Hi to All

The PC is getting on in service hours terms now. I reckon at 3 years old, it is time to out it before it becomes unreliable.

Under serious consideration is a Shuttle or similar small form factor case PC. Specs seem to imply that they are fine machines, but am I suffering any performance compromise by going to small form factor?

I don't do gaming, very rarely video, a bit of graphics editing of large (450+Mb scanned MF slide images).

Chief attraction is the low level of sound output.

Chris

I'm a big fan and have been using them since they started selling them in the UK around 2001. And I've built quite a few for people over the years too.

Great build quality and attention to detail, low sound output as you say, and they're really starting to offer a wide range of models now too. A nicely specced Core2 or even Quad core Intel based box would fit the bill nicely...

I'd say go for it

I'm likely upgrading to this one next: Shuttle Europe - SX38P2 Pro (Prima Series)

Steve

Thanks Steve

The other thing is OS. I am currently on W2000 and it is stable, fast and not getting in the way of anything. However, I am looking at an OEM copy of Vista to utilise 64bit OS. Downsides to this that I know of are "too many licence and digital rights" interruptions. Any comment on wether it is worth going 64bit?

Thinking Socket AM2 Athlon 64. Don,t know if it is worth going away from Windows 2000 with it or not.

Chris

Another vote for SFF - been running iDEQs for a few years now, and they're very quiet and perform just fine. Only thing you really lose out on is flexibility and expandability (ie. you can't run more than one internal hard disk/optical drive, and you usually have fewer memory slots).

No idea on Vista 64-bit...my wife's laptop has Vista on it and after using it a couple of times I'd rather stick with W2K...

Rob.

I don't see much benefit in 64-bit currently. Yes, the OS supports it and you should get the drivers you need, but will all the other software you use take advantage? I'd go with 32bit Vista Ultimate myself.

Wouldn't go with Athlon this time either. I've always built with AMD, but at this moment in time I think Intel have them beaten.

They're sorting the flexibility issue Rob, slowly. My current SN25P can run 3x HDD (1 IDE, 2 SATA) and takes upto 2Gb on the two RAM slots. The model I mentioned in my first reply has capacity for 4x HDD and upto 8Gb as they've squeezed four slots in. And it has dual GFX support. Only thing I can think of is lack of internal card expandability, but it has a heck of a lot built in....

Steve

I always consider these shuttles like lappys in terms of upgradability etc. A shuttle would be ideal for me really, but alas I bought a Dell XPS instead.

I have been seriously impressed with build quality of the shuttle cases too, comparable to Lian Li imho.

They're sorting the flexibility issue Rob, slowly. My current SN25P can run 3x HDD (1 IDE, 2 SATA) and takes upto 2Gb on the two RAM slots. The model I mentioned in my first reply has capacity for 4x HDD and upto 8Gb as they've squeezed four slots in. And it has dual GFX support. Only thing I can think of is lack of internal card expandability, but it has a heck of a lot built in....

Well, there's always going to be the limit of the physical size of the case!

That said, whack a 2Gb stick of RAM, 500Gb hard disk and a DVD rewriter into one and it'll be more than most users need anyway...

Rob.

I have an Ideq and it's great. It is quite quiet and is plenty quick enough for me: Surfing, downloading, converting vid files, memory map stuff.

Wondering with Vista, are rumours of it not supporting unregistered copies of some MS software true?

Chris

Not heard of that one myself. Any more info?

Steve

These ultra compact PC's always fill me with overheating terror. I had a top of the range Philips slimline PC and it fried 3 graphics cards, a modem, 2 motherboards, and a PSU. All in the space of a year.

I just worrry that a mini PC will be crap at cooling...

Know what you mean, but you need to take a look at Shuttle's cooling designs. They've put some thought in

Steve

My 2 penny worth

Win2k - very good

XP - even better

Vista - pooh

I can do nothing quicker with Vista (something said by many Gurus [i aint]) - lots of stuff slower cos of 'stuff' MS has built in to Vista.

Bloatware - and, yes, inevitably, sometime, I'll have to bite the bullet.

Cases - upgrading difficulties (large hands, tiny components come to mind) etc .

Was looking round for a low energy low noise small PC and found this

UK Lenovo Selection

.....in some blurb I found it only takes 45 watts to run it ......to me that means not only BIG energy saving.....but low power in = less heat out and it is the size of a sheet of A4 (a bit thicker obviously) but it looked very interesting......if anyone can find out a bit more I would like to know

Shuttles are good if you just want "A pc" for browsing the net etc, they do not make good gaming machines, especially with modern graphics cards which either will not fit, or will overheat.

Loz's old shuttle machine (an athlon XP) was quite noisey and it died because it fried the gfx card. because of the layout of the case, any fan/heatsink is pretty much up against the side of the case so gets no airflow.

Modern machines are much quieter.. gone are the days of a 50db delta fan to cool the CPU.

I have a Asus Pundit which is a "bookshelf" sized box, and that is absolutely silent.

(it will be up for sale soon too )

No gaming here, so do not need the ultimate in speed machines. What I do need is reliable and quiet. The PSU in most PCs is the cause of most of the noise in my experience. My current PC has an Asus silent PSU but it is far from silent. The CPU cooler is very quiet.

I have read somewhere that Windows Vista will not support unregisterd vesrions of things like MS office.

Chris

If you want to build it yourself, you always have the option of a uATX mobo and case. The motherboards are from the major manufacturers, and you're not forcing yourself down a single manufacturer - I'm not saying shuttle is bad of course, their stuff is very good and the latest designs are very optimised

You can get sleek cases which have a small footprint, such as Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

But if I were to build something new today, I'd probably go with Shuttle as they've pretty much ironed out all the major concerns in the design, apart from space. But if you don't want to run a 8800gtx ultra that costs more on its own than the entire rest of the PC, it'll all fit in a shuttle

I have read somewhere that Windows Vista will not support unregisterd vesrions of things like MS office.

Chris

That isnt true.

Graphic wise, to feed the screen and keep moving images smooth, I need something Dual DVI and around 512mb and of course without a fan.

The Shuttle I built for SWMBO last year has worked well for a budget machine, but does not see the long hours of use my new one will.

Chris

I have read somewhere that Windows Vista will not support unregisterd vesrions of things like MS office.

No problems running unregistered apps on my machine at home. I have Office 2007 on vista 32bit, unregistered and it works just fine.

Regarding the DRM issues, yes its a small problem but can be overcome by simply disabling the options in mediaplayer. By default they are on, but its only a tick box to turn it all off.

I have been running Vista for 12 months now on 3 computers and have had no real issues. What you may find, if you want to run XP or 2K on a new system is problems due to lack of drivers. Increasingly new hardware is only shipping with drivers for Vista.

May set up a multiple OS system for this one. Win 2K for getting the job done reliably, Vista for seeing what it is all about, Linux cos I know I really should suss it out.

Chris