various packages from the Debian-Multimedia repository.

The NVidia ION chipset I tested with supports VDPAU in Linux, making short work of HD video with only the tiniest load on the CPU.

Of course the chassis doesn’t have much influence on these activities, but it also didn’t detract from the experience in hours of operation. The 280’s slick appearance and size also fit quite nicely in a home media console:

It did put out a bit of noise under full load as the fan RPMs increased, but nothing to hold a candle to the sound of the PS3 at full-bore.

Test Results

In light of the thermal issues on the MU-380, I made sure to look closely at the thermal performance of the MA-280. As with the MU-380, I took the ATOM 330’s temperature after 8 hours of idling in a well-ventilated area, then again after a solid 8 hours of 100% load on all cores. For such a tiny example of the Mini-ITX architecture, the SEED MA-280 came through admirably.

At idle, the MA-280 leveled out at 46°C (114.8°F). After 8 hours of torturing the CPU and GPU with a full load, the temperature did not exceed 52°C (125.6°F). While this would be a touch on the warm side for a full ATX system, keep in mind that the MA-280 is an exceptionally tiny Mini-ITX chassis. Further, the ATOM 330 / ION combo we equipped it with is known to run quite warm, and (though I wouldn’t particularly recommend it) can work without issue at up to 84°C (183.2°F). Therefore, the MA-280’s temperature stability is more than acceptable for long-term use on even high-end ATOM 330 / ION systems.

Possible Tweaks

As with the MU-380, the MA-280 can easily be modded to remove the internal DC/DC board and thereby removing quite a lot of cable clutter. All that’s required is a phillips-head screwdriver and a motherboard with a fully-externalized power source, such as the excellent ZOTAC IONITX-A-U. You’ll be left with more room for cable management, better airflow, possibly room for extra hardware in your DIY project.

Conclusion

In my tests, the MA-280 worked flawlessly with my full featured ZOTAC IONITX-D-E (Intel Atom N330, Dual Core 1.6 GHz, 441 NVIDIA ION) Mini-ITX Motherboard/CPU combo. Such hardware is more than capable of giving a very enjoyable experience in a home theater or a light desktop. Best of all, it makes excellent use of available space. Thus the SEED MA-280’s pros outweigh its cons, but there are some rather bothering manufacturing nuisances. The fact that the front panel audio jacks are reversed and the front bezel had a clearly visible defect definitely detract from the quality of the product as a whole. If Lutec manages to get these headaches sorted out before we start seeing these in Europe and North America, it’s no great stretch to imagine the MA-280 being a success among DIY enthusiasts.

Pros

• Not unattractive in appearance
• Very small footprint for a PC
• Horizontal or vertical orientation
• Cools fairly well
• 60W PSU included
• Capable of handling an ATOM 330 / ION combo for a quality home theater experience
• Easily converts to a fully external PSU when coupled with the right motherboard

Cons

• Average price for the build quality
• Somewhat short of silent
• Internal DC / DC board uses some cheap electrolytic capacitors
• Many petty manufacturing problems

Rating

Seed MA-280 | 3 out of 5: Average

Special Note: Since the MA-280’s issues are largely with the manufacturing process and not with its overall design, we’d be happy to accommodate Lutec by re-evaluating our rating if and when they manage to fix these irritants. Were its problems resolved, I believe the MA-280’s qualities might justify a 4/5 rating.

Relevant Links

• Main Lutec Site
• SEED Homepage
• Debian – The Universal Operating System
• XBMC Media Center
• Boxee: the open, connected social media center
• ZOTAC
• G.Skill
• LITE-ON
• Seagate
• Photography by Christy Wadge
• HardwareForums.com

See also: SEED MU-380 Review

First up is the SEED MU-380. With a MSRP of around $70/USD, it is a mid-priced Mini-ITX nettop chassis aimed at light desktop or multimedia use. It comes in two varieties, the always classy black and a stylish black/silver two-tone. We received the black model, although we expect little in the way of functional differences.

Features and Specs

To get things rolling, let’s have a glance at the official features and specifications. As of this writing they aren’t yet available in English, so here they are as translated from Japanese:

The Unboxing

There really wasn’t much to the packaging or included components, in fact they are exactly as one would expect from such a product. The box was relatively light but not flimsy, and the form-fitted Styrofoam is sufficiently thick as to absorb the impact of fairly rough freight travel.

Aside from the MU-380 chassis itself the packaging contained pretty standard fare:

• 60-watt AC/DC brick
• Power cord
• 2 very small SATA cables
• 50mm sleeve-bearing fan
• Various screws and fittings
• Metric hex wrench
• A few clear-plastic cable ties
• Brief, monochrome manual
• 4 feet for horizontal orientation
• 2 Stands for vertical orientation

The external AC PSU is exactly the type one would associate with a laptop.

The Build

For the test build, I utilized the following hardware:

• ZOTAC IONITX-D-E Intel Atom N330 Dual Core 1.6 GHz 441 NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
• LITE-ON Black 8X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 5X DVD-RAM 8X DVD-ROM 24X CD-R 24X CD-RW 24X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA Slot Load Slim CD/DVD Burner
• Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9160412AS 160GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

The process of assembling a system often reveals a lot about the quality of the chassis. During this build, the first thing that struck me is just how sturdy the MU-380 feels in the hand — not at all flimsy like some other nettop chassis I’ve encountered. The chassis’ two panels are each affixed with 4 metric hex-bolts.

Thankfully, they’ve included a small metric hex key in case you don’t already own one.

The optional ODD and HDD mounts are provided by a lateral tin mounting bracket. I was able to affix both the optical and 2.5″ HDD to this frame without issue, each of which felt solid and well-positioned afterwards.

Build Problems

Close inspection of the internal PCB which houses the 24-pin ATX power feed revealed some potential issues.

The board utilizes cheap electrolytic capacitors, which are often among the first components to fail in electronics. This is especially true in high heat environments, where they can leak or even explode, much like common batteries. For this reason, many manufacturers have started using conductive solid polymer aluminum capacitors, which are much more durable and long-lived than electrolytic caps. Still, this can be overlooked, since a great many devices can be criticized in exactly the same way.

The solder joints on the 24-pin ATX12V connector, on the other hand, are somewhat more difficult to miss. Since it’s soldered directly onto the DC board, one cannot replace it without removing and re-soldering each joint — a daunting task, to say the least. Since some of the connections were a bit shaky on our test unit, I would be concerned about accidentally creating a cold joint by tugging a bit too hard. This makes the next problem all the more relevant…

The 24-pin ATX12V connector (aka Molex Mini-fit Jr.) in our test unit was too short for our motherboard by about 1 inch. I had to augment it with a 20-24-pin ATX extension, which added 6″ of cable and the resultant extra clutter to the build. Also on the topic of insufficient length, one of the two SATA cables provided were too short by half to reach either our optical or hard disk drive. As a result, I had to use a generic SATA cable as a replacement which was much larger than the included cables. You can see the Molex extension and the mis-matched SATA cables clearly in the photo below.

It should be noted that I informed our contact at Lutec of the short Molex problem we encountered. He readily acknowledged the issue, and replied as follows:

“With the cable length of 20-pin Molex connector integrated on the DC board problem, we will extend the length of the cable in the chassis which we are going to export to the world wide. Because for MU-380 we used to sale it as barebones in Taiwan and the length of the connector is exactly fit-in ATOM 330 so if we try to use other boards then we will also use an extension cable, too.”

Moving along, the MU-380 utilizes a single 50mm fan to help expel hot air from the chassis and force negative airflow. The exhaust fan mounts to a tin bracket, which is then snapped into the side of the chassis and set in place with two small flush-head screws. It was quite difficult to get the fan into position, and took a bit more force than I was comfortable with. Once it was in place however, it didn’t move much and ran without notable noise or vibration.

As you can see in the shot above, the heatsync on the ZOTAC IONITX-D-E stands off the motherboard a bit too tall to mount its optional fan. For this reason, all tests we ran with the MU-380 had to be done with passive cooling. This is of course with the exception of the aforementioned 50mm exhaust fan, which I connected directly to the CPU fan header on the motherboard.

Finished Product

The MU-380 sports some rather well designed power and reset buttons, which have a solid but not stiff feel when pressed. Nestled between them, the power and HDD activity LEDs are quite bright, as is the current trend. This could be a problem or an advantage of this chassis, depending on your perspective.

In addition to the exhaust fan, the side of the chassis (or top, depending on the orientation) also sports standard 1/8″ headphone and mic jacks, single USB2 connector, and an SD/MMC/SDHC slot.

Our extremely full-featured ZOTAC IONITX-D-E board bristeld from this Mini-ITX nettop chassis. On the outer edge, the power plug can be seen.

And of course, the chassis can also be mounted vertically ala bookend. To give the smallest footprint, vertical orientation is probably the best option. It also looks quite appealing.

Trial Run

In order to put the SEED MU-380 through its paces, I decided to go with a fairly obvious scenario and build it out to be a media jukebox with a full desktop environment. The software compliment I selected to this end was Debian Sid, XBMC, Boxee, and various packages from the Debian-Multimedia repository. Obviously the chassis doesn’t have much direct impact on these activities, but it also didn’t hinder them in any way during hours of operation. The front-mounted ports were fairly convenient to this end, though it admittedly would have been nice to have had more than one USB port at times.

It did however get quite hot during normal operation, an issue which I decided to examine in more detail.

Test Results

As you might have guessed from its appearance, cooling is not the MU-380’s strong suit. For a litmus, I took the ATOM 330’s temperature after 8 hours of idling in a well-ventilated area, then again after a solid 8 hours of 100% load on all cores. The results are more than a bit troubling:

The idle temps eventually plateaued at a sweltering 72°C (161.6°F). Worse, exposing it to a constant max CPU load on all cores caused it to reach a ceiling of 86°C (186°F). This actually surpasses Intel’s specified maximum temperature allowable for the ATOM by 2°C.

It seems the single static-speed, low-RPM, 50mm fan mounted just adjacent the CPU was not enough to exhaust sufficient amounts of heat from the chassis. Before long, the chassis became saturated, and the outer skin of the MU-380 was nearly the temperature of the ambient air within. Interestingly, the results were identical whether it was oriented vertically or horizontally. To be fair, the ATOM 330 coupled with the relatively high-end NVidia ION chipset can generate quite a lot of heat as compared to a lower-performance chipset offering from Intel. But my experience here leads me to believe even a lower-end ATOM 330 would be uncomfortably hot.

Part of the problem is the narrow profile of the MU-380, which in my circumstances prevented me from affixing the ZOTAC IONITX-D-E’s optional CPU fan for direct cooling. To further compound things, the 380 only has one rather paltry intake and an identically claustrophobic exhaust on the opposite end. Even if the fan were tuned to a more aggressive RPM setting, or better still allowed the motherboard to adjust the RPMs dynamically, it would still be trying to draw air through what amounts to a very constricted intake. It’s a bit like trying to breathe through a straw.

Possible Tweaks

This being a Zone365 review on behalf of HardwareForums.com, where would we be without a little DIY engineering?

It occurred to me during the build that the internal DC distribution board is not only a source of potential problems, but also an eyesore which clutters the 380’s precious internal space. Fortunately, the only thing keeping it in place are a few Phillips-head screws. If you were to use a motherboard with a fully externalized PSU, for instance the ZOTAC IONITX-A-U, you could completely remove the MU-380’s internal power boards. In so doing, you’d open up some extra breathing room, remove clutter, and also be rid of a few potential failure points in the process. This prospect makes the SEED MU-380 a bit more attractive in my mind.

Conclusion

Lutec’s SEED MU-380 Mini-ITX chassis is intended to house a nettop or media appliance. Unfortunately, cooling problems effectively exclude higher-end Mini-ITX offerings such as the multi-core Intel ATOM 330 / NVidia ION combo. While I didn’t get the opportunity to test pairing the MU-380 with a lower-end ATOM offering, it’s well known that GMA945-based chipsets still put out a sizable amount of heat. Even with a mid to low-end ATOM offering, the 380 could potentially have a hard time keeping up with heat dissipation.

Between the heat issues and the obvious manufacturing flaws I encountered, it’s very difficult to recommend the MU-380. However, I will concede that matching the SEED MU-280 with an embedded-grade Mini-ITX solution housing multiple integrated NICs and Wifi would make an appealing SOHO router. The cooling requirements would be substantially relaxed as compared to an ION/ATOM combo, and the unique design would give a professional look to such an appliance. If that’s what you’re in the market for, the MU-380 might be worth a closer look. Otherwise, it’s a very tough sell.

Pros

• Attractive appearance
• Small, thin footprint
• Solid feel
• Horizontal or vertical orientation
• Easily converts to a fully external PSU chassis
• Extremely quiet
• 60W PSU included

Cons

• Above average price for build quality
• Built with cheap electrolytic capacitors
• Some elements cumbersome to assemble
• Stock cables were too short
• Extremely poor cooling
• Not a good match to ATOM 330 / ION

Rating

SEED MU-380 | 2 out of 5: Poor

Relevant Links

• Main Lutec Site
• SEED Homepage
• Debian – The Universal Operating System
• XBMC Media Center
• Boxee: the open, connected social media center
• ZOTAC
• G.Skill
• LITE-ON
• Seagate
• Photography by Christy Wadge
• HardwareForums.com

See also: SEED MA-280 Review

Are you in need of some video inspiration? Tired of the same old video search engines you’ve been using all these years? Let’s have a look at a few video and multimedia search engines that may help you with some fresh ideas for your upcoming creation. We’ll leave out the usual suspects and take a look at some you probably weren’t even aware of.

Truveo

Truveo is a video search engine with multi-lingual support. It supports boolean operators (OR, AND and -) and exact match search (”your search phrase here“). Another fun thing about the platform is that it has cool Twitter integration allowing to see most “Twittered videos.”

TagBulb

TagBulb is a tag search for images and videos aggregating several popular platforms. Its search results page is no more than a list of video thumbnails:

VideoSurf

VideoSurf aggregates results from popular video sharing sites like Youtube and links them together using combination of facial recognition and text search (based on video description and tags). It also offers handy search suggestion feature. It also lets you refine your results by excluding any search channel, category or content type (e.g. Slide shows, full episodes, web series, clips).

CastTV

CastTV is an excellent search engine for TV shows, movies, news, sports, celebrity, and viral online videos. The site is divided into categories and also offers a handy search option. Each search result includes a source link, description and a video thumbnail. Besides, you are able to sort and filter search results in multiple ways: by source, genre, type, etc.

Tagoo

Tagoo is a search platform that lets you search for all types of media-content: audio clips, music albums, audiobooks, music videos and podcasts. The site contains a huge database of sites to crawl but the overall result quality leaves much to be desired.

Did I leave any out?

If there’s a useful multimedia search engine I’ve neglected to mention, don’t fret! Just tell us about it by commenting on this article.