In response to our first article on the first mini-ITX motherboard based on NVIDIA's Ion platform, many of you asked enough questions that warranted a follow up.  In said follow up I mentioned that wake-on-USB did not seem to work reliably on Zotac's Ion motherboard.  Today I've got confirmation, said feature does not work.

Zotac says that wake-on-USB isn't currently supported by the PCB and requires a hardware revision to enable it.  A new revision of the Zotac Ion board with wake-on-USB support is in the works and Zotac tells me that the new board should be ready in early June.

Zotac also tells me that the Ion user manual should be the first place to look to see if your version of the board supports wake-on-USB.  Given that none of the boards support it currently, don't expect to see any reference to the feature in the current version of the manual :) 

As always, I'll keep you posted.  But for now, back to testing some new CPUs :)
Comments Locked

20 Comments

View All Comments

  • sprockkets - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - link

    Well, it would have been better for them to use 12v, as this is more in line as to what most onboard DC-DC stuff does. Having it at 19v is kinda proprietary, but 19v is a common voltage for laptops.
  • rei - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    A more serious failing is the lack of any BIOS recovery mechanism if one of their BIOS flash fails. Will the updated PCB have this? Can AnandTech ask this of Zotac?
  • sprockkets - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    Unless the BIOS supports SATA drives upon BIOS recovery, it is more of a legacy issue more than a Zotac issue. I messed up on a BIOS flash on an Award BIOS on my Shuttle SG31G2s, and I could either use a floppy with all the usual files on it to flash, or a bootable cd with the same files (.bat file set to flash the exact file).

    Since this board and more and more are not coming with IDE or floppy connectors, this will be an issue.

    A better question to ask is, when the hell will companies start using EFI?
  • sprockkets - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    Zotac did this before with S3 standby on the nVidia 7100 board.

    Hey Anand, are they planning to fix this on the Ion AND the LGA socket board?
  • Jorgisven - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    FAIL. I suppose that it may have been better if they just didn't allow low power mode? It's light on the electric bill for sure, but why not just go the extra step? Seems kind of silly that they didn't.
  • Shubhangi - Monday, January 11, 2010 - link

    I agree with you.


    SEO Services
  • jhon1234 - Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - link

    http://www.easylawyers.co.uk/resources/freehold-pr...">http://www.easylawyers.co.uk/resources/freehold-pr...
    http://www.easylawyers.co.uk/resources/leasehold-p...">http://www.easylawyers.co.uk/resources/leasehold-p...
    http://www.easylawyers.co.uk/resources/buying-prop...">http://www.easylawyers.co.uk/resources/buying-prop...
    http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid...">http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid...
  • Cas07 - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    "better if they didnt allow low power mode" that would be rather short-sighted considering the device state can easily restored from other methods (e.g WoL, power button, software) it is just wake on USB that is not working.

    Sounds like an oversight they thought could be fixed by a BIOS update but did not quite work out that way. It might be a pain for those people adopting the first batches of this board but at least they are fixing it for future revisions! What more could they do?

    Reading this article reminded me of the original ATi remote wonder that was usb but cant wake from standby either, what a perfect pairing that would make ;)
  • Jorgisven - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    It's not supported by the PCB. It requires a hardware revision. Meaning a BIOS update will not fix this. Have to fix the hardware itself.
  • tfranzese - Monday, May 25, 2009 - link

    Up your reading comprehension or were you going for entirely redundant?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now