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New Small Form Factor PC Reviewed
Beau Mundt writes "You guys haven't touched on the small form factor PCs in a while, thought you
would be interested in this
review of a Lex System SFF PC. Its arguably the tiniest PC around and could
be used for many cool things like a Linux gateway, a wireless workstation, or
just a silent small foot print system. The other neat thing is the reviewer
stuffs a P3 1.26 and a Radeon 7500 into the system. Perfect for bringing to LANs!"
Why isn't this used more often? It would be the first step to the ultimate silent pc. Is there any reason why an external power supply doesn't make sense for all desktops? I realize that many of them use the fans for heat exhaust, but with a well-placed rear fan, this problem is negated.
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
I like the Shuttle boxes, because you can stuff standard parts in them, standard drives and the likes.
This however, has too many limitations to be of use to me. Sure, you can attach a lot of USB peripherals (Is it USB 2? I didn't see that in the review), but if you want a PC small enough to lug around, then you don't want to lug three other boxes (all possibly with their own PSUs!).
Where is this going? Mobile computing is best served with a laptop, IMHO. The costs for good performance are high, enough so to put off LAN partiers on a budget.
These boxes fill that niche, but I think that this one in particular is crippled too much by the laptop hard drive, slimline CD, less expansion, etc.
If you want an appliance at home, this is no good either. Server? At the moment the max 2.5" HDD is 60 Gigs, I think. and if the machine breaks, you can't just buy another PSU, for example, and slot it in the box - it's all non-standard. Buy a proper server and shove it in a closet, or quieten it down with custom fans and heatsinks.
Other appliances? There are cheaper custom-built mp3 streamers, DVD-recording video recorders, and so on available.
This thing is a no-no, in my opinion.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
Those cases have been around a while. I built quite a few systems with them when working for a small-time pc manufacturer 6-7 years ago. Guts may have changed somewhat, but the layout is identical. Hopefully they don't overheat as much as they used to.
Are you sure? I saw many negative points:
"The biggest sacrifice is the use of a 2.5" laptop hard drive. In our particular unit it was an IBM drive spinning at 4500rpm. The use of 2.5" drives keeps the heat, noise and size down however at the same time it also raises the costs and hurts performance."
"One problem with this particular setup is a non back panel case design. Meaning that the case is designed for this particular motherboard (and the two others Lex makes) and those boards only."
"From the looks of the above picture, it looks as if a 3.5" hard drive could be mounted. Unfortuately however, underneath the 2.5" drive is the internal connections for the external power supply."
"In our tests of the PCI riser we ran into a few issues."
"Depending on where you buy, you will likely have to buy a 2.5" hard drive and a slim line CD rom drive. These can be annoying additional costs on hard to come by parts."
The reviewer showed the benefits and limitations equally.
Shuttle SS40
...but it's taken a while for small boxies to make a return. One of my favourites (an obsession, even) are my Quadra 605s. Only marginally larger than the Lex reviewed, and about 8 years older.
One big bonus of the SFF pizzaboxes is the incredible ease of -getting- to components. All placed on one layer, there's no tangling of cables, or need to remove one major component to reach the others.
A pretty decent structure for a box that doesn't need to be constantly expanded/changed.
a grrl & her server
I haven't seen one yet. So, I might be wrong and they might already be readily available.
Here's the thing, I have a nice Sony WEGA Trinitron TV in the living room. I am also wiring the whole house for CAT-5. My plans include having a central "Media Server" to house all my music files.
Next to the TV will sit a PC with a connection to the TV, the stereo and the home network. I like the idea of a small form-factor system, partly due to the low-cost associated with some of these designs. I would really like to see one with a built-in S-video port.
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Yes, you are correct. Thanks for making me re-read the review. :) My apologies are here.
You said arguably the smallest, and I'm gonna argue.
First things first, the Lex system *is* neat because of the socket 370, but it edges out the Via Eden platform in one dimension by 10mm. Doesn't sound like a lot, unless you're making some really cool custom pc's.
In fact, I've built my own router (running Linux of course) in a 1/10th scale Celica using the VIA. 10mm more in either dimension and it wouldn't have fit. In fact, it looks just like the two projects I just now linked.
The via comes in 500 and 866 mhz flavors, and pulls VERY little power resulting in a low heat motherboard/processor solution. There's so little heat, they don't even put a fan on the processor, which is great when you have your 1/10th scale Celica routing your dsl in your living room where you want to hear other people and/or the tv instead of the computer.
So for those needing those extra mhz, the lex looks like a good solution. But for a Linux gateway/router and a couple other applications, the slower C3's do just fine, but pull less power and have the possibility of going completely fan free (if you can find a fan-free powersupply).
With the 533MHz CPU, it needs no CPU fan, and is still plenty zippy for all of your favorite gateway tasks--we use them for web caching, DHCP, DNS caching, masquerading, NATting, routing micro-uber-boxes. Even with all of those services running, these little boxes will push a T1 line chock full of goodness with plenty of power to spare. We'd like it to be even smaller, of course, but I don't think the Lex box in question is the right way for us because we don't want a big hot Intel CPU in there.
We're popping an Intel dual NIC into the PCI slot for the firewall enhanced version (that's three NICs total), giving a nice Internal/DMZ/External separation in a very nice little low-power package.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the relative quiet of these boxes so much, that I'm considering getting an 800MHz one for my desktop machine. All of my real work goes on in the machine closet anyway, so I might as well have some peace, quiet, and an easily moveable machine out here in the civilized part of the office.
Just for interest's sake, I took a look at the site. It says that the dimensions of this thing are 6.2cm x 27.2 cm x 25.2 cm.
Now, if you look at the Cappuccino TX-3, you see that it has dimensions 5.63 cm x 14.38 cm x 15 cm. That seems quite a bit smaller to me. So, I would find the claim that this is the tiniest PC around arguable indeed.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
1.) External means you can put it on the floor. So it's more quiet, simply because it's further away. Remember that there is no reason to put a small PC on the floor instead of putting it on your desk where it should be.
2.) You have a problem with a quiet PC: You need a lot of air to cool it. A lot of air is needed to cool the PSU itself. If you put the PSU outside of the box, you get the chance to cool both parts passivly. (The PSU-cube has 5 sides to spread the heat when outside, but only one if placed inside the box).
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
The problem, as I see it, is that a combination of needing to be backwards-compatible, and failing to reevaluate gestalt hardware design, has left us with boxes that don't look fundamentally different on the inside than they did 15 years ago.
Here's what I envision: a physical architecture in which every component is an enclosed, rectilinear module which snaps in and out as easily as a PCMCIA card. No need to open up the case to do an upgrade. No need to fuss with screws and fitting cards into slots. I mean, honestly, screws? We can do better than this, folks!
I think this approach would work. I mean, is there any good reason why cards have to slot in perpendicular to the motherboard? Through the magic of electricity and a miraculous substance called copper, we could easily redirect the power and data paths to component bays as described above.
Hardware should be modular, and that implies loose coupling. All that's really necessary is to connect the components with the appropriate sort of conductive material. That's a really loose constraint, and yet every computer that comes off the line has the same pain-in-the-ass structure to it.
Well?
My deviantArt site
Er, a good modular crimping tool (i.e. Greenlee) will set you back US$50 alone, as will a 110/66 block punch-down tool (for the headend). A spare blade for the punch (they usually include a 110 or 1 66 but not both, and Murphy says they'll come with a 66 when you want a 110), is around US$15.
When I installed faceplates and connectors (Cat5, RJ14, 2xRG6/U), it came to about $20 a plate -- I installed 8. Headend stuff was about $20 for 110 blocks, and modular panels (each, not total). Figure $75 for Leviton wall-mount enclosures. I went through 2000 feet of Cat5e ($200) and RG6/U ($200) cable.
Don't get discouraged, but do realize that you should probably look at US$1000 to do things on the cheap (and that does not include the cost of a router/firewall, satellite multiswitch, RF-amps, etc.)
You could've hired me.