Small Form Factor SFF Shuttle Reccomendations

Hi,

I'm building a new computer for my brother and his family (they have an old 98 machine right now ). They would like a small, fast computer, but his wife wants it to be as quite as possible. I reccomended a Shuttle, and they said yes, and have given me about £600 budget to select parts.

So, I was thinking, of getting the following. Prices are from Ebuyer UK and include VAT:
- Shuttle XPC SK41G (AMD) £117
- Microsoft XP Home With Service Pack 1A OEM £67
- Crucial 512 DDR266 PC2100 DIMM £45
- Seagate Barracuda 80Gb 7200rpm UDMA100 Hard Drive - OEM £50
- Liteon 48x24x48x16x IDE DRIVE (COMBO) - OEM £38
- AMD ATHLON XP2400+ 266MHZ FSB 256Cache Thoroughbred CPU - OEM £58

I then would probably get a Sapphire Radeon 9600 APG x8 128MB DDR DVI-I TV-Out Lite Retail for £86.

That would mean it would come to £466 inc VAT and delivery. Thats a pretty good price. Anything you would upgrade? Perhaps the 256Mb Graphics card and an extra 513Mb of RAM for about £60?

Or, perhaps I could get the Shuttle XPC SN45G Socket A Barebone System or Shuttle XPC SN41G2 AMD Socket A Aluminium Barebones System? What would be the benefits of these? Would the SN41G2 mean I don't need a graphics card with its onboard dual VGA video?

I'd really like some input on this from all you SFF pros.

Also, if it needs to be as quiet as possible, are there any mods I could do to it to do that? Should I replace the ICE heatsink fan with a Papst or something? I don't really want to touch the power supply as it would invalidate the warrenty and it isn't my machine, etc. What about the Seagate HDD, is that any good and is it quiet?
Would the Sapphire cause a lot of heat, and cause the fans to be on more? I assume the 9600 will fit in the AGP slot as it is fanless I believe which should kill more sound.

Thanks,
computer

 

Firstly, the Shuttles are not at all famous for being quiet, they can be tamed somewhat, at least mine was, but still not a terribly good place to start.

Sudhian Forums have an absolute wealth of SFF stuff, including making-them-quieter tips.

The Seagate is a good drive to use, they're all very quiet, especially the Barracuda 4's and 5's.

 

i take it ur not buying a new monitor for them as well?

 

no, no new monitor. they have a 1 year old dell CRT when there original one broke that they will be using. they also have a brand new PS2 keyboard and I might need to get them a mouse (probably an optical usb)...

 

hi,

that looks like a reasonable setup to me!

getting a 9600pro would beef it up a bit for not too much more ££, although it does come with a fan (the zalman zm50 heatpipe is enough to cool it though)
That all depends how much gaminig ooomph they want though, the SN41G2s onboard gfx are ok, being nforce2, but the 9600 would be better.

If they want a 'fast' computer, but not really for playing games maybe an SN41G2 and a faster processor would be better?

i wouldnt worry about more RAM, 512mb is plenty!
The seagate barracudas are nice and quite, but i think beaten performance wise by newer drives (not that ive notice anything).

as for changing the fans there are a few options open to you:
Panflo L1A,
Vantec Stealth,
Noisblocker S2 or S3.

im personally using a Nexus 18db fan at the moment, but that cooling well enough may be dependent on the fact that it damn cold out in germany at the moment!

Also, noise isolators make a difference in the shuttles, they rattle! Check out the Vantec fan isolators, and perhaps some grommets on the drive cage.

If they are after stealthing without any danger (!) the coolermaster drivefronts look good on most shuttles!

Hope thats helpful!

RoB

 

well my nephew has gotten to the stage of playing games like red alert, sims, etc.

I think the sapphire 9600 would still be a good card. It isn't too expensive, it has a lot of ram for the games and there is no fan so it keeps it quiet.

Just changing the heatsink fan to a quieter version would quiten it? or should I bring it down to 7v or something?

computer

 

in that case i think the sapphire 9600 you suggested would be good

theres a few options for the heatsink fan,
the sk41 come with 'autoguardian' which keeps the fan at lower speeds unless the CPU gets over a certain temperature (you can choose the speed and the temp). Depending on your definition of 'quiet' this may be perfectly adequate. Otherwise replacing the fan with one of the quieter models would also quieten it, and again Autoguardian can be used to make it even quieter.

Instead of autoguardian (which is a bios option) you could use a fan control program such as Speedfan, which gives you even more cotrol over the fan speeds.

A lot of people seem to just replace the standard fan with a panaflo L1A and run it at low speeds using speedfan.

RoB

 

hmm.. well it is really they want it quiet when idle...

having it speeding up (and louder) during games is acceptable. but it is in their lounge, so if they are reading or watching TV, they don't want this annoying background humming

 

perhaps one of the shuttle's silentX new PSUs would help bring the sound down for around £50?

 

hi,

in that case, try speedfan and the stock fan, because you can run the fan at 2% in speedfan for normal and then it can ramp up when theyre playing games. If its still too loud, then look into a replacement.

ive heard mixed reviews about the silentx psu, i dont believe its that much quieter, and may not fit straight into the SK41 chassi, you would have to check that. Modding the 40mm fan in it is very simple, and does make a drastic difference to the noise level.

RoB

 

ADDA 20db fans.

Dorothy on ebay sells em, just goto ebay - type in panaflo, look up one of the auctions - in the main text there's a link to her site with loads more silent fans. Much recommended.

That is, if you dont mind voiding the warrenty on the psu by opening it up and changing the fan.

 

Still, do you think I am going to hurt myself doing that? I don't want to break something and set it on fire as well

Someone suggested I go for the Nvidia AMD shuttle (or something like that)?

Which are those and how good / benefits are they?

 

the standard fan with the autogaurdian set to aauto adjust fan speed for temp makes my sk41g silent... to the point where its the only pc i allow in my bedroom at home due to the fact that i can't hear it when sleeping.. though it can get very loud when its at full speed (mine kicks to full speed on boot then slows down once it has a temp reading from the bios... its damn silent right now as i type on it, and with a GF4 MX440 its adequate to play most games (not UT2003, but things like Wolf ET & CS play fine on it)

 

aha I think it was nForce Shuttle...

 

hi computer, as far as i know there are 2 nForce2 shuttles, the SN41G2, which has onboard graphics (about the level of gefore4 MX440 i believe), but also an AGP slot, and the SN45G which does not have onboard graphics.

Both these are newer models thatn the SK41G you initially suggested, but obviously due to this cost more! Also the SN45 'looks like' the SK41, whereas the SN41G2 is all aluminium.

Check out shuttle for specs/pictures, and id suggest ebuyer for prices.
And id reccomend checking sudian for any problems/solutions for the models.

The PSU fan mod is not very hard at all, you just unscrew it, take the cut the old fan wires and take the fan out, and solder the wires from the new fan onto them. I think you should be able to find a guide on sudhian somewhere!

RoB

 

So is the level of onboard graphics any good for simple gaming such as the sims, etc?

Is it true it has dual vga display outputs too (for dual monitors)?

 

I believe it would be fine, and as it has an AGP slot you could just drop in a graphics card later if needed.

And yes, the SN41G2 does have dual VGA outputs, as well as TV out. I think shuttle even do a daughterboard to upgrade one of the outputs to DVI.

RoB

 

Cool, thanks.

I'll try getting some of this done after a bit more browsing and ordering

 

You're welcome, glad to help!

Have fun with it!

RoB

 

Had most of the socket-A shuttles and If you are going for a decent AGP Video-card then go for the SN45G as it has the Nforce2-ultra chipset (400fsb support) whereas the SN41G2 uses the older Nforce2 (333fsb + GF4-mx400 video) the SK41G uses SIS chipset so no USB2 or Dual channel memory.

If you put rubber washers between the case and the fan mounts it deadens it a bit but I run the fans set to middle speed until 60 deg. (stops the annoying speed-up/down noise).

And the proof in the bag is... My new Lanparty rig)
Shuttle SN45G (£138)
2 * 256M Sticks of Crucial PC3200 (£58)
XP2500 Barton oem (£54 o/c by raising fsb)
Sapphire 9600XT (got free half-life2 voucher £117)
Maxtor 120G 7200, 8M cache (£65)
Pioneer 106 DVD-rw OEM (£79)
Shuttle Carry bag (£12)