Shuttle SN25P Posted April 23, 2005 at 12:20 pm
This past week, I received the components I had selected for my new small form factor PC. The system has been assembled and, for the most part, is running smoothly.
Here are the components I selected.
The rest of the components, including memory and hard disks, were pulled from my old tower.
Hardware Installation
The Shuttle interior case design is generally very well thought out and component installations are quick and painless. The optical drive and the top two hard drives all mount on tool-less rails and the hard drives are particularly easy to simply snap into place. The space below the optical drive can hold either a hard drive or a floppy disk drive, the former in my case. This drive mounts directly to the optical drive rack instead of using rails.
Installing the graphics card was somewhat tricky, as the X850 XT occupies two of the PCI slots rather than one. I found it easiest to bring the PCI plate side in first and swing the rest of the card into place, rather than trying to bring the card in parallel to the slot.
I also had to remove the drive tray bezel from the PX-716A to get the tray to properly eject through Shuttle’s spring-loaded drive door. I have some concerns about the long term welfare of the drive operating without the tray bezel, but I cannot take the drive back after applying for several mail-in rebates. Those considering pairing the SN25P and the PX-716A should definitely proceed with some caution.
I did encounter difficulties trying to remove the optical drive from its bay. After several minor lacerations, I discovered that removal of the optical drive is greatly facilitated by removal or suppression of the EMI shield, which exerts some force on the optical drive.
Software Installation
I ran into problems when trying to actually boot the system and install drivers. I thought I could simply transplant the primary hard disk from my old system and Windows XP would take care of the rest. Unfortunately, Windows repeatedly rebooting the system rather than detecting and installing the new hardware. At this point, I had to place components back in my old tower and backup what I could. I ultimately had to perform a clean installation of XP.
I encountered my most serious problem when trying to install the drivers for the onboard audio chip, a VIA Envy24PT. The driver installation process consistently hung the system at 100% CPU usage. What I find more interesting, is that it is the System pseudo-process, as opposed to System Idle Process, that hangs.
I tried a number of different driver revisions with no observable change in this behavior. I eventually tried disabling the audio device in Device Manager and I was able to succesfully install the sound driver. When I tried enabling the device with the proper driver installed, however, the system locked up again with the same behavior.
I eventually moved on to the remainder of the driver and software setup and I didn’t encounter any further problems with any other facets of the system.
The audio problem is troubling because it leads me to believe the system may have a bad audio chip, in which case I will have to RMA the system. I am currently waiting for Shuttle to provide some feedback on my problem. The SN25P is limited to PCI-Express expansion only so there’s nothing I can really stick in the system to handle audio duties in lieu of the onboard audio. I configured and built this system for gaming, so the system will not be truly complete until this problem is resolved.
Impressions
The Shuttle case is very small, as one would expect in a small form factor system. To give a frame of reference, I found the SN25P to be slightly smaller in every dimension than my Klipsch subwoofer. It’s also interesting to note that despite its relatively small footprint, the SN25P is actually larger than almost all of Shuttle’s other case designs.
The SN25P is generally very quiet. There is an initial fan roar when you power on the system, but it quickly dies down as the smart fan kicks in. I haven’t noticed any prolonged fan spin-up during regular usage or extended gaming.