Shuttle PC for retro gaming!

[@davidp4456]

The strange thing about Shuttle ITX boards from the early 2000’s is that they only support up to 2 GB of DDR compared to 4 GB on their ATX counterparts.

[@phillycheesetake]

Love socket 754. If I could have any shuttle it would be that one. Fun fact: Turion support exists for your board.

[@davidp4456]

The Shuttle web site is great and lists all supported cpu’s as well as graphics cards.

[@phillycheesetake]

@@davidp4456 Yeah, with a lot of 754 boards you can work around a lack of official support for the mobile chips, but it's nice to just have it from the manufacturer.

[@66mhzbrain]

Cool, I'll be looking for a cpu upgrade soon

[@dabombinablemi6188]

128KB L2 cache to 1MB L2 cache would be a massive improvement.

[@WinXP_SP1]

I have a shuttle PC as well, but my had the LCD touch screen built in and it's a cool little machine :)

[@66mhzbrain]

Touch screen! That sounds pretty cool😁

[@Revivify]

I have a couple of Shuttle and shuttle form pc's. I like them but yeah they can be fiddly to service. Nice selection of games too. Will keep you busy over winter :)

[@66mhzbrain]

Fiddly but cool. Im glad I got one. Yes they will keep me busy😁

[@davidp4456]

I’ve become a little addicted to fixing up these little Shuttles. All of them I bought as ‘faulty’ or not working but with a little TLC they can be recovered and made into great retro PC’s. The power supplies are the main weakness as they are generally specified a little low for the system draw and often fail. Finding genuine psu’s is difficult and expensive but server psu’s with a higher output can often be fitted in their place. They also run cooler putting less stress on the system. It’s easy to use SSDs or HDDs which ever you prefer.

[@jonchapman6821]

I love these old Shuttles, I’ve got 4 or 5 of them, all working but in a variety of conditions. I’ve not got a socket 754 model though, maybe one day 🤞🏼

[@dadstrainset]

Looks nice man. I had one of these back in the day, ran a ti4200 and an M-Audio 24/96 sound card. I rocked up to one LAN party and ended up being the host, smallest PC in the room was the fastest, lol. I've not got the original now sadly, but do have an SK43G which needed a full recap, and a bunch of SN41G2 units in a mate's garage awaiting... something. Lots of users at the time drilled out vents in the side, because there's zero airflow to that gpu.

[@66mhzbrain]

Cool, thanks! I have a ti4200 and thought about it but went with the xt for dx9. I also think it runs cooler than the ti, dont really want to cut holes and will wtch the temps, but can certainly see why people did.

[@RockstarRunner7]

First PC i built myself was a shuttle cube, an SS51G, i installed a P4 and Radeon 9700 pro, it was great at the time, but kinda loud and hot, i eventually water cooled it.

[@66mhzbrain]

Cool, yes its a bit noisy, I'll probably get a quiter fan and water cooler for it at some point.

[@Ts6451]

I expect the pipes are heat pipes, these don't use air but the evaporation and condensation of water in a low pressure to move the heat from the hot end to the cold, to get water back to the hot end, most heat pipes use a wicking layer, generally made from sintered metal(though other designs do exist) to wick the water back. Today, pretty much all but the lowest end heat sinks use heat pipes.

[@jonchapman6821]

I was always under the impression they used some kind of alcohol solution.

[@Ts6451]

@@jonchapman6821 In some cases, they might, the manufacturer can alter the characteristics of the pipe by what fluid is used. Water is the most common for room temperature applications, but if you need cooling to extend down to lower temperatures, alcohols or ammonia may be used. Changing the internal pressure of the pipe can also be used to tune the operating range. For more specialized applications, other fluids are used, if you need to cool something 1000 °C, you will likely be using a molten metal. For work with really cold stuff, you might use a liquefied gas like nitrogen or helium.

[@Ts6451]

@@jonchapman6821 Oh, Looks like my reply disappeared, so I guess I'll try again. For room temperature cooling, water is the most common, but heat pipes can use a range of other liquids depending on what the application is, so some do use ethanol or methanol if it needs to provide cooling at lower temperatures than what water would work for.

[@Pickle136]

i have a sk21g (also a 754) couldnt get win98 to fully install on it. Right now its a winxp with a ati x800 it used to be my htpc running mythtv back when cable was still analog.

[@66mhzbrain]

Win 98 was a pain, took a good few hours of trying to get it all stable.

[@Pickle136]

@@66mhzbrain i remember for me it would lock up or blue screen during the install

[@66mhzbrain]

Was just the gia drivers I had trouble with. Win 98 itself went on ok. Though I used a different hdd to the one it came with and repartitioned it etc.

[@rogert151]

there's a nicer silentx psu available for these with quieter fans if you can find it, it will probably need a recap by now

[@davidp4456]

I’ve rebuilt 7 of these over the last couple of years. All ‘faulty’ but the caps have always been good.

[@66mhzbrain]

Cool, I'll keep an eye out for them. Caps look ok.

[@IceCreamePudding]

Is it me or is the audio only coming from the left channel?

[@66mhzbrain]

Not sure, It sounded like both when I did it. It was recorded in mono