Shuttle SS40G Mini-PC

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."

Comments

Silent computers

[MacGod]

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

[iangoldby]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

stealth advertising?

[xirtam_work]

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?

[YellowSubRoutine]

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?

[mccalli]

...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

Re:stealth advertising?

[_Sprocket_]

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?

This will revolutionize computing

[PhysicsGenius]

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.

Re:This will revolutionize computing

[The Wooden Badger]

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.

Re:This will revolutionize computing

[ncc74656]

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 runs on a pair of old 4.3GB Seagate Barracudas, 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...:-)

Re:This will revolutionize computing

[Rupert]

I was going to say that an organised armed force of Palestinians would just be a convenient target for Israeli tanks and air-to-ground missiles. But the Israelis seem to be doing a fine job with the inconvenient civilian targets anyway.

Re:This will revolutionize computing

[Jagasian]

Please explain the logical step that takes your argument from "there exists a terrorist minority within the Palestinian people" to "the middle east needing ethnic cleansing of arabs"?

By the same reasoning, we could conclude that race X be cleansed from Y nation. I am sure many other people can think of another person who used such an arguement.

No Noise??

[TheNecromancer]

A totally silent computer?? How in the heck do they expect me to fall asleep without that fan noise??

Re:No Noise??

[hawk]

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

Re:No Noise??

[quintessent]

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.

Re:No Noise??

[lostchicken]

Quick!

Somebody whip out an app to generate fan noise through the sound device...

Heatpipe not new, and not "innovative"

[DCGrende1]

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'.

Re:Heatpipe not new, and not "innovative"

[The Fun Guy]

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.

a True Benchmark

[jonbrewer]

Forget Q3 for benchmarking, I think performance of a system should be measured by how it holds up under Slashdotting. :-)

Sounds of silence

[jonelf]

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.

Slashdotted

[iangoldby]

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.

Another review (not ./'d)

[scrm]

here

Another review from vr-zone

[remoford]

http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Shuttle/SS40G/
Hav e fun.

Two Things Every Review Should Have...

[Vortran]

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

Re:Two Things Every Review Should Have...

[Anonymous Coward]

NewEgg.com has em (or will get em on 6/3/02) for $350.
I bought my SS50 from them about a month and a half ago....wish I woulda waited....*sigh*

Re:Two Things Every Review Should Have...

[Quikah]

You can open it in mozilla by going here. I have no idea why they insist on IE, looks the same in both browsers.

Re:Two Things Every Review Should Have...

[Catbeller]

Wait a little longer for the AGP version. Perfection is nigh.

Re:Anyone else got Linux going for real on it yet?

[galaga79]

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.

hmm

[Alcimedes]

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.

Re:hmm

[_Sprocket_]

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.

Re:Mirror please...

[MaxVlast]

It doesn't look all that hot. Sort of like what would happen if an Apple designer was told to design a microwave oven at the end of a very long day.

Re:Multimedia Case?

[Levine]

Yep. This one 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

Re:Multimedia Case?

[3.5 stripes]

try this, no IR window, but you could always mod it yourself...

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

concerns

[Permission Denied]

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

Re:concerns

[fobbman]

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.

i hope they fixed the firewire problem

[frankmu]

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.

Re:i hope they fixed the firewire problem

[IQ]

Did you try flashing the bios with the current release?

Other smallish boxes / boards

[Anonymous Coward]

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

ss50, a powerfull fragging-machine?

[Sarin]

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.

Own several of shuttle's boxes, very nice

[Sean Clifford]

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. :)

Need serial ATA

[Boulder Geek]

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

[mkarpinski]

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.

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:

[lazn]

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)

Re:Shuttle's mini PC's are cool, but:

[BigBir3d]

"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.

Another review at PC PowerZone...

[Just_Tom]

PC PowerZone 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.

Just don't try going to Shuttle's website

[ncc74656]

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 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:

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 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..

[-tji]

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.

Re:You're not gonna get a silent Athlon system..

[hopews]

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), and they are silent. I have 4 of them, I know.

Re:You're not gonna get a silent Athlon system..

[benzapp]

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.

Re:You're not gonna get a silent Athlon system..

[-tji]

The noise ratings at Storage Review are interesting..
The Seagate Datasheet 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.

A comment has been hammered out to them...

[Svartalf]

Use IE, Konqueror, etc. short-term, to get to their comments page and let them know it's a BAD idea to do this. They're going to alienate just short of half to over half of their potential customer base by doing this stupid stuff. What's stupid is that they were reachable not all that long ago by anything- and the site's just fine with Konqueror set to lie to the site about what is calling.

Someone needs a clue-by-fouring over there- badly.

Hm... Something's borked in /. today...

[Svartalf]

I just posted this comment under the comment about the website not accepting anything other than IE 5.0 or newer. It got migrated to the root discussion...

Rest assured, I read it...

[Svartalf]

And I'll be in line to snag the AGP solution as soon as it hits the shelves. It's a nice, small, relatively quiet (as Athlons go...) machine. The SiS 315 based display adapter is decent if I couldn't wait and needed a Windows box (It'd be a better choice if they'd release info to make drivers for it or rolled the drivers themselves for Linux...). Since I use Linux, I really need a supported 3D card and AGP support is the ideal way for resolving that issue.

Nice, but...

[Junta]

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...

Re:Multimedia Case?

[Jagasian]

That fanless chasis would be a good match for VIA's Eden platform 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, 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.

Floppy drive bay

[line-bundle]

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

Re:Floppy drive bay

[Nonesuch]

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?

Re:Floppy drive bay

[Junta]

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.

Re:For an Athlon, it's silent...

[-tji]

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.

Everything you need is onboard already

[aztektum]

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.

SV24, 25 Noise

[Sean Clifford]

Compared to traditional monstrosities, I've found the Shuttle boxes to be pretty quiet. Most of our other workstations are *loud*. We usually stick them under the desks, out of the way of feet - partly for space but also for noise.

These shuttle boxes - the older SV24 and SV25 models - really aren't that loud. Yeah, they're louder than I'd like them to be. Ideally I'd like my breathing to be louder than the fans (and hard drive noise) and it looks like the newer models go along those lines. I'll be picking up a few once they release the AGP version, specifically for LAN party usage.

I'm seriously considering doing reseller business based on these boxes, primarily for students and small businesses. But I have to expand IT a lot more to get into that gig, margins are *low*, and I much prefer coding.

On a tangential note, I'm very interested to see how the miniaturization trend goes, particularly with roll-on flexible circuit board printing (sealed plastic-like substrate instead of silicon).