Thread: shuttle sff
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Unread 03-12-2003, 04:04 PM   #3
Leuf
Cooling Neophyte
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Posts: 56
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If you're thinking of either of the two athlon shuttle xpcs, the sk41 or sn41, the anandtech review of them is pretty thorough.

I got an sk41, and I only have a few complaints. The overall build quality is very good. My major complaint lies with the psu. If they'd made the case 1-2 cms taller then they could have used a standard 1U psu. Instead you have to use a slightly less wide one, and enhance and achme are the only two companies that make them. Neither of those names come to mind when you think quality psu. Also to keep the noise down they wired the psu fan, which is 40 mm, to a temperature control, and the psu case barely has any intake vent holes. The psu gets too hot to touch if you run it 24/7. I'm currently working on a 40 to 60 mm adapter for mine to provide adequate cooling without being too noisy.

Also if you want to use 2 hdds in it instead of 1 hdd 1 floppy, there really isn't enough cooling for that. There is very little space between them, and no clearance at all between the top 3.5 and the 5.25 bay above it. I'm going to be making a whole new front for mine that will include 1 or 2 slow 80 mm fans for hdd and case cooling. While the ice cpu/case cooler is capable of cooling the box, it leaves a lot of the case hotter than you'd probably like. It does however do a fine job cooling the cpu, I have a 1.2 tbird in there and even with horrible case temps it stilll keeps the cpu under 50 C under full load.

I make it sound worse than it is, I do like it. But if you want it to be cool and quiet you're going to have to do some modding.
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