Build first P chassis type Shuttle

M

MD

Supreme [H]ardness
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Mar 9, 2000
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I've thought I should share my impresion of new P series. I've build SB81P for friend of mine.

Quality very good as We are used to from Shuttle SFFs.

Well P series can handle up to 3 HDD's or two HDD's and FDD.
It can handle just one Optical drive (Iwas thinking cause it's higher it can handles two drives)

Cooling is great and quiet. ICE is smaller then on G, G2, G5 and all other Shuttles. Though it is cooled with two fans in pushpull configuration. Infront of a intake fan (60 mili) there is a fan duct. Fan duct covers voltage regulator on mainbord and directs airflow over it. Exhaust fan is 80 mili and it's pulling air from ICE radiator (not pushing air in like on G chassis) It's very effective keeps P IV 775 3,2 GHz on 42 deg. C with normal work and normal room temps (~22 deg. C)

And good news for people with silencers and other huge grafic card coolers: PCI X is on outside right back. So You can use big grafic card cooler if You are not using PCI card. Also one can use 6800 cards with double hight coolers.I haven't had Silencer to try it's dimmensions good but cover doesn't interfear with graphic card cooler and thats good news IMO.

915 was giving no problems and install went O.K.

PSU is quiet and powers everything with no sweat.

Everything is very very good.

HDD's and Optical drives use toolless mounting system and everything is pretty simple to build. All neccecary cables are installed waiting for dirves.


It is very different from other G series Shuttles but it's very good designed.
It's stable platform to build nice looking good preforming system.



MD
 
I don't use onboard sound so I HAVE to use Soundblasters next gen soundcard on the PCI-E connector. THe question remains is how much that will sufficate the graphics card in the process.

How well does the HDD cooling fans keep the HDD"s from heating up and how noisey are they. 6 fans is alot of fans in a small box.
 
External soundcards come to mind. There are some pretty good ones out there, as in entry-level professional/audiophile.
 
If You are using two SATA disks ad install them on top over a Optical drive and iver a PSU then they are in airflow and disregarding that those small fans allmost stand still HDD's are much cooler then in any G chassis I've seen. Loudest and only realy audible fan in system I've build is grafic card cooler. Hence all Shurrle fans are very quiet considering room temperature is normal. If You leave it on sun during a sommer I belive fans would kick in and then it would to loud.

Acctualy when I felt with My hand how little airflow is made by all 3 fans on back I was wandering how hot air will come out of PSU and how hot will be a top of a cover (HDD's are just 5 mili under it) but it's quiet normal and everything stays cool.

Only place where You get warm air coming out is front left cause there is a exhaust fan of ICE (CPU cooler). Air coming out there was warm even hot but checking temps I've found out that CPU isn't getting to hot as only ICE is damn effective. Compering to My SN95G5 ICE is much smaller and initialy I was woried can it cool down proper P IV 3,2 775. Specialy couse fan duct on intake fan makes intake much smaller (just 2/3 of intake 60 mili fan surface) and cause it pulls cold air first over a Voltage regulator. Well My wories where useless. It's two fans just make it work and very very effective to.

Like I sad it has one PCI e 16x slot standing right back where is normaly PSU on G chassis Shuttles. When grafic card is inserted it's components and HSF side face towards inside of a case where is a one normal 32 bit PCI slot. Hence not a one 16x PCI e and 1x PCi e as once PCI e 16x for grafics and normal PCI for what ever You want.

Mashine I've build was fro a Home mashine for a Programmer. That's why I went with Intel CPU and platform.
I've used 6600 PCI e. Two 200 GB HDD's. NEC 3520 DVD RW. 2 x 512 MB RAM. Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS (Connected to His Stereo and grafic card TV output to a TV). I've used 19"TFT from Samsung. MX1000 with MX700 cordless desktop.

Sound quality was important and Audigy 2ZS does good job. Also PCI is not conflicting with other stuf. I strongly belive normal PCI with 24 bit DSP is enough to achive good sound quality.

It's very good and very stable system.
 
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