Motherboards (continued...)

Embedded Motherboards
Cost and affordability is a concern for any manufacturer. Make your product more affordable, and more people will buy it, creating a larger market and increased sales. This is actually the whole idea behind integrated motherboards, and that's all an embedded motherboard is, an integrated board.

The reason I differentiate between the two is a matter of expansion, upgradeability and configuration. In an effort to reduce the cost (and size) of a computer system even more, manufacturers began integrating (or embedding) technologies such as video, sound, networking and modems right onto the system board. This dramatically increases the cost of the mainboard, but reduces the cost of the overall system for the reasons we've discussed earlier. Also, you're pretty well stuck with what you've got.

What if you decide you would like to upgrade your sound or video technology, what happens if your modem quits working or your sound card gives out… you need a new (expensive) motherboard. But wait, the manufacturer says that you can upgrade or bypass a particular feature by installing an adapter card and disabling the embedded device (sometimes). Well, this is where a few problems tend to crop up.

First off, how do you disable the device? Some are disabled as soon as you install another device (such as a video card in an AGP slot). Others have to be disabled through software setup programs, or in your system's CMOS setup, or by setting jumpers on the motherboard itself, or both (and remember, some can't be upgraded, bypassed or disabled at all).

Secondly, can I upgrade to the device I want, or am I limited? Is there a list of the compatible devices that I can upgrade to? A lot of embedded system boards can be very picky about the model and manufacturer of the device you're using to replace an embedded feature.

Third, is there room for the upgrade or replacement? Remember, the manufacturer has embedded a device to save money and reduce cost. Was more money saved by reducing the number of expansion slots on the motherboard?

Finally, the motherboard itself is more expensive because of the embedded device. Would I not be defeating the cost saving feature by disabling the device and installing another?

One other thing, deception. A manufacturer might say their embedded video technology has 4 megabytes of video RAM, upgradeable to, say 12MB. What this generally means is that you have 4MB of Video RAM (which is faster than regular system RAM), and when you upgrade that to 12 MB, it will use 8MB of your system's RAM. ...Hmm, now your newer video technology is using regular system RAM instead of faster VRAM, and your 64 MB computer now has only 56 MB of memory, because 8MB has been allocated to video. Most manufacturers don't explain that one too well.

You may find that you do a lot of desktop publishing or enjoy gaming, and decide you'd like to upgrade your video card to enhance your graphics and increase performance. With an embedded system you may be limited to what you can do.

Don't get me wrong, embedded systems definitely have a niche in today's marketplace. Laptop and Notebook computers are becoming smaller and lighter, and yet more like full featured desktops. A few tradeoffs are not only tolerated, but expected. You may have need of a basic business computer that does nothing but crunch numbers or access a database and attaches to a small network. Maybe you're looking for an inexpensive computer just for accessing the Internet or playing the odd game of solitaire. Perhaps you play the odd action game and want to play your music CDs while you work. Maybe you're a first time buyer and want all these features! Embedded motherboards allow for fast, powerful, feature rich computer systems at a very reasonable cost. It's just important to know exactly what you're getting, and the different limitations and problems that can come up later if you decide you would like to enhance some of these features.

From the sounds of all this, you may get the impression that I'm not particularily crazy about embedded motherboards.

Uhuh.

continued...