The Biostar iDEQ 250N Mini PC System is a barebones kit which means you'll need to pick up a Socket AM2 Athlon64 processor, a hard drive, an optical drive and at least 2GB of DDR-2 memory. The reason why these barebones kits do not come with everything is so that you can customize the parts to your liking, and budget. ;-)

Insert DDR-2 memory DIMMs in pairs so you enable dual channel memory support. You can equip the Biostar iDEQ 250N with up to 4GB of DDR2-800 memory.

The information that Biostar includes with the iDEQ 250N Mini PC System is pretty impressive and easy to read. When setting up the system, newbie or experienced user, you'll want to keep these manuals handy.

The Biostar iDEQ 250N Mini PC System comes with its own heatsink, stock Socket AM2 heatsinks will not fit properly due to the custom mounting mechanism.

Installing the Socket AM2 Athlon64 processor is very simple and Biostar includes white silicon thermal compound and a hefty heatsink with the iDEQ 250N Mini PC System. In fact, you can only use the supplied heatsink with this system. There's plenty of space to work with inside the small case, and you don't even have to remove the drive rack to install the processor!

The custom heatsink that Biostar includes has a large copper base with aluminum fins. There is a heatpipe to help distribute the heat more evenly across the fins.

Inside the Biostar iDEQ 250N Mini PC System, all the important headers and connectors have been located along either edge of the Biostar NC51G-S2 motherboard. This is done so you can reach them without half disassembling the entire PC. Little touches like this are definitely appreciated. Most of the power and data cables are already attached, and kept out of the way via cable locks and zip ties.

The nForce 410 MCP supports two Serial ATA II channels and two IDE channels by default. Biostar does an excellent job of cable management by tucking all the large cables (like IDE) away with zip and cable ties.

The 5.25" optical / 3.5" FDD and hung 3.5" hard drive mount are all on one detachable aluminum rack. We'd advise you to proceed slowly here, there are some rough edges on the removable rack and it's easy to cut yourself. The case should have had more of these edges rounded over. Apart from this little annoyance, the iDEQ 250N Mini PC System's chassis is excellent.

The 80mm slim line fans are very quiet and during testing the Biostar iDEQ 250N system operated very quietly. The system fans are replaceable should they start to get noisy.

The Biostar iDEQ 250N Mini PC System is extremely quiet during operation and in many cases was completely silent to our ears. That makes the iDEQ 250N Mini PC System a perfect candidate for a home theatre system. The system also does not generate much heat but you're advised to leave at least 10cm of empty space between the PC side panels and other objects.