Oh ya there are dozens of lil ARM CPU sticks that you can use for mining. I use a
MK802 II to run my
BFL Single, but mine can be had for <$40, where as it's surprising how many are upwards of $100.
Such small chips fail once you start adding capacity, I have a couple of 400Mhz units and they max out at about 3 miners and start dropping connections, with the ~$100USD I can take it to over 20 miners and not even break 3% of resources.
Try to remember that many of these cheap shitty chips chain ALL the external communication off the USB core, so basically you end up competing for resources against the ethernet infrastructure.....
You don't know anything about the chip I'm talking about, do you? The MK802 II isn't 400MHz, it's 1GHz. And ya, average CPU usage while mining is ~1%.
As for the communications and USB issue, check out the chip layout:
ODROID-U2 has the LAN go thru a USB controller, but a different one than the 2 external ports are on.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quickembed.com%2FTools%2FShop%2FUploadPhotos%2F201301%2F20130103174659452.jpg&t=665&c=Zu4z6gZX9HONSw)
The MK802II chip has the wifi running thru an "Extend Socket1", but doesn't seem to run thru the USB at all.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Folimex.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F04%2Fa10.jpg&t=665&c=6Jmbm_5fr-E4DA)
I haven't had any network issues since I set the thing up several months ago. As I said, why pay $85 or $100+, when I can pay $40 and get a great system that does all of the same things?