Oh, what a sweet little upgrade...

[Dadofamunky]

I have to admit, I was probably nuts to put any money at all into an aging S939 box. But I love my little Shuttle and the S939 X2 4800+ just keeps chuggin' along, running XP and Vista 32-bit perfectly well. When 2 GB of RAM (the max this thing will support) is inadequate, I guess it'll be the boneyard for it. But for at least another year or two, I can't see disposing of this unit. So I wanted an upgrade to breathe a little life into ol' Betsy.

The system's problem was an EVGA 7800GT video card with a loud fan. You know the high-pitched whine an airliner's engines make in the passenger compartment at 35,000 feet? That's what it sounded like. It really sounded like the Space Shuttle! Even rivaTuner couldn't fix it. I wanted a) to reduce the noise; b) improve the video performance so I could play BluRays with the Shuttle at some point; c) hopefully reduce the power load (EVGA support was shocked that I got a 7800GT to run at all in that Shuttle. It sat in there for three years!).

So on the theory that a much newer card in a similar market segment would meet those needs, I got an EVGA single-slot 9600GT from NewEgg, for $84 after rebate. Installed the newest NVidia drivers, popped the card in, rebooted, and this little box makes a LOT less noise now. I think this thing will make an excellent HTPC at some point.

Oh, and the Shuttle unit went from 4400 in 3dMark06 to 8350. Now, of course, I'm pretty sure my X2 4800+ CPU is bottlenecking, but my E8600 system still only gets around 12,000. So not bad, all in all.

Anyone else got any stories to tell of good upgrades to their breadbox units?

 

[heymrdj]

All I can say is it was probably that jet liner that kept it cool in that puny box. I wouldn't be surprised if under heavy use that single slot variant starts having over heating issues.

But to keep my old P4 Northwood going to lan parties (2.8Ghz 800FSB) I junked the old Nvidia 440MX and put in a Radeon 9800 Pro. Still taking it to parties .

 

[Dadofamunky]

I know, it is puny. That's of course why I like it. But I'm not really much of a gamer either, so I doubt heat'll ever be an issue. (For games, I've got my Penryn system.) One thing's for sure; it's the last upgrade that box will ever see. I'm very pleased at how much quieter it is.

In fact, having two computers on my desk like this just seems like gross decadence.

 

[pcgeek11]

I have the same shuttle ST20G5 I inherited it from my son. Uped it from a single core to 4200 X2 S939, only running an ATI X1300 256 MB card and it is a really great PC- Cool Quiet and fast enough for everything I do ( light gaming, movies, and internet ). I have had two different shuttles and they both have been excellent PC's.

pcgeek11

 

[IlllI]

i've had a few shuttles myself. still going strong after 4 years. never had any issues with them. thinking about getting one of the new ones that will support i7 processors

 

[Dadofamunky]

If you get the right ones (the ST20G5 seems to be one of those) they really can be sick little units, and dramatically smaller than microATX. Of course, you only get two RAM slotstypically. I wonder if they'll actually figure out how to get three DIMMs into an i7 one. Whatever you do, watch the boards carefully before you buy. I was seriously considering another Shuttle for my Core2Duo build and saw that many people had a lot of issues. I stuck with microATX and now wish I had simply gotten the best ATX board and as small a case as I could find. I'll be very interested to see if Shuttle comes up with a good one. I bet Westmere will be the processor that SHuttle supports most effectively. Smaller socket and 32nm, you see.

 

[WildW]

I wish you better luck with your Shuttle than I had with mine. I had one a couple of years back when the 8800GT first appeared (1st single slot 8800 I think), and upgraded to that with the PC50 300W shuttle power supply. The PSU lasted about 3 months then died, I think the 8800 needed too much juice, and it was always going to be borderline.

Hopefully the 9600 is a bit less thirsty. . . or is it still G92? I lose track.

I cut an extra hole in the Shuttle case and mounted a 40mm fan by the 8800 to try to lose some of the heat. Hard to say whether that was enough now, whether it was heat or power draw that killed it.

 

[DarkPrime]

Any chance you'll take $100 for your mobo in that shuttle?

 

[WildW]

who?