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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."
i got a first post
Do these systems automatically trottle down the CPU as well to decrease system heat?
Sign THIS or die !
Smile, don't click...
or you just happy to see me
way to go d00d
Apple fans may fall in love with the cube on sight.
:)
Although I am not a fan of using apple systems, apple has really changed the way computer manufacturers design computer systems.
This cube looks like something a cheap apple cousin might design.
AC
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.
Did anyone eles see that speech by Dean last night? That is one twisted and demented individual. To think that many s0-called intelligent slashdotters would buy into that nut's rhetoric is really scary. That is a truly dangerous and scary person.
"Without an AGP slot, Serial ATA, or RAID capabilities, the ST62K's spec sheet looks a little sparse. However, the Zen's appeal has little to do with its paper specs. In fact, Apple fans may fall in love with the cube on sight."
Basically, the Zen is a limited piece of hardware shoved inside a pretty-looking box, just like every other Mac made. So it's a good analogy after all.
Keep working on those form factors, boys!
--Leo
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?
At some point you'll reach a size where quantum effects take over. And this would be the ultimate wall which can't be circumvented. Furthermore some people believe we will run into trouble earlier due to the entropy principle and related termodynamical effects (small layers of conductors evaporate spontanously due to the termal momentum of the atoms).
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Looking at those pictures of the back the connector seems to be similar to an ATX mb socket. Is that an American thing, rather than the UK kettle lead or is it something propiatory?
Rus
CPanel + Root from $35/mo - 10% off with discount code SLASHDOT
I really welcome new small form factor computers like this one from Shuttle.
As much as I like computers, I dislike
- space they take up
- rats nest of cables in the back (like Brazil)
- 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.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
and the ch1X0r who is holding Zen at the end of the article does not look like a price either.
You can't handle the truth.
A waste if you plan to install something like Debian on it. Use a 386 for that.
Shout out for Old Sk00l Troll Tuesday bitches. Sorry Dean got his ass handed to him you damn dirty fruits.
Really what's the advantage here? You're giving up functionality and extra cash to pay for one of these things, and only gaining the clutter of an external PSU, while running parts hotter and less reliably than in a correctly designed case, and there are hundreds of them out there.
In essence it's making a PC worse, and paying more for the privilege, all for only one difference exteriorally which is the height of the box, as shuttles are every bit as wide as a normal PC and almost as long front to back. When all it's going to do is get books and other desk things stacked on top of it then there's not really any advantage?
Well, they got the dimensions down to around the Apple Cube's size, but it is still lacking in aesthetics. For instance, one could never put this thing on your desk with its back facing to someone else if you place any value on style. I mean check this out. The Apple cube had a completely smooth appearance with connections to the display coming discretely out of the underside of the case. Oh, and it is silent. Cooling a P4 chip is going to require some fans on this baby, but I guess its all about tradeoffs. For a PC case though, this is not that bad for small form factors.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Q: How many Zen buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Tree falling in the forest
Free XBox, PS2
Shrink by not shrinking? ;-)
These systems don't look bad for business or casual use, and probably also good enough for development use, but the gamer in me likes the XPC systems a lot better.
Shuttle's new "Zen" small form factor system, which is almost 20% smaller than current XPCs
I beat them all as far as size is concerned : my PC has no case, and therefore is -100% of the size of a standard beige box PC, since it has the inside out. How about a little of that?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I have been looking at one of these for a while. I make up dream configurations using the Shuttle Barebones system and then price out the components from Overclockers or TekHeads.
They seem to solve a lot of problems that conventional systems are plagued with. Cooling a large box, noise generated by the cooling systems, space used by the server sitting under your desk. I was originally looking at rack mount systems but these Small Form Factor PC's have the added advantage of portability. Perfect for LAN Parties.
In addition they retain standard PC components, so you are not thrust into the expensive world of laptop computing. I did that for a while and got tired of paying double for everything.
Howver, currently I have the server under the desk. The major problem is the storage space of these boxes but if I can find an external storage system that suits, I am definitely going small form factor.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
If you want to bring out your system with a bang... you better get some better looking models than this one.
Jenny's Picture
AC
That looks pretty sweet. It loooks a little bit big for your pocket. The previous ones were small enough to bring to LAN parties. Just wondering, what is the point. It was previously small enough, and this doesn't appear to be that much smaller. It looks sweet though.
http://www.beyourowneviloverlord.tk
http://www.frozenchickenthrowing.tk
http://www.killercamel.tk
I could really do with a small PC with a decent graphics card. Considering this has perfectly adequate network, sound and usb, I don't really have a need for a PCI slot for a while.
I guess it's the next size up for me.
that's for sure
Ever wonder what it would be like to suck your own dick? Or perhaps you've tried but have been unsuccessful at reaching your rock hard member. This guide is dedicated to helping you achieve the erotic and tasty pastime known as selfsucking or autofellatio. I have some tips and techniques that have worked for me, and that may also help you get your cock in your mouth. I am not especially well endowed, just an average size cock - 6.5". So I know that if I can do it - you can too! If you can already selfsuck and happen to have a story of your own self sucking adventures or some pics of yourself that you would like to share, feel free to submitt them to me. I'll get them posted asap! How I Got Started: Like any 13 year old male, I was horny as hell and seemed to have a constant hard-on. One day when I was jerking off I has the idea that wouldn't it be great if I could just suck myself off! I wonder what it would be like to feel my own dick in my mouth? I though to myself "there's got to be a way to do it!" So I tried sitting and just bending over to reach my penis but couldn't quite reach it. Undaunted, I tried laying on my back and rolling my legs up and over my head. Suddenly my cock was nearly at my lips! I was so exhilerated that as soon as I opened my mouth and let my tongue touch the head of my dick I exploded in orgasm and came all over my tongue and face! That was 20 years ago and I still love to suck myself. Nothing beats the sensation of having your own hard cock pulsating in your mouth. Feeling the smooth head of your dick against your tongue. Running your tongue around your hard shaft. Savoring the sweet taste of your own slippery precum and ultimately shooting your manly juices down your throat! Getting Started: Being able to suck your own cock definitely requires some amount of flexibility. But if you don't have any existing back problems, and don't have a huge gut, and if your dick is average length, with a little practice you should be able to get your lips wrapped around your own cock! The key is maintaining your flexibility and staying in reasonable shape. There are several ways to accomplish getting your mouth on your cock. But it seems to boil down to two main techniques. The simplest is of course just bending forward. There are various versions of this, some are pictured here. The other technique involves rolling over on your back..which is what I normally do. Hopefully sometime soon I will have some examples of myself for you. Meanwhile here is a description of my technique. How I usually suck myself off... Get in position on the bed with your head about 2 feet from the head board. Roll backwards with your legs going over your head until your feet touch the wall or head board. "Walk down the wall" slowly curling your abdomen until your cock gets to your mouth. Alternate method: roll your legs over your head and put your arms through your legs, pulling yourself to your cock. Note: When I come I have to try not to tense up my back too much while in this curled position. If I am not completely limbered up or am tired occasionally I over-stretch my muscles on the orgasm. BREATHING: If you are having trouble reaching your cock, there is a yoga breathing/stretching technique that you may find helpful, especially when trying to "walk down the wall". As you reach the limit that you feel your back will let you bend; stop, breath in and hold the breath for a second. Then exhale fully. On the exhale try to relax your back and stretch yourself toward your cock just a little bit more. Then breath in again and rest a moment. Repeat this again several times trying to stretch a little further each time. If you practice this a little at a time, over a fairly short period you will probably notice a significant improvement in being able to get your dick to your mouth. Remember to always be careful to not hurt your back when attempting this tasty indulgence. Know your limits and don't try to do more than you are able at one time. Quick Tips: IMPORTANT:If you have any existing back problems, disk problems, and especially lo
1. ...a Beowulf cluster of these! ...shall call him mini-me! ...it's not the size, it's how you use it! ...in Soviet Russia, PC shrinks YOU! ...WORRIED ABOUT SIZE?!?! NEW P*I*L*L*S SHRINK YOUR PC!!!!
2.
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Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Not trying to troll or anything, but
It seems these days, slashdot is just copying stories that have already been posted on [H]ardOCP
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.
I think SFF's are great for the work environment as well as home users who dont upgrade etc. As for PC enthusiasts, the space is too limited to do upgrades easily. Also add in the fact most have integrated graphics means updating your machine into a gaming rig probably wont happen.
Why are there no 1/4 height 5.25" bay things on the market? Shouldn't be any problems making CD/DVD drives half the height of what they are today. Just look at portable CD players.
Look at Nano ITX. Admitally only 1Ghz Via C3 but cool none the less
Rus
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Right now the trend is shrinking, but I'm willing to bet that one day someone will start a trend to build the biggest home PC.
Some day you'll see people driving their PCs.
I like the overall packaging. With a little modification pretty, or even beautiful aren't out of the question. Plus there's the size to consider, doesn't take up much space, and she's portable, so she's easy to take to events.
Check here for a way to keep your children/spouses/SO from sucking themselves off. Self-pleasure shouldn't be permitted to slaves, after all.
Everyone knows SCO loves penguins.
I'm so sick of pretentious twits who whine about how much better looking Apple's computers are. First, it's a matter of taste. Second, computers are tools. I don't know about you, but I don't buy tools based on how asthetically pleasing they are.
Yet another Mac-Fanboy who won't be happy with ANYTHING not blessed by the Lord Jobs.
Rear-mounted digital S/PDIF input and output ports (Tos-Link)
On the 2 shuttles I have (SS51G, SN41G2)the digital output ports have been front-mounted. Having it in the back is nice because you're not running the cord behind the computer.
One of the downsides of this seems to be that there's no AGP port. This is where the size savings comes in for ths aprticukar model. Both of my shuttles have on-baord graphics, but also have an AGP slot that I could get better performance from.
*grr* No removable drive cage either. Both of my shuttles have a removable drive cage. It made setting the machines up so much easier.
The external power supply for this unit will also make setup easier.
All told, I do my shuttles. They're nice systems, and so much quieter than the systems they replaced. Even nicer was full support forom linux. I dropped my old drives into the new system, and they were good to go.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
For mainstream markets and applications that don't require discrete AGP graphics, Shuttle has whipped up a smaller, quieter "Zen" XPC ST62K system. By stripping the cube of its AGP slot and using a passively-cooled external power supply...
And this for 20% off the length (not height, not width) of the case. Whoop-ti-doo -- I haven't had an external power supply on my computer since I threw away my C-64. I'm sorry, but this hardly qualifies as innovation...
Cheers,
-j.
Anyone know when this is supposed to be available? I hope its not before too long or I'll have forgotten about it due to buzz about something newer.
Sure they do. And then you start plugging in a keyboard because laptop keyboards suck. Then a mouse because you don't want to use the touch pad while using an external keyboard, right? Then you decide a nice 19" or 20" monitor would be a good idea. Throw in a cradle for your Palm, cable for your 100Mb ethernet, USB cable for your (cheap, non-networked, color inkjet)printer, and your pretty soon have just as much if not more of a mess than you had with a desktop.
Oh man, T-R was /.ed. Damage and Diss are gonna be furious... with laughter? :)
One of the 187.
if they had allowed for a decent video card. /.ed)
nice small form factor
pretty funtional
light (i assume, site is
but restricted to a Radeon 9100 IGP... that's just no good.
Did they used one of these cubes as the web server?
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
I've got a Shuttle XPC as a monitor-less HTPC/home server. The Shuttle fulfils a role that neither a standard desktop or laptop could - a small, quiet bookshelf machine with 600gb of storage, TV card, a reasonably speedy processor and a DVD+-R drive - using standard desktop components, and so all at a reasonable price.
The artwork at the top of shuttle's page for this thing is bad. There's a woman sitting, zen-like (whoaaa, ad dude, very creative man!), next to a picture of the case. Problem is, when your brain uses the human figure as a scale reference to compute the size of the case, it ends up looking gargantuan. I think they're trying to sell "small".
"But if we scale it correctly, you won't be able to make out any detail!"
Yes. So put another larger photo somewhere else on the page.
I hate to come off sounding like a troll, but what does this thing have to do with Zen?
If I started a line of "Jesus" computers, people would throw a hissy fit, but we slap other people's religions on everything from herbal tea to mp3 players. Granted, a good Buddhist shouldn't care about this, but I think it would be classy if we showed a tad more respect for other cultures than by naming our mediocre product after their religion.
Again, I apologize for the way this sounds... just wanted to get that off my chest! Thanks fellas!
The power supply generates heat, but it isn't itself very sensitive to that heat.
If you move the power supply outside of your computer case you will need less cooling for your CPU and grafx card. Or with the same amount of cooling you'll have some headroom to overclock.
And the power supply itself does not need to be cooled.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Not a bad box (seeing as my attempt at humour was ill-modded), but I think an AGP slot would have been better served than a PCI slot. A 2.8 GHz in there with HT would make for a nice cancer research rig.
One of the 187.
the government has this computer that runs on water. On water, man!!!
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Rocket Mouse. What's it all about? Is it good, or is it whack?
http://www.rocketmouse.com
I have no use for a floppy bay.
Ahhhh, maybe I've figured out /. 's strange silence on this story -- maybe Taco thinks this is the greatest goatse.cx troll of ALL TIME!!!!
I want to small form factor pc that has a no moving parts except may a cdrom so that I can have a quiet, low power pc for x-10 and internet access stuff running linux. Anyone seen such a beast?
... who is that horrendous chick on the concluding page of the review?
Bleeeuuuuuurrgh, makes me want to wash my mouth out with cpu coolant paste.
Shuttle sell barebones systems to enthusiasts which you have to open up to add your own CPU, RAM, hard drive, floppy drive, and optical drive, never mind the OS. Compared to an iMac or G4 cube, they have all the base ports built in and yet are highly expandable with standard desktop components - 1 PCI, 1 AGP, 2x3.5" bays, 1x5.25" bay in their standard XPCs, although I believe this Zen lacks the AGP slot.
No appreciation for small, versatile computers is complete unless it includes those from Bona Computech, or Lex as I like to think of them.
http://www.lex.com.tw
I suggest a microdrive in the compact flash slot.
I also suggest visiting Bao Ha's site at http://shopping.hacom.net/catalog/
to see all the tremendous support available for this family of computers.
Bao is one of the main contributors to the OpenBrick project at http://www.openbrick.org
Anyone interested in small, versatile, inexpensive computers should take a look at this approach; it's based on the mini itx reference design.
Gene Mosher
ViewTouch
I like the a ones with a handle.
I don't care that I'm hardly ever gonna move it. I wanna handle!
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
She didn't have the fish water running through the CPU cooler. I was quite disappointed. She was concerned about detritus in the fish water clogging the water cooling, but a canister filter could take care of that and also serve as the pump.
You'd need a pretty big tank to use up a PCs heat load. Tank heaters might be specified at 4W/gallon but they are on thermostats & don't run continously in heated houses. A radiator and temperature controlled fan after the CPU to keep the water back to the tank from being over warm would fix that. You need to make the tank small enough that the PC at idle at night in winter (assuming set-back HVAC thermostat) will keep it warm enough. You could run folding so you're never idle....
The larger the tank, the longer it will take to see if one component is over or under sized. I just replace the mechanical thermostat on my 400 gallon hot tub with an electronic one & it takes *forever* to calibrate the thermistor probe.
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.
You lick not chew!
Then the PC and AT came along, defining the commodity computer we use to this day. The concept of "IBM compatible" has gotten more flexible over the years, but we're still stuck with some of the design decisions Big Blue made a generation ago -- including that damned power supply!
Does anyone have a drive that fits into 3.5" slots? Or is this completely worthless like I think it is?
...and while I'm looking at building a new box in the next few months, one option I've ruled out are these small form factor PCs.
I built my SFF system about a year and a half ago. It's a Shuttle SS51G; the first XPC they offered with an AGP slot. At the time, it seemed like a great idea: it was small, quiet, attractive, and wasn't hideously expensive, and it would allow me to have plenty of power to run Dark Age of Camelot (which was the only game I played at the time). This was especially true in light of the fact that the whole reason I was building a new PC was because my incredibly large, hot, and noisy beige box AMD system had decided to destroy itself after AMD's 'recommended' fansink died only 6 months after being installed.
The problems I've had with heat in my Shuttle, however, have been even more irritating. Those, coupled with some of the other minor annoyances from the XPC line (which I'd assume are really problems of all SFF systems) have turned me away from them.
First and foremost, I've had major heating issues. The review sites, like Ars and [H] were right when they said that Shuttle's ICE cooling system (a heatpipe, really) was quiet and kept the processor running reasonably cool. The problem is that I automatically assumed that meant that the case itself had adequate cooling, and quite honestly, it doesn't.
My first heat-related issue was with my video card; a Radeon 8500. The AGP slot in Shuttle's cases is literally right next to the case wall. I honestly can't imagine there's more than a 1/4 of an inch between the case and the fan on my Radeon 8500, which means the thing can barely breathe. I've had to underclock it to maintain stability.
Second, I had issues with the RAM causing heat build-up, too. The system defaults to a speed of DDR200, even though the mainboard supposedly supports up to DDR333. I have a pair 512 MB DDR266 sticks from Crucial; both identical. When I changed the multiplier to force them to run at DDR266, I noticed I would get more crashes and lockups, and I wasn't even running an aggressive timing configuration. Ultimately, I had to back my RAM down to DDR200.
The worst part about the heat-related issues is that there's really nothing to do about it. There's no room for expansion in the case; it's not like you can just stick another fan in there. There's barely any room for the components that're already in the case.
Other minor annoyances I've come across are the excessively spartan BIOS, and complete inability to do any work inside the case without disassembling the whole damned thing.
Don't get me wrong, Shuttle doesn't make a bad product. My XPC has great construction quality, and was rather reasonably priced. But despite their claims that these systems offer gaming-quality performance, they really don't. And they're barely any more upgradeable than a laptop.
I'd recommend one to anyone who wants a good web browser or maybe to put together a media box or some sort of small server, but for any performance-intensive, stay away.
Deviant Shuttle employee: "Kekeke. I Jenny'd slashdot!"
I think their intent of using that girl is to make the case more attractive and small, not the other way around. : )
I evaluated a white cube for a customer of mine within the past 2 weeks. I ended up going with a black one simply because other than the apple monitors, I cannot find any white (not beige) matching lcd's.
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
Use one of the fanless VIA Mini-ITX boards with a DC-DC power supply like the ones that come with Morex/Caselogic cases and boot from a Compact Flash card. Check out mini-itx.com or solarpc.com
For the benefit of those who have not read the F. article, don't miss the "Zen babe" on the Conclusions page. I'll leave the review of that part up to you folks. :)
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
Iomega ZIP discs and HD floppies (100M or so)
...No, I have NO idea why they would do this.
are still in use/popular for some reason I cannot fathom (in some areas)
Of course a USB disk is going to be cheaper, backups on DVD are going to be more effective...
termodynamical?
You know, that reminds me of a comic strip I saw once...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
This would look great sitting next to my iBook!-D Oh well...
the Mensa membership card was filled out in his name. Perhaps he stole it from his dentist.
I know some people don't find asians attractive (I, for one, do), but what's wrong with that model?
This is the second "Look at that dog-ugly ch1x0r" thread I've gotten mixed up in this week... what ever happened to the sensitive, non-judgemental geek? I mean c'mon... we all tout our own inner beauty, because not all of us are Tom Cruise... I'm sure as hell not... but what happened to practicing what we preach?
I see nothing unattractive there.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
solarpc.com makes an excellent small footprint case for the VIA Mini-ITX boards. They are made from aluminium and dissipate heat efficiently.
Aside from solid state vpn/firewalls (CF card), I use these as samba fileserver/mgetty dialin boxes and stuff a Maxtor diamondmax plus 8 40GB (low profile hdd) AND a USR model 2976 (large 'hardware' pci modem) in them with NO heat buildup.
solarPC is great!
I'm envious of this thing
... or I could quit complaining and by a decent laptop already. nah.
I bought an SV25 a long while back and it had MAJOR heat problems - Cause: internal power supply in the front that venting in the case rather than out of it.
That power supply sat right under the floppy in a tight little corner. It burnt out every floppy drive I put in (and for some reason at the time I cared)
I suspended it once to leave the house.. when I came back I smelt a funny smell.. checked it's temp - 151 degrees fahrenheit! It somehow still ran for a while.
Eventually I rigged up a cool looking power supply to the outside of the case and fed the wires in. That worked, but it wasn't very portable anymore.
Personally I'd like to see external power catch on more to a point that it wouldn't be proprietary to the case... hell if I'm not using a machine for heavy gaming or running loads of drives.. there's not much need for a 400+ watt internal power supply. Plus - small comps - very sexy.
You've got 8% of my love - 8% of my love - 8/100's of the time you're the only girl I'm dreaming of.
Apple sells systems which no one has to open up, but which also preclude any meaningful competition. If I want a preconfigured shuttle system I can order one of my choosing from any of a thousand dealers, and lots of competition means I get a good value. It also means there are lots of independant dealers who have jobs trying to compete for my dollars instead of no jobs and collecting my money through the government.
Technically, if it was truly inside out, then wouldn't that make the size of its case infinitely large? Or maybe infinitely small, and the contents would be infinitely large . . . hmmm . . . this reminds me of that futurama episode with the Universe Boxes.
I've been wondering why nobody's yet making a nice 2 (or 3) part case design, where I put CD/DVD-Rom drives into a small desktop case which also has all those "front end" connectors (ie USB, firewire, media slots) and a reset button and power on/off buttons, and then put the rest of the gubbins into a small box to sit under the desk (or in a cupboard etc.) so you can optimise the airflow and cooling for the CPU. I suppose AGP and PCI slots would go in the "not-seen" box, and the hard disks could go in either.
...
I can see why no one did this before (maximum length of IDE cables, keyboard cables etc.), but surely with USB standardising the keyboard/mouse style connectors and with firewire (and maybe serial ATA) standardising high-bandwidth connections for the media devices you can easily seperate these boxes by say 2 or 3 metres of a chunky combined cable, and then I can put the hot'n'noisy bits in one place and keep the peripherals I need to access near my keyboard/mouse/display
If you provided 2 external power bricks for the two different parts, you can manage the power demands for each section independently, and with a bit of thought you'd have a nice docking station concept for those who want to move a machine between home and work... but the big win is that I have a nice desktop box that looks smaller than a shuttle but quite a bit smaller and with much less cooling required (so it's quiet).
Yeah, mini-ITX and a Cyrix processor, but I want it all (AGP 8x, Athlon 64, big disks etc)...
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Go-Go boots have ALWAYS been sexy.
Dude, I totaly know like my one friend loves Antec, and he is constanly whining about how my Inwin power supply sucks
--joke
I see nothing unattractive there.
The lighting sucks IMHO. She's standing in a hallway with a bright fluorescent light straight above her and I doubt that's going to do anyone any favours in general.There looks like some fill-in flash, but there's still too much light above her. Where are the whites of her eyes? In shadow, I'd guess.
IIRC (and bear in mind my photographic 5ki115 are lousy), it would be better if it was a reasonably diffuse light source coming from one side.
Of course, this obviously wasn't shot in a studio with multiple-flash, diffusers etc... I'm guessing it was taken in a corridor beside the hall at a trade show with a lone digital camera. In which case, it's not that bad, just unfortunate.
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Alas, the computer industry seems somewhat shy on upgradability. I cannot buy memory for my PII-350 any more (yeah, I know, it's a dinosaur, but it runs CS well), 'cause PC133 SDRAM won't run on its older Intel mobo. Umm, wait a minute, FAST memory won't work in a SLOW mobo? This should NOT be a problem...
I'm afraid that maintainability is another casualty of the cutthroat commodification of PCs, in favor of disposability. Gotta shop the flea markets...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
With the Radeon fan so closew to the case wall, why not turn a debit into a credit and perforate the case wall so the fan breathes fresh air or exhausts direct outside? Done carefully, it'll look aesthetically acceptable, and improve the cooling.
My Shuttle XPC has only a PCI slot, so its video card isn't anything extraordinary, but it seems Ok with the factory cooling.
Another thought: Put another fan on the OUTSIDE of the back panel in tandem with the internal heatsink fan (use longer screws and possibly rubber grommets for vibe isolation) to move more air. Ugly, but out of sight...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I think PC's should be designed to be about the size and configuration of a carton of cigarettes... and they should clip together like lego bricks.
The configuration would be really easy to build and upgrade.
1) we would need a standardized card to card communications connector. This is already designed for the PC104 standard.
2) each card gets mounted in an extruded standardized aluminum carrier shell, and this forms a module. The card edge connecotrs would probably be mechanically fastened to the shell. These shells might have a varying thickness of anywhere from say 1/2 to 2" with AIR HOLES designed to cool the enclosed device. Power is external and in its own module.
By doing this, we end up with no heat problems and we have the mechanical protection for the device/card built in at the factory. There could be a top and bottom plate if desired adding extra security.
3) Disk drives, CD drives, video subsystems can all be mounted in such a system. I would suggest that a 3 1/2" form factor would be ideal - but I suppose we'd have to go with 5 1/4 in order to accomodate CD and DVD. Alternativly we introduce a 3.5" CD and DVD format which is quite doable... we can already buy 3.5" CD's that run in the 5 1/4" drives.
4) Power should be preferably a nominal 12 volt. By doing this we can put a big hogging 12 volt battery between the inverter and the computer so we have automatically designed in UPS capability.
The present design of UPS systems is pure insanity. First we take the power in at 120/240 and step it down to 12 volts. When the line power drops we have to pull the 12 back up to 120/240 and feed it into the internal power supply which steps it back down to 5 and 12 volts.
If we just run 12 volts into the system then we eliminate a major source of heat and simplify the UPS to boot - and create the opportuinty to use even a cheap car battery for UPS backups. Note: I don't recomend car batteries - but I did put a big hogging 60 amp hour SBS from Hawker on my UPS's. Of course - they work fine - all lead acid batteries produce the same voltage per cell and your typical UPS systems are either 12 volt or 24 volt inside.
5) All connections should be on the front. Power should be from the side and be channeled module to modual through a main power bus that connects via an appropriate plug. Note that IBM developed ideas like this with their 80 pin SCA hard drives where one connector does it all. Raid systems have done this for years with hot swap modules.
6) A slight variation would use a raid idea with hot swappable modules. One should just be able to zip out to the store and buy say a new hard drive and plug it in. What we have to do now is nutz. Pull the case out from under the desk - pull out 50 odd cables, 1/2 dismanatle the thing then put it all back together again.
Hell - manufactures would sell more equipment if we could upgrade easily.
I wouldnt pay extra for the look of this machine... its still a lousy souped up x86 thats running windows. Why pay more for the looks alone. At least if it ran a cool OS like the OS X thats reason enough to shell out extra money... but however it looks, its still the same old intel design thats made the programming world a shitty place
President Bush to Liberate Alaska