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That does sound strange. I've not heard anything like that in the past, but that doesn't mean it's not the case I guess.

My PSU actually came with my Ecube from AMS Electronics. The case is originally from a company called Chyang Fun which I don't really know anything about before purchasing this case/mb/psu.

I do have to say I've been very happy with this machine though. It's rock solid, small, fairly quiet, and looks nice. I'm just not sure what I'm going to upgrade to when I want support for SLI/AMD 64, and a couple of PCI slots in another small form factor pc. :)

A few features I was looking for (and found):

• Solid construction- a lot of metal with some plastic trim for looks (and it looks good)
• Low temperature- a built-in fan (which is _whisper_ quiet) blowing on the circuit board of the HDD
• Good engineering- haven't yet had a problem interfacing with my XPPro laptop (in either USB or Firewire); can run multiples through USB hubs or just daisy-chained with Firewire; movable power connector adjusts to fit your drive

If you want more info, I found:

• A little flyer (.pdf) from AMS.
• A nice video review (have to click a few things to get to it).
• And a review with a bunch of pictures.
• I got mine from Directron ($59, cheaper to ship to AK), but it's also at NewEgg ($54 + s/h).

PC: GBox Blue http://www.amselectronics.com/Products/PC_Servers/ CF-968.html
SPECS: 2.4Ghz P4, 512MB DDR, 80GB EIDE, Linksys Wireless PCI
INPUT(s): This took some research and $$ Gyration mouse and keyboard wireless RF worth every penny http://www.gyration.com/ultragt-compact.htm
VIDEO: ATI AIW 9600 RADEON 128MB w/Remote Wonder
AUDIO: GBox offers onboard SPDIF output to my RCA head unit w/5.1 surround
DVR SOFTWARE: Currently using the barely functional ATI Multimedia Center software which is slaphacked into GemStar TVGuide (no automatic updates) and is absolutely ignorant when it comes to importing new videos, if it can't be done from the remote control, it's not a home theatre solution.
MP3 JUKEBOX(ish): Trusty ol' Winamp running in double size mode and a plugin for Remote Wonder

"She ain't pretty but she puts out"
Waiting till the day i have the $$ to buy a HDTV so I can never leave my couch...

AMS DK-035A (ignore the Ultra SCSI reference on that page, the A suffix is for ATA), available for $159 from Central Computer

I just set up an eight drive RAID using one of those, and one 3-drive-in-2-bay version, the DK-023A ($119 from Central Computer). That way eight removable trays fit in my 5-bay 4U rack mount case.

I used a 3ware Escalade 7500-8 RAID card rather than Linux software RAID, but there's no reason why it wouldn't have worked with software RAID. I just couldn't find a "dumb" eight-port ATA-133 card. (And I like the 3ware cards.)

I initially tried to use Serial ATA, using the Promise SATA150-TX4 4-port Serial ATA controller and some Highpoint RocketHead 100 Serial ATA adapters for the drives. The Highpoint web site claims that the RocketHead 100 is not available for sale as a separate product, but lots of retailers including Central Computer seem to have them. The cabling was *much* nicer, but to make the SATA150 work with Linux a binary-only driver was required, so I decided not to use it until there's a driver available in source form.

I thought about using the 3ware Escalade 8500, which is the Serial ATA version of the 7500, but there's quite a price premium, so I decided to stick with parallel ATA for now. Maybe next year I'll set up a bigger RAID using Serial ATA.

AMS DK-035A (ignore the Ultra SCSI reference on that page, the A suffix is for ATA), available for $159 from Central Computer

I just set up an eight drive RAID using one of those, and one 3-drive-in-2-bay version, the DK-023A ($119 from Central Computer). That way eight removable trays fit in my 5-bay 4U rack mount case.

I used a 3ware Escalade 7500-8 RAID card rather than Linux software RAID, but there's no reason why it wouldn't have worked with software RAID. I just couldn't find a "dumb" eight-port ATA-133 card. (And I like the 3ware cards.)

I initially tried to use Serial ATA, using the Promise SATA150-TX4 4-port Serial ATA controller and some Highpoint RocketHead 100 Serial ATA adapters for the drives. The Highpoint web site claims that the RocketHead 100 is not available for sale as a separate product, but lots of retailers including Central Computer seem to have them. The cabling was *much* nicer, but to make the SATA150 work with Linux a binary-only driver was required, so I decided not to use it until there's a driver available in source form.

I thought about using the 3ware Escalade 8500, which is the Serial ATA version of the 7500, but there's quite a price premium, so I decided to stick with parallel ATA for now. Maybe next year I'll set up a bigger RAID using Serial ATA.

I have a friend who works for the company (AMS Electronics) who makes this aluminum chassis. They sell the same barebones product (called GBOX) direct off their website.

http://www.amselectronics.com/Products/PC_Servers/ CF-7989.html

They've changed the front slightly to accept a variety of clear or colored pexiglass shields. This is a great product! Damn sexy and a perfect PC to lug around (just add handle :P )