Project: Better Shuttle

[AVT]

Edit: Project is canceled - I will need a new PC by the time I'll be able to complete this, so there's no point.

Since the Newegg Open Box deal on the P35 Shuttle has once again resurfaced, I've decided to order one and turn some of my ideas currently in Google SketchUp into reality.

This will be a worklog for the stuff I'm going to be doing.

Some of these ideas:

- Put a full-size PSU into it (Corsair HX520W, should just be able to fit)
- Accelero S1 on the GPU
- Cooled by either 4x92 or 2x80+2x92mm fans
- Better CPU heatsink
- Handle
- Notebook DVD drive in place of the huge 5.25 bay
- Probably only 1 HDD
- No liquid cooling. At least not until restrictions for flying with liquids are lifted.

Here's a quick image of the SketchUp:

 

[Arcygenical]

Subbed. I love SSF mods.

 

[AVT]

Well, the Shuttle arrived today, and is up and running!

Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced my camera, and would rather not post bad-quality cell phone pictures. I'll update this when I find it.

It booted into Vista out of the box, without any reformat. Device manager shows no undetected devices. I'm sure there's a lot of horrific things going on behind the scenes, but this will do for now.

What this thing has under the hood, from a design standpoint, completely amazed me. I have a lot of respect for the engineers that made this thing. Even though the case is absolutely tiny, it feels like there's a lot of room inside. Everything's very carefully arranged, very thought out. There seems to be more thought put into this than anything else I've ever worked with.

So far, it also seems that my mods might need to be a little more complex than I originally anticipated, specifically for the front and back panel. There's also absolutely no room for the rear exhaust fan due to RAM slots, so I'm probably going to instead place it where the current PSU is. There's more room above it than I expected.

Noise is mediocre. It's not nearly the worst I've seen, but not the best either.

Only problem so far is you cannot run RAID with a SATA DVD drive at the same time.

For now, since it's open box, I'm going to run this thing for a few days to make sure it's completely stable before I do anything to it.

 

[AVT]

Project: Better Shuttle' status is almost ready to be changed from on hold to in progress. I just need to get a few parts. FS/FT thread here.

 

[AVT]

Recieved the VelociRaptor. Now, I just need the Accelero and the DVD drive.

 

[AVT]

PSU has been modded into the case. Pictures later today.

 

[AVT]

Pics!

Since the original plan, BetterShuttle has changed a bit. Here's the updated, but still pretty simple sketch.

PSU is now inside.

I hid all the cables above the CPU cooler. When it's done, cables will be hidden to the left and right of the DVD drive and VelociRaptor, but that's for later. The cables on the video card are to 2x Papst 60mm fans. The video card overheats unless I have something blowing on it, and the only non-loud spare fans I had were a Nexus 92mm that didn't fit, and these.

VelociRaptor is still in the IcePack and using the standard HDD cage.

And then.. what went wrong. I was out of masking tape, and all of this took so damn long to start, that I decided to just scratch in what I'd cut before cutting. Big mistake. Quite uneven and looks horrible. Oh well, nothing some sandpaper and a file can't fix later on.

The front looks like nothing's been done at all.. and is covered in fingerprints, so I decided not to photograph it.

Comments?