Experiences with Shuttle boxes?

[Tim Murray]

So with the end of school approaching and summer job equalling a bit o' cash, I was thinking about upgrading my current machine. A Shuttle box occurred to me because I don't really need a giant case; I need a machine that works, really. I don't care about having 30 PCI slots I'm not going to use (I have exactly one PCI card in my machine now--wireless card--and it's totally unnecessary since I have Ethernet here) or having 5 or 6 5.25 drive bays. So, having a small desktop machine seems like it would be nice.

So, anyone have any experience with Shuttle machines? Any weird things I should be aware of when considering this, or are they really just a good all-in-one case/power supply/motherboard combo that's just really small?

 

[jvd]

my dad was using one till he got a sli set up . Worked really good and kept a p4 3.6 ghz 2 gigs of ram , 2 160 gig hardrives and a 6800gt at ultra extreme speeds cool

 

[Pete]

I bought the quietest Shuttle box of its time, the Zen. Let's just say I was still disappointed in how noisy it was, and that's with a single fan and the PSU outside the case. If you do go for a SFF and demand a quiet PC, I'd look into a 2.5" HDD. You can always add extra storage by sticking a huge 3.5" HD in an external enclosure, and this is pretty handy anyway.

Myself, I'd prefer an Aria and a uATX S939 board over any SFF, but that's with an eye toward keeping a more upgradable system as my main box for longer. I've heard that the Aria 2 (or whatever) may be released in June or something, which might be worth waiting for.

My unenthusiastic tuppence.

 

[Alistair]

Try the Shuttle forum at www.sudhian.com

Comments until your eyes bleed...

 

[Gubbi]

I built a socket 754 shuttle XPC for my kid brother. By far the most noisy part is the GPU cooler, you'd want to change that one.

All the socket 754 and 939 solutions use the ICE CPU cooler which is *really* quiet. The loudest part apart from the GPU is the HD, so get a Samsung spinpoint if noise is your worry.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[Mariner]

The newer Shuttles are a bit bigger than the older ones and are generally a bit quieter also. To be honest, I'd avoid an Intel-based one at the moment as the chips are much hotter and therefore the systems themselves are a bit noisier than their AMD equivalents. The one exception to this hasn't been released yet, but I believe Shuttle are releasing a Pentium M-based HTPC this summer (looks like Hi-Fi component) which should be very quiet - possibly with a passively-cooled PSU. Not sure if this would support higher-speed graphics cards though.

Check out www.sfftech.com for reviews.

P.S. I second the recommendation of a 2.5" HD if you're interested in silencing - also look into suspending the HD instead of bolting it into the system (www.silentpcreview.com). Also, once of the easiest ways to reduce the noise generated by a Shuttle is a simple fan replacement! It's easy to use much quieter fans which still provide adequate cooling.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

P.S. I second the recommendation of a 2.5" HD if you're interested in silencing - also look into suspending the HD instead of bolting it into the system (www.silentpcreview.com).

Helpful tip from experience: if you suspend your hard drive, make sure you properly ground it!

 

[Mariner]

Helpful tip from experience: if you suspend your hard drive, make sure you properly ground it!

Ouch! Sounds like a nasty experience there!

 

[hoom]

I got a 754 shuttle & moved my desktop to it to make it portable for loads less cash than a new laptop.
Its vastly more quiet than my desktop (had crap fans)
As said, GPU, HDD & Optical are the nosiy bits.

Runs pretty hot though.
Well, I think its doing ok, just I'm not used to having my case feel warm to the touch.
The auto fan speed thing mostly keeps it on a low speed with very occasional bursts to higher speed so apparently its running cool enough.
Was hotter with 2 HDDs in it.

 

[hoom]

Oh yeah, they do a shuttleised 802.11g wireless card tucked up in the corner above the powersupply allowing the PCI slot to be used for something else.

 

[Pete]

All the socket 754 and 939 solutions use the ICE CPU cooler which is *really* quiet. The loudest part apart from the GPU is the HD, so get a Samsung spinpoint if noise is your worry.

My experience may be abnormal, but I bought a Samsung Spinpoint 3.5" HD precisely b/c the folks at SPCR recommended it as quiet. It was the noisiest part in that Zen (which had a passively cooled IGP, thus the only fan was the variable-speed one on the ICE cooler). The ICE cooler is pretty quiet with an undervolted P4 1.6A.

I agree that you'd want to go with a CnQ A64 over any P4. A P-M would be ideal, but desktop system are so expensive....

 

[Sxotty]

I have an aria and I quite like it.

 

[Mariner]

I hear that the PSU in the Aria makes a fair racket (or at least isn't very quiet). A bit of a pity really as the proprietary design means you can't replace it with a quieter one.

Otherwise, it looks like a good stepping-stone between a tower and Shuttle-sized SFF PC.

 

[ricercar]

Caveat Emptor

I bought the first nForce2 SFF, the Shuttle SN41G2 and have been doing continuous unplanned upgrades ever since. YMMV.

First the AGP slot is on the outside, so my dual-slot AGP card (FX 5800U) required case cutting. Then the 200W PSU proved inadequate for the graphics card, and a 1RU server PSU of sufficient power and diminutive size turned out to be a needle in the world-wide-web. Then even after I retired the dustbuster it was too loud for a living room HTPC, and it needed all stock fans replaced (CPU, IGP), and a fanless video card.

IMHO a SFF ain't plug and play for anyone but the most basic user, or someone who can be satisfied with off-the-shelf performance. Buy a SFF and spend less time with your friends.