SFF PC Gallery

[format]

Very nice

[Antagram]

My Shuttle history. All at stock speeds.

SN41G2


Before being retired it had the following:

• 250W SilentX PSU upgrade
• Barton core XP2500+
• 1GB TwinX Corsair LLPT PC2700
• Samsung 160GB SP1614N
• Leadtek WinFast 6800LE 128MB fully unlocked
• Pioneer DVR-109XLC

Other items included Hyundai Image Quest Q17, Cambridge Soundworks Slim500 2.1 speakers, Ratpadz GS mousepad, Logitech MX310, BenQ mini-buddy keyboard.


SN95G5


Bought as B grade. Was meant to be a V2 unit, but was v1.3 motherboard BOM11. So had to get a second hand Winchester core Athlon64 3000.

Had a PF16 meshed covered, and Creative Gigaworks T20 speakers. Would of kept for longer if DDR prices hadn't suddenly increased as DDR2 took over, and if CPU upgrade options weren't so limited.


SN27P2


When this picture was taken it had the following:

• AM2 X2 4200+ 65w TDP
• Samsung 250GB SP2504C
• XFX 7900GTX
• Corsair TwinX 2GB PC6400C5

[cowboy1969]

well got it up and running need to strip it and try again with the cables (nest)

Antec fusion remote black
corsair hw650w
intel q6600
Gainward 4870 golden sample
Mini ninja
lg blu/hd-dvd
1tb+360gb
8gb corsair xms2

idle temps are 33c load about 45c

[j.o.s.h.1408]

umm no fan on that cpu cooler for a quad core cpu?

[alsenior]

would not really need one. the two fans at the side are nearly on it

[paulie111]

my lian li 350 water cooled build

[DeludedGuy]

Nice one paulie111, loving that!

[paulie111]

Nice one paulie111, loving that!

cheers,

must admit i'm really chuffed the way it turned out, way better than my original expectations. Just got to do a window mod next the cpu and cover it in a mesh to help vent the heat from the rad and its finished

[DavyBoy]

That looks fantastic paulie, I'm thinking about doing an SFF build for my next project.

[DeludedGuy]

Havent actually posted my SFF in here, so here it goes.

SG03 With the mesh spray painted in monza blue.

[nibbler]

+1 for floppy disk

[scaryjim]

I updated my SFF desktop a week or so ago while waiting for a new monitor to arrive, and figured I might as well pop some shots in here There's some other photo's of me modding a spare low-profile PCI plate for the GPU, which I might stick up somewhere eventually, but here's a potted run down of the rebuild:

First up, the case and components!

That's an AOpen H360b - allegedly in "cool gray", but raise your hand if you think that's actually "beige"? Originally home to a Sempron 2300+ on an ASUS A7N8X-VM (NForce 2) running Fedora Core 3, it's been through a few changes of hardware since (mostly downgrades), so it's nice to have it back up to something of a reasonable standard: The Biostar is a s478 motherboard supporting PCIe and DDR2, backed up by a Celeron D 345 (3.06GHz/256kb/533fsb), 2x 512MB DDR2 533MHz RAM, and a low profile 8400GS. The hard drive is a WD1600AAJS (160GB, 7200rpm, SATA2, 8MB cache). Also going in (not in the photo) is a Buffalo low profile PCI wireless card.

The H360b's removable drive cage actually makes building very easy:

The clip in bay at the front holds one 3.5" hard drive. The drive cage - which we'll get to later - is very flexible, with either 2 5.25" bays or 1 5.25" and 2 3.5". The PSU is an FSP unit rated to 250W - it should easily cope with the celeron + 8400GS - note how close the fan is to the CPU socket?



It's all part of AOpen's cunning airflow plan! The case is designed for a side-blowing CPU cooler, which vents through the PSU, improving the airflow. Interestingly, this cooler is the cheapest available on ebay and I'd picked it up before reading up on the airflow design of the case! Once I read about this, I knew the rebuild was meant to be


As I mentioned, the drive cage is very flexible:

I've gone with one 5.25" and 2 3.5", allowing me to add a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, a floppy drive, and a USB media bay - 7 in 1 flash reader + an extra front USB. This motherboard, unlike the previous boards held in this case, has 2 sets of USB headers, so I've been able to use both the media bay and the front USB, giving me a total of 3 front USB: should be plenty Once the drive cage is in and closed you can see how tight a fit everything actually is - I'm not winning any awards for neat wiring on this one! Still, once the top's on you can't tell, and it looks like any other nice neat desktop PC:





Now, I have to admit to being somewhat sceptical about this clever "vent through the PSU" cooling system, but I'm a strong believer in numbers. I've not put CoreTemp on it yet, but according to the motherboard's bundles software, the CPU is running at ~ 22 degrees at idle! Now, that room is kept pretty cool, but given that in an open case my Q6600 idles at nearer 37 degrees, that's pretty good in my book

Other impressions from having installed the OS (Win XP Pro) and bundled software: both the Motherboard and GPU come with monitoring & overclocking software - a nice addition and it'll be fun to see how far the well-designed airflow in this can take some bumps in frequencies The whole system is very responsive - but I'd expect no less from a fresh install of XP on 1GB RAM Everything installed very smoothly indeed. Next tasks are to a) check the idle and load power draw, b) to run some benchmarks then start overclocking, c) to decide where it's going to go in the office!


I was going to throw in a few pics of my beloved Antec Aria too, but don't seem to have any handy: so I'll have to save those for another day!

[superscaper]

That's an AOpen H360b - allegedly in "cool gray", but raise your hand if you think that's actually "beige"?

I actually did a double take, looks just like our old Acorn A5000.

[scaryjim]

I actually did a double take, looks just like our old Acorn A5000.

Ooooh, harsh

I think there's a black version out there which probably looks better. But aesthetics aside, it's a really well thought out case that's a pleasure to build into. I'd strongly recommend AOpen cases to anyone thinking of an SFF build...

[c.ruel]

well got it up and running need to strip it and try again with the cables (nest)

Antec fusion remote black
corsair hw650w
intel q6600
Gainward 4870 golden sample
Mini ninja
lg blu/hd-dvd
1tb+360gb
8gb corsair xms2

idle temps are 33c load about 45c

Is that a gun on your window sill in the top picture :S. BTW nice system thinking of doing something similar with a lian li PC-c39b. But your's looks so nice i might do it with a remote fusion black case.

[lost eden]

Is that a gun on your window sill in the top picture :S. BTW nice system thinking of doing something similar with a lian li PC-c39b. But your's looks so nice i might do it with a remote fusion black case.

Judging by the tub of yellow BB's next to it, I would guess it's an airsoft gun!