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Shrinking the PC is a Zen Thing
TheRaindog writes "Tech Report has one of the first reviews of Shuttle's new "Zen" small form factor system, which is almost 20% smaller than current XPCs. The Zen uses a passively-cooled external power supply and variable speed cooling fan to keep the system's noise levels and footprint to a minimum. With support for the latest Pentium 4 processors and ATI's Radeon 9100 IGP chipset, performance isn't too shabby, either."
Do these systems automatically trottle down the CPU as well to decrease system heat?
Shuttle once again raises the bar. They are one of the few companies out there doing something intresting with bland PC architecture. I still love my old SS50, now may be the time to pick up my next Shuttle.
This thing looks almost identical to the Soldam Polo series, the first of which came out around two years ago.
So what's new about this?
Plus that cube has a spot for a Floppy drive ... Apple users havn't used floppy drives for years.
This cube looks like something a cheap apple cousin might design. :)
agreed.
Why not kill two birds with one stone (or keep two beatsies alive with one hack). Perhaps you have an ultracompact PC that needs cooling and a nice expansive fish tank that needs warming. So you build a sealed PC module that sits in the tank and makes both the fish and the CPU happy. A sealed cable runs from the tank to a breakout box. A passive convective heatsink in water could easily disappate the heat much more effectively than can air.
The rule for tank heaters is 4 W/gal, so a 200 W PC is perfect for warming a 50 gallon tank. A temperature sensor in the water would control the clock-speed -- underclocking if the fish got too hot. An occasional cleaning would keep algae from ruining the heat transfer coefficient.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Take a look at the cooler. The shuttle has a much better story on cooling than using a separate CPU fan. The Shuttle is quieter and cooler than the desktop it replaced, including CPU temp. PCs haven't changed the cooling design since the original IBM which was around 60W, IIRC. Its long overdue.
I just got a Shuttle (slightly larger, with internal power). There's room on my desk now for my papers and a cat. I'm hoping that my monitor dies soon so I can get a flat screen.
Uh, the article said that Apple users would like the way it looks. This guy was saying that Apple users would realize that this thing looks like crap.
I've built and used three Shuttle XPCs, but I have not yet worked with the Zen model. At this point I must say that I'm disillusioned with the XPCs in general, and I can only hope that the Zen corrects the problems of previous models.
:( The drive cage itself is cheaply made and susceptible to vibrational noise; with a 7200rpm+ drive and a fast optical drive, this easily becomes a problem.
Due to the cramped interior design, physically accessing most internal components requires removing a number of other parts first. The drive cage in the SK41G actually has a bumper on the side because there's not enough space between the PCI slot and drive cage! The bumper bends my sound card to one side to keep it from making contact with the cage.
Externalizing the PSU is a laudable move. I've had considerable problems with XPCs overheating, and two of the XPCs I've worked with had bad PSU fans: one made a crackling noise, and the other was totally dead (out of the box). Why not just modularize the thing even further and externalize the drive cage as well?
The overheating problem is especially disappointing considering that, in my experience, the variable-rate SmartFans don't react quickly/intelligently enough to prevent heat-related system hangs. Using a high-performance video card in an XPC exacerbates this problem, which has forced me to run the fans on the highest setting at all times (yes, the CPU is burned-in, and I'm using a non-electrically-conductive thermal grease).
After three systems and two RMAs, I finally decided that Shuttle XPCs aren't for me.
I really welcome new small form factor computers like this one from Shuttle.
:-)
As much as I like computers, I dislike
1. space they take up
2. rats nest of cables in the back (like Brazil)
3. fan noise
A laptop solves these problems, but at the sacrifice of a lousier keyboard and mouse interface.
The $300 price definitely helps market a machine, too, where used computers are cheap.
This is somewhat interesting, since this weekend I went the *opposite* route. I took an old Compaq Proliant server that they were throwing away at work, gutted it, and transplated my PC guts into it. I was looking to solve your #2 and #3, #1 isn't that big of a deal for me.
First off, what I took out - a working dual P133 motherboard. 4 4.3 GB SCSI drives, backplane, controller, etc. Dual 530W PS (DAMN big). All of it was working too. I put in the guts of my Linux machine, which is a Duron 1.13 (w/Zalman copper flower CPU cooler), CDRW, floppy, and 2 IDE HDDs. (which fit nicely on the removable SCSI rack plates), and a 400W Enermax whisper PS. I had to do some minor fabrication and modification, but it all fit. And working inside that case was really nice. No squinting and swearing, trying to get everything to fit inside. It was like building a PC inside a bathroom stall (proper analogy for a Compaq, with their damn special slider rails for drive bays and torx screws everywhere). But it is all pretty cool now. It is a massive machine, about 3 ft tall. The case is steel, so it is solid and quiet. There is plenty of airflow, and it runs cooler than before. And if the feds ever come and confiscate it, they'll probably throw out their back trying to lift it.
So while small form factor is cool, I think it is verging on the "disposible PC". Where is the "upgradeability" that I have been promised for years and years? I bought tons of PC hardware that was built to be "upgradeable", but every time I come to that point where I think about upgrading, I end up either getting stuff off of eBay, or buying a whole new system. From AT to ATX, from socket processor, to slot, back to socket. SIMM, DIMM, SDRAM, DDR, etc. Unless you upgrade every 2 years, you are probably going to be SOL, at least buying anything new. I highly doubt that you'll be able to upgrade any of these micro systems.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.