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Hardware

Shuttle SS40G Mini-PC 166

Posted by michael from the size-isn't-everything dept.
Thomas writes "Just got an email from a friend telling me Viahardware.com has put up a review of the Shuttle SS40G - the latest barebones system. I read through the review, and it looks like Shuttle has finally made a system that is capable of being totally silent. It has a cool heatpipe and radiator design for cooling the CPU, not to mention that it looks very cool."
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Shuttle SS40G Mini-PC More

Shuttle SS40G Mini-PC

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  • Silent computers (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MacGod ( 320762 )
    I guess it's nice that someone's now offering a silent computer, especially given Apple now has a fan in th iMac, and no Cube anymore

    • Re:Silent computers (Score:5, Informative)

      by iangoldby ( 552781 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @08:30AM (#3608401) Homepage
      It's not quite silent. There are two fans - one (almost silent) for the PSU and a second reasonably quiet one for the CPU radiator, according to the article. It may be quiet but that's not the same thing as silent. Anyway, even without fans you'd still have the noise from the hard disk.

      • Re:Silent computers (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30, 2002 @08:56AM (#3608507)
        You can approach silence by using a VIA C3 CPU, which does -not- require a CPU fan.

        The seagate barracuda IV is so quiet as to be essentially noiseless; the background hum of fluorescent lights should be louder than a machine so spec'ed.
      • Actually there are three. There is a small fan on the northbridge/graphics chip. Its probably not a big noise source, but it is another moving part.
    • I have an old IMac Dv, and it needs a fan, it overheats all the time. I will be adding one RSN.
      I'm happy Apple deciede to do so.
  • I could think of a million uses for a brigade of these little blighters. Have one permanently streaming my shoutcast station wired up to every stereo in the house, one sitting by the TV with my 5Gb of MAME roms and a proper arcade joystick, one next to it to play Divxs on...

    Ahhhh...
  • is it me, or do the Shuttle PC's get a lot of free advertising on slashdot. more so than any dell, ibm, etc. equipment. In fact the only other manufacturer that seems to get as much is Apple.

    maybe we should have a shuttle section and go the whole flippin' way.

    • Re:stealth advertising? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      i'm sure they love all the slashdotting, too.
    • My guess is that it costs them way more in bandwith.

      A few slashdot-class uppercuts and your entire budget is flushed down the internet-pipe ;)

    • Re:stealth advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @08:42AM (#3608451) Homepage
      ...do the Shuttle PC's get a lot of free advertising on slashdot. more so than any dell, ibm, etc. equipment. In fact the only other manufacturer that seems to get as much is Apple.

      I imagine it's because they're doing something interesting with the design, a quality they share with Apple.

      With a standard desktop box, you're more interested in the components themselves and Slashdot gives a fair amount of prominence to the likes of Intel, AMD, nVidea etc.

      Cheers,
      Ian



    • is it me, or do the Shuttle PC's get a lot of free advertising on slashdot. more so than any dell, ibm, etc. equipment.

      I must of missed Dell's press release for a barebones, stylish, and quiet compact system suitable for such geeky projects as a mobile LAN party box or multimedia / PVR system. Care to post a link?
  • I, for one, am glad that somebody finally had the cojones to stand up to Corporate America and defiantly make a noise-free computer. Too long we have put up having loud fans forced down our throats and paid the so-called "beep tax". If there is one thing that consumers have been clamoring for, it is quieter hard drives and dammit, somebody is finally giving them what they are willing to pay hundreds of extra dollars for.

    Thank you ShuttlePC, you have made the world a better place.

    • I personally like the sound of my hardware revving up. It gives me this really Tim the Tool Man Taylor masculine feeling. It just makes me want to start barking. Now if I could just crank up the RPMs on my DVD, CD-RW, hard drive, floppy, and all my fans...Oh the thought gives me the warm fuzzies.
      • I personally like the sound of my hardware revving up. It gives me this really Tim the Tool Man Taylor masculine feeling.

        My home server [dyndns.org] runs on a pair of old 4.3GB Seagate Barracudas [seagate.com], striped with LVM. They're jumpered to spin up only when the SCSI controller first "pings" them at power-up, so one starts up a few seconds after the other. The effect is almost like the engines on an airplane spinning up...and that's the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it...:-)

        • Nice sig man. It takes allot of brains to come up with ethnic cleansing as a solution to the middle east problems, which is what the author of the article [nationalreview.com] you linked calls for. That article is filled with racist, xenophobic, antisemitic filth. Bitching about how we the tax payers pay for Palestinian refugee camps is humorous as orders of magnitude more money go from the tax payers to Israel for example.

          Would calling for the ethnic cleansing of Israelis from the middle east be an equally good solution... no way in hell!

          That racist article that you linked never considers the fact that the arab world has been molested by western nations for the past couple hundred years. All of which has led to political and societal instability. Turning around and blaming it on the Arab race is disgusting! Go burn your crosses elsewhere, bigot.
    • Uhm, for the past several years Apple's iMacs (the all-in-one variety, not the sunflower looking things) have had no fans and are whisper quiet. This thing is another Apple knockoff. Even down to the translucent plastic with white background on the front.

      So if anyone has had cajones to stand up to Corporate America it has been Apple. (Hey, don't forget the Grammy speach by the iMac where it said, "MP3 Forever!" to the RIAA/MPAA crowd. That's cajones.)

  • No Noise?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheNecromancer ( 179644 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @08:32AM (#3608413)
    A totally silent computer?? How in the heck do they expect me to fall asleep without that fan noise??

    • Re:No Noise?? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by georgep77 ( 97111 )
      I'm very pleased that someone is finally serious about the PC noise problem. I have been able to get a fairly quiet pc by using an expesive quiet power supply and a "flower" heatsink fan combo. It would be nice to have more emphasis placed on the noise generated by all of the fans/hard drives/cd-dvd drives within a computer system.

      Cheers,
      _GP_
    • Hey, apple owners have been doing it for years . . .


      Gee, and doesn't that stovepipe sound similar to "heat chimney" (or whatever apple called it?)


      Now, if this thing had nine drive bays and a 500W power supply, it might make a difference to me :)


      hawk

    • The stated noise level for the lowest fan speed is 44 db. In my book, that's not "absolutely silent" as the article states. Oh well. Maybe next time.
    • Quick!

      Somebody whip out an app to generate fan noise through the sound device...
  • Someone give up a mirror or that Google what-cha-ma-call-it...I want to see this damn thing!

  • Cool (Score:1)

    by Betcour ( 50623 )
    Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these ! (wait ! this time it really makes sense :)
  • The article says that shuttle's use of a heatpipe is new and innovative. Several other small systems (Cobalt Qube IIRC) have heatpipes, not to mention the plethora of laptops and game consoles with them. I think its rediculous how they always say that heatpipes are 'innovative'.
    • Yeah, but to be fair to them, it is a pretty 'new and innovative' idea on the desktop. Lots of 'new' ideas are only new within a certain market, and I think this is the first mainstream commerical desktop using this sort of technology... Just my £0.02
    • The Qube, as well as the laptops, game consoles, etc., aren't really designed so you can (or should) get in under the hood. The shuttle system is a barebones, pick-your-parts, assemble it yourself system. A heatpipe is pretty unusual in that application.
  • Forget Q3 for benchmarking, I think performance of a system should be measured by how it holds up under Slashdotting. :-)

  • Sounds of silence (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jonelf ( 99217 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @08:46AM (#3608466) Homepage
    Capable of being totally silent if you turn off the two fans and only use the computer a minute at a time?

    It looks cool but not being totally silent and not having an AGP-slot are two cons that makes me stay away from it.

    Right now I'm sitting in a room with 4 PCs and one laptop. The humming sound is terribly annoying. Not that I hear the laptop in here but even those have fans today. Buy shares in silent computing!

    I don't recommend you to read any further.
    I remember my Amiga1200 with two internal 2.5" HDs fitted it still didn't overheat and it had no fan, not even the PSU. Come to think of it my C64 never made a sound and booted in 0.2s.
    • I remember my Amiga1200 with two internal 2.5" HDs fitted it still didn't overheat and it had no fan, not even the PSU. Come to think of it my C64 never made a sound and booted in 0.2s.

      I remember an old Zenith Data Systems laptop.. monochrome cga lcd display.. Only like an inch thin! :) It had, like, 8 mhz 8086 cpu and it came with MS-DOS 3.2. I once made it boot with MS-DOS 5.2!! Havn't used it since. I mean.. it ran quake at 40 spf.. (seconds pr. frame :( ).. But man, it was silent! Only noise was from the dual 720k 3,5" floppy drives ;-P

      Imagine a beowolf cluster of those!

      -Ranger

  • Slashdotted (Score:2, Informative)

    by iangoldby ( 552781 )
    Here's the stuff about noise from the article for those who can't access it anymore:

    Another one of the included accessories is the specially designed heatsink. The heatsink includes a heatpipe which goes to a radiator in the fan assembly. At first I was wary about trusting this with the CPU I used (Athlon XP 1800+), but after testing, I was quite confident that this device could cool the CPU very well. I thought I would take the time to go over the heatsink a little bit as well as to give some tips for installing it. First off I would like to comment on the heatsink clip. The clip is not my favorite, though it does clip on to all three tabs of the CPU socket, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that it requires the use of a screwdriver, and some decent force to install. That said, here is the best way to install this heatsink/radiator in the SS40G. It's not that easy the first time, but after another try or two it gets easier, and I thought I would share my experience.

    -Snipped bit describing fitting the heatsink and critisizing its design-

    To test how well the heatpipe/radiator system worked, I loaded up Quake 3 and let it loop endlessly for 30-45 minutes. Take a look at the table below for the temperatures.

    Ambient Temperature 70 F (21 C) 80 F (26.6C)
    Idle 44 C 48 C
    Quake 3 47 C 53 C

    These are very good temperatures for an Athlon XP 1800+, and the temperatures are within specifications. I was very impressed with the radiator/heatpipe to say the least. It certainly isn't an SK6/Delta, but it also isn't insanely loud either.

    Speaking of noise, this is the quietest system from Shuttle yet. The power supply fan is pretty much noiseless, and the Sunon 80mm which the radiator uses is very quiet as well. The BIOS has an option of using what Shuttle is calling the Fan Guardian. What this does is lower the RPM of the radiator fan to a level which when sitting a few feet away you can barely tell it is on. However, running an Athlon XP 1800+ in this situation will not work too well if your ambient temperature is too high. This fast CPU will heat up past the Fan Guardians highest allowed temperature (52 C) pretty easily, and the fan will come back up to speed to keep the CPU cool. Take a look at this table for some measurements of the noise level.

    SS40G Above Unit Listening Position
    Fan @ Low RPM N/A 44 dB*
    Fan @ High RPM 60 dB 50 dB

    CF-S868/gBox Above Unit Listening Position
    Normal Fan Setting 64 dB 55 dB

    Looks like some great noise levels here. Unfortunately, the only sound meter I was able to come up with has a range of 50-126 dB. The 44 dB measurement was from Shuttle during their tests, and it seems that this is pretty close. It may vary +/- 1 dB but I think this is close to what it is. I'm working on locating a meter with a 30-140dB range, and will give you guys an update if I can find one. The SS40G can be absolutely silent with the fan in low RPM mode. Using a Seagate ATA IV hard drive makes for a truly silent, and powerful system. Even with the fan running at full speed, it is still pretty quiet, and if used as a multimedia center where you will be sitting farther away from it than if you are using it as a PC, the noise is hardly noticeable.

    Currently I am using the SS40G with an Athlon 850MHz, 512MB Crucial DDR and a 40GB Seagate Barracuda ATA IV Hard Drive. I have not had the fan switch to the higher RPM setting once yet, even with an ambient temperature of around 80 F. If you want a silent box for linux, or any use, Shuttle has definitely delivered. Kudos to Shuttle and their innovative heatpipe/radiator solution to keep their system quiet.
  • ive been wanting one of these for a while now, well not this model but theyve had a line of these things that are just gorgeous. it is one of very few pcs that i would allow near my G4. i know i need a pc soon, but their so unsightly, especially next to a G4.

    So my question is, are there any other systems of a comparable size that have an AGP slot, i remember hearing of one a while back but cannot for the life of me remember who made it or what it was called. personally i could care less about the noise but the AGP, i NEED!

  • I ask the obvious because, after getting an SV24 Spacewalker to run SuSE 7.3 very well, I know of an SV25 that has a weird CD ripping problem under Linux but not Windows, and an SS50 that just won't install anything (SuSE, Slackware, custom stripped down distro), but this could be because it has a 120Gbyte disk.

    • Funnily enough the author of the article is using tiny computer as a Linux box and discusses the results in the conclusion. To sum up the author tried Red Hat 7.1 on it and it seemed to recognise everything except for the onboard video. Below is the full quote to which I am referring.

      As I said earlier, I'm using the SS40G with a Seagate Hard Drive, etc. But what is it being used for? A small Linux box, that's what. Yeah, I know I need to get those drive painted silver. It will happen eventually. No, really I'm serious. Anyway, just a brief discussion of how Linux is working on it. Pretty good. I installed Red Hat 7.1 on it, and it seems to have recognized everything so far (though I'm not sure about sound), except for the onboard video. I need to try Mandrake 8.2 since it's a newer release, and see what happens. There are third party drivers for the SiS740 chipset, but I would much rather have it supported natively by Linux than have to install and configure it all by hand. I can always throw in something like a PCI Matrox G200 and use that for video, but it would be nice to use what is already there since I'm not intending to use it to run games. Perhaps once I have some more time with it using Linux, I will do a brief write-up on how it is working.
    • I'm sure United Linux will handle anything!

  • Another review (not ./'d) (Score:2, Interesting)

    by scrm ( 185355 )
    here [legionhardware.com]

  • Another review from vr-zone (Score:3, Informative)

    by remoford ( 520938 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @09:08AM (#3608581) Homepage
    http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Shuttle/SS40G/
    Hav e fun.
    • Specs: Shuttle FS40 Motherboard AMD Athlon/Duron Support SiS 740 Northbridge/961 Soutbridge DDR200/266 Support - up to 1GB ATA/100 Support - 2 IDE Ports Integrated Video 2 Serial Ports 4 USB Ports (2 Rear, 2 Front) 3 Firewire Ports (1 Front, 2 Rear) PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Ports S-Video Out w/ RCA Adapter CMedia 6 CHannel Sound Front Headphone and Microphone Jacks Front Optical Output Onboard Realtek RT8100B LAN Infra-Red Support 2 PCI Slots Aluminum Chassis 1 5.25" Bay, 2 3.25" Bays (1 External) (L) 300mm X (W) 200mm X (H) 185mm 200W Power Supply 1 80mm Rear Exhaust Fan Heatpipe Heatsink with Radiator

  • Conclusion for those too lazy to read it (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Pros:

    Small - The SS40G is small. Very small. My PocketPC is smaller, but it can't play Quake 3.

    Performance - The SS40G really performs for such a small system. It even gets very close to hitting 100FPS in Quake 3. Impressive. Oh, and you can like, do boring office tasks with it too :)

    Features - The SS40G has a treasure trove of features. Firewire, front optical output, an excellent heatpipe/radiator system, cool looks, etc. Just about the only thing missing is USB 2.0 and ATA/133. ATA/133 isn't that big of a deal, but it would have been nice to have USB 2.0.

    Style - I can't say it enough. I just love the look of the SS40G. It's great, and pictures don't really do it justice. A very big shout out to the guys at Shuttle who came up with the design. Excellent job!

    Noise - The quietest Small Form Factor system I have worked with. Period.

    Attention to detail: Shuttle's engineers have paid very close attention to the design of the SS40G. It has places to route cables, and everything was very well thought out. They even include a very good installation manual which is quite helpful and shows you the little secrets that make assembly much simpler.

    Cons:

    Heatsink Clip - Not really a huge problem more than an annoyance. It gets easier to put on and take off after a few times, but that first time can be interesting.

    Regular Floppy Cable - Again, not a huge problem. I would like to see a rounded/split cable like the IDE cable for the CDROM.
  • 1. Where to get the thing being reviewed
    2. The PRICE!

    Both were lacking from this review. So tell me, my fellow /.ers, why would anyone write a review and fail to include these two vital bits of information?

    Also, can anyone actually tell me where to obtain one of these? I found some other reviews on google with prices, but none say where to buy.

    Vortran out
  • I wish someone would bring out a nice inexpensive black desktop case for home multimedia systems. I know there was a story over the weekend (too lazy to karma whore right now) with a good case, but $250 is too damn much!

    A black ATX desktop case, with a quiet power supply , a door to access the DVD/CD-R drives and a window for an IR interface on the front is what I want.

    Anybody know where something like this can be found, preferably for less than $75?

    • Re:Multimedia Case? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Levine ( 22596 )
      Yep. This one [caseoutlet.com] fits your specs exactly, although it takes some weird new Mini-ITX motherboard that VIA's developing. They make a P3 version, though. Cheers, levine
      • That fanless chasis would be a good match for VIA's Eden platform [via.com.tw] is an x86 motherboard/CPU/ethernet/sound/gfx combo that runs cool enough to only need a passive aluminum heatsink for cooling. Not only that, its going to cost around $100 for a basically complete computer! This means that the only noise generated by your computer would be the harddrive. Of course, if you wanted, you could use one of those solid state flash memory based harddrives [m-sys.com], which would make for a totally silent computer.

        Since the Eden platform has TV-outs, it would make a great set top box for playing emulated NES and SNES games, in addition to MP3s and DIVX movies.
    • try this, no IR window, but you could always mod it yourself...

      http://www.directron.com/blackdesktop.html [directron.com]

  • hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alcimedes ( 398213 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @09:38AM (#3608795)
    actually, seeing this computer, what it has and what it doesn't, really makes me appreciate the cube more.

    when it first came out i wasn't all that impressed. it was cool and all, but so much money.

    however, i think it gave people a taste for quite, small computers. perhaps this is another newton.

    apple enters the market with a great idea, way ahead of everyone else, then charges an arm and a leg and flops. cut back two years later and everyone and their grandma is working to take over that market.

    oh well.



    • apple enters the market with a great idea, way ahead of everyone else, then charges an arm and a leg and flops.


      The real kicker to this is that the price point they picked was, largely, aribtrary. The industry analysis I've read on this suggests that the actual production cost gave Apple a lot of leeway on price. They picked a price point they thought would market well. They were horribly wrong. D'oh.


      Apple is doing cool stuff, though. Slick hardware design and OSX has me poking at the Apple display for the first time since... ohhh... Apple II days.

  • don't have a thermal engineer (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    they can't be too bright, there is no need for the heatsink on the processor, just an aluminum slug to spread the heat into the heatpipes.

    Hey guys, same yourself a couple bucks.

  • concerns (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Permission Denied ( 551645 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @10:30AM (#3609140) Journal
    Two concerns:
    1. The PSU outputs 200W - is this sufficient for the newer Athlons?
    2. It comes with onboard video, but I would rather buy my own video card. Does it come with an AGP slot? AGP 1x, 2x? After looking at the pictures of the back of the case, I don't see where an AGP card would have video port - there are two obvious PCI slots on the back, but I don't see room for an AGP slot. Very few people still make high-performance PCI video cards

    • 1) They ran with an XP1800+, so I'd have to assume that power is sufficient

      2) There will be a 1 AGP/1 PCI version in the future, according to Shuttle.

      All in the article.

  • Anybody know the price for this thing, and where to buy it. I hate review articles that don't tell you these things.
  • i have the SV24 for my sons room right now, and wanted to get a firewire web cam so his grandparents could see him now and then. unfortunately, the firewire connection is the only thing that doesn't work on an otherwise fine machine. i hope shuttle got that fixed with this new machine.

    i'm looking forward to getting one of these for a home theater computer that i'd like to set up some time this century, with my wife's approval.
  • Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see a link to purchase it anywhere.

  • Other smallish boxes / boards (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30, 2002 @10:55AM (#3609320)
    EZ-Go:

    http://www.directron.com/ezgo.html

    Soldam cube:

    http://www.slippersandpipe.co.uk/article.php?a=sol dam_cubes

    Other form factors:

    http://www.directron.com/slim.html
    http://nedcomp.bit-net.com/mini1.html

    VIA Mini-ITX motherboard (find a case for it somewhere...):

    http://www.via.com.tw/en/VInternet/mini_itx.jsp

    Advantech Single Boards Computers, e.g.:

    http://www.advantech.com.tw/products/PCM-9572F.a sp

    OQO Crusoe-powered handheld:

    http://www.oqo.com

    tiqit handheld:

    http://www.tiqit.com

    Older review of Shuttle SV24:

    http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/02q1/020111/ind ex.html
  • Where do we buy these SS40G's? Are they available in the USA market? I am going to be studying in Europe for a year and would prefer not to have to lug around my 60 pound Antec refrigerator case.

  • ss50, a powerfull fragging-machine? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sarin ( 112173 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @11:08AM (#3609424) Homepage Journal
    It seems that the ss40 & ss50 have a more powerfull little brother: anyone remember the Soviet ss20 nuclear missile?
    I bet that's a hell of a lot better fragging machine, it doesn't have USB though, but I guess it has a setting called USA.
  • I'm looking for a small PC just like the Shuttle, but one that can hold it's own when it comes to using it as an 'instrument' in live shows, with up to two or three external midi controllers. I have all the necessary software to do what i want and it works great on my home pc which is a freakin mammoth tower, something I don't want to lug around to clubs. I've also heard from various sources that most of the apps I use aren't friendly with VIA architecture. Any suggestions? Has anybody done this?
    • You might want to take a look at the micro atx or flex based cases.... I have accually ordered from directron.com and had good luck with them... I purchased one of there casper cases, and threw in all the stuff I needed... Its not the same form factor, but it has a bit more of an expandable feel to it... You should be able to find a smaller then XT desktop (read something that almost fits in a backpack) that will let you do what you need.
  • Gee, this almost looks like our g4 cube, we'd better sue!!

    Actually, this uber-cute little box would be even cooler if I could run Mac OSX on it...oh, wait Steve Jobs won't play ball unless you are paying thru the nose for his hardware!
  • How well is this chip supported? Does anyone have it working under linux? Is the 6 channel an s/pdif ac3 feed? Thanks...

  • Own several of shuttle's boxes, very nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sean Clifford ( 322444 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @11:26AM (#3609550) Journal
    I bought about ten of the SV24 and SV25 boxes for the office and I love 'em. In fact, I just ordered 3 more yesterday. I'm just waiting for the SS40 to come out with an AGP slot then it's on like Donkey Kong for a new LAN party box.

    These boxes are perfect for office PCs. They're tiny, packed full of features (gotta love the firewire), are quiet - and they're pretty. Only had one problem with a single box - a bad power supply that shuttle promptly replaced.

    Out of the can, RedHat 7.2 (haven't 'upgraded' to 7.3 yet) installed though you have to configure the video and some other goodies manually. Once you're up and running it's solid. I'm considering clustering a few of these, though I'm more tempted by Transmeta's rack o' blades.

    I have to say that Shuttle has hit the nail on the head with this series. I can't wait for the AMD 1AGP/1PCI version! If you have a grand or so laying around, snap one of these puppies up. :)

  • Serial ATA will be a real boon to this particular form factor. If you leave out the floppy when building the box there will be no large ribbon cables inside at all, and cooling should be improved.

  • Where to purchase (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mkarpinski ( 409464 )

    I have seen a few posts regaurding where to purchase the SS40G.

    The only place that I have found that even lists this model is NewEgg. [newegg.com]

    Price is $350.00 and the system is scheduled to be in stock on 6/3/2002.

    You can sign up for an email notification when it arrives.

  • Shuttle's mini PC's are cool, but untill they have a AGP slot they are missing out on a large potential market: The LAN gamer. If I could get one with a AGP slot, I would buy one right now, lugging full sized PC's around is not the most fun thing I have done. I know there is another vendor with a mini PC with a AGP slot, but it is not as easy to find, nor is it as well built. (if I remember the review I saw)
    • "they are missing out on a large potential market: The LAN gamer."

      I hate to say it, but as far as the number of people who actually buy barebones vs those who do the LAN party thing still vs those who go to Dell/Gateway etc is just too small. If there is a big enough demand shown, then it will happen. This release is to test the AMD barebones market, later revisions will have the good stuff, if the demand is high enough. IMO of course.
  • PC PowerZone [pcpowerzone.co.uk] also have a review of this posted today, and some more pictures in their forums. They also have reviews of the other Shuttle miniPCs and also VIA Eden stuff, for comparison.
  • Since the article at VIAHardware mentioned that a version with of the SS40G with an AGP slot might be in the works, I thought I'd try hitting Shuttle's website [shuttle.com] to see if they might have any info on when such a beast would be available.

    This is what came up in the browser window after a JavaScript-controlled redirect to http://www.shuttle.com/english/default_n.html [shuttle.com]:

    THE SHUTTLE WEBSITE don't support Netscape browser or another browser.

    Please use Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above to view our website!

    Thanks your cooperation.

    I'm running Mozilla 1.0RC3 on Win2K. Damn clueless webmaster...especially since changing the URL to http://www.shuttle.com/english/default.asp [shuttle.com] takes you right to their website, and it renders almost the same as it does in IE 6. (I had to try viewing their site with Lynx to figure that out...it got stuck on the JavaScript redirect page.) If they can screw up such a simple thing as a website so badly, it raises questions about the other stuff they make.

    I was giving a half-serious thought to snagging one of these boxen, if they make one with an AGP slot sometime in the future. The other specs are nearly perfect—it works with AMD processors, it includes built-in FireWire ports, it uses PCI audio instead of AC97 audio, etc. Now, I'm not so sure...maybe I'll just track down a desktop ATX case, move my current workstation hardware into it when Hammer comes out, and throw that into the A/V stack. It's not like I haven't used a beige box as a DVD/MP3 player before. (Unless someone knows of an ATX case of similar proportions and styling to home stereo equipment...something's probably out there already.)

  • You're not gonna get a silent Athlon system.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by -tji ( 139690 ) on Thursday May 30, 2002 @12:51PM (#3610152) Journal
    I don't know what the submitter considers "silent", but the article lists the noise levels between 44 and 55dB. That wouldn't even rate a quiet on my scale.

    Quiet would be a device like the Seagate Barracuda IV hard drives, which are around 30dB.

    The main problem with the SS40 is using the Athlon CPU's. These things just run HOT, and are going to require some significant cooling.

    To get a truly quiet system, you should start with a cooler CPU, like one of the 0.13u Celeron or PIII's. Or, take a P4 and underclock it to run cooler. To make it really cool, start with a low power / low heat CPU, like the VIA C3 - which doesn't even require a CPU fan.
    • Any of the things you suggest (incl. the C3...) are much lower performing machines. That's not knocking what you're suggesting (In fact, I'm on the lookout for the best prices on a C3 based slimline box myself...)- it's just that all of them are nothing compared to the slightly noisier Athlon solution presented.
      • Yes, I agree. The decision of what hardware to use would depend on what your performance requirements are.

        For higher performance, I would go with a 0.13u CPU, either a Celeron / P3, or a P4. If I used a P4, I might underclock it to keep the heat down.

        The C3 is for low performance situations. I use a C3 800 in my Linux firewall, www server, mail server, dns, dhcp, voicemail, file server, etc. It performs at roughly the level of a Celeron 500. But, for this application, that's plenty.

        It has no CPU fan, a very quiet Seagate Barracuda IV hard drive, and a small PSU fan, in a slimline case. It's not silent, but it's very quiet. You have to lean down next to it to hear it. I don't notice it above the ambient room noise.
    • A VIA C3 can't be compared to Athlons. I own a VIA C3 933 (its in a Shuttle SV24, the first of Shuttle's mini cube computers) and I recently did a LAME encoding test on the VIA C3 933 (on the fv24), a Celeron 300A@450 (on an Abit BH6) and a P3 1Ghz (on a Tyan Trinity 400). Encoding speeds were 1.1x, 1.9x, and 4.0x respectively. If the C3 is that much slower than a 4 year old Celeron, can not compare it to a 1800 Athlon XP.

      Using a heat pipe and a slow rpm 80mm fan this new board can keep the 1800 Athlon XP cool, and still keep noise low. The Seagate Barracuda IV drives have been measured at 41.3db (Idle Noise at Storage Review [storagereview.com]), and they are silent. I have 4 of them, I know.
      • The noise ratings at Storage Review are interesting..
        The Seagate Datasheet [seagate.com] for the Barracuda IV shows 25dB idle noise.

        I have one 40GB and one 80GB Barracuda drive, they are very quiet, I have to get very close to the system to hear them. The sound of the 40GB drive is easily drowned out by the tiny 150W PSU fan on the power supply.
    • One of the unique things about this box that the article points out is its use of a radiator. After running Quake for 45 minutes, the temperature was 47 degrees celsius when the ambient air temperature was 70 degrees.

      Of course, it would be damn near impossible to run a system that small with an Athlon without some serious cooling. That said, the system seem very well designed.
  • VIAHardware is not working so here are other sites:

    http://www.pcpowerzone.co.uk/reviews.php?id=106&pa ge=1 [pcpowerzone.co.uk]

    http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Shuttle/SS40G/ [vr-zone.com]

    And look for it to be sold soon here:

    Newegg [newegg.com]

  • I would like it, but I'll wait for the AGP version so I can still an ATI all in wonder or something in there.
    The built in chipset is a SiS 740, and the linux support is not really there yet (though is being worked on).
    3D performance is crap compared to ATI.
    TV-in is a good thing to have. Two important places for this system to appear, lan parties, and next to TVs. With a TV in, you could add PVR functionality to the box should you chose to do so.

    The rest of the rig seems to have solid linux support except the Video chipset. I suspect when the time comes to build my entertainment system PC the AGP version will be available so I can have the best of all worlds...
  • What other uses are there for a floppy drive bay besides a floppy drive?

    I would really like the floppy buried now.
    --
    karma to burn
    • In many systems, the "floppy drive bay" is specific to floppy drives, with an odd mounting mechanism.

      A generic 3.5" drive bay could work for zip, floppy, HD, or anything else in that form factor, just as the 5.25" drive bays were once meant for the 5.25" floppy disk drives.

      Anybody remember 8" floppies? Does anybody still have a drive and OS capable of reading these monsters?

    • zip drive, or super floppy, or hard drive..... When I build one of these babies there certainly won't be a floppy there...

      But don't kid yourself, we are eternally stuck with 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy disks, and I always have one system in the house capable of reading them. Hell, I can read 5 1/4" disks when the need arises, but that 286 is collecting so much dust I'd have to dig through a bit to find that power button.
  • I'd much rather have an AGP slot at the expense of one of the 2 pci slots since snd, eth, etc. is all onboard already.

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