A shiny, new SN25P arrived from Shuttle today via UPS. I was a little surprised to see a complete boxed system, rather than just the replacement motherboard I had requested. Shuttle’s decision to ship a full retail box made the process of transferring components from system to system much easier. After booting the system and running it through its paces, I’m happy to report that the new motherboard did the trick and I now have full use of the onboard VIA Envy24PT audio. Yay!
My audio problems continue to persist after a couple weeks of working with the SN25P. As a result, I’ve recently stepped up my efforts to contact Shuttle support. I’m now satisfied with their response, but not overly impressed. A couple of my e-mails sent through from the Shuttle site went unanswered and I found that their phone system unintuitively drops you into a menu system if a tech doesn’t answer your call quickly enough. On the other hand, I found the Shuttle staff to be personable and reasonably helpful when I actually did get through to real people.
I’ve now affirmed my suspicions that my audio problems with the SN25P are related to a faulty onboard audio chip. To recap, I’ve seen Windows XP consistently hang when trying to initialize the VIA Envy24PT chip with the proper driver. Looking at the behavior, I can only guess that Windows polls the chip and spins while waiting for a response that it never receives.
At this point, I basically have two options: seek a return from the point of purchase (Newegg), or seek an RMA from Shuttle. Newegg lists the SN25P as a manufacturer-warranted part so a return does not seem to be an option. Luckily, an e-mail with an RMA number from Shuttle landed in my inbox as I was finishing this post.
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.
It’s been a busy couple weeks. I had forgotten just how much time work takes out of your day. I got to enjoy my first three day weekend under Barco’s 9-80 program, which allows you to take every other Friday off in exchange for working an extra hour every Monday through Thursday. It definitely comes as a welcome break after working a couple 12+ hours in a row. We’ve been pushing to get one of our consoles out the door and I’ve been working extra hours to help with that effort. My primary responsibility is the system’s software configuration, but I try to help in other areas when I can.
I’m settled into my new apartment now, but there are still things to do and the living room isn’t completely cleared of boxes yet. In the near future I’m going to be looking for a new wireless provider as well as looking for a few small furniture pieces and upgrading my computer (it’s that time again). For reference, my new address is 607 Ivy Chase Lane, Norcross, GA 30092.
Mom informs me that I’ve been running overages on my mobile phone so it seems like a good time to shop around for a new plan and/or provider. My mobile phone is really my only phone so I tend to use it whenever I need it rather than wait for the off-peak hours. T-Mobile provides my current service, but I’m leaning toward switching to Verizon. They lead the way for cell-phone service providers in PC Magazine’s most recent Reader Satisfaction Survey. T-Mobile didn’t do too bad either, but I’m inclined to try something different at this point.
I’m looking to scrap my current tower and replace it with a small form factor (SFF) box in the near future. After living with a huge tower for a couple of years and moving it constantly, I feel that a huge case no longer meets my needs. SFFs have evolved to the point where I feel like I could make one my primary machine without compromising much. I’m looking to use Shuttle’s SN25P, which should hold an Athlon 64 CPU, 3 hard drives, 1 optical drive, 2 memory sticks, and a double-wide PCI-Express graphics card in a box that measures 320mm (12.6in) x 210mm (8.27in) x 220mm (8.66in) (L x W x H). For reference, my Lian-Li PC75 full tower measures 23.125in x 8.25in x 22.625in (L x W x H). I’m quite looking forward to putting one together.
A week or so ago, I was happy to receive my replacement Linksys WMP54Gv4 wireless card; my previous WMP54Gv2 suffered repeated antenna problems until I finally RMA’d the card. Since that time, the wireless link that connects my PC to the Internet has given me no end of fits. The symptoms: repeated and seemingly random disconnects from the wireless AP (a Linksys WRT54G). My PowerBook exhibits no problems connecting to the same AP.
After digging a little deeper, I found a trail of postings surrounding the Wireless Zero Configuration service (WZC) under Windows XP. Wired has a article covering the topic (see: Windows XP Bedevils Wi-Fi Users), and Overclockers.com has a slightly more useful compilation of tips and user experiences (see: WiFi PC Cards - Frequent Disconnects Fix). For now, I’ve disabled WZC and configured Linksys’s bundled utility to manage my wireless connection. Most vendors, Linksys included, seem to be heavily pushing the use of WZC under Windows XP, but I’ve had my share of problems with it.
