April 07, 2004
Shuttle SK43G Redux
A few folks emailed me and asked if I could post some additional photos of the SK43G that I recently set up and wrote about. Well, here you go, my friends.
The photo below is of the system in mid-setup. It's shown without the drive cage installed (which houses the optical drive, floppy drive, and hard drive) and no cover (obviously). Actually, it looks like I took this before I installed the RAM, too. Notice the nice IDE cable routing for the optical drive (upper rail in foreground). I think this photo makes it look bigger than it actually is.
The second photo (below) shows the completed system sitting next to a 17" monitor, keyboard and mouse (for size comparison). Yep, it's actually pretty teeny.
About the only thing I can think of wanting to someday do that I can't on this dude because of the form-factor is direct CD/DVD copying (no room for two 5-1/4" drives). Other than that, it looks like it should offer plenty of upgrade potential, meaning I should be able to use this mini for several years to come.
Posted by Craig | Permalink | TrackBackI purchased that exact model awhile ago and it has been great with one exception. The power supply has gone out on mine and it's not cheap to replace. The solution I opted for was to remove the existing power supply and shuffle all the wires from a standard desktop power supply through the case's old power supply hole. (Can I say power supply one more time...I just did :))
Hope you have better luck than I did.
Craig, do you know if the SK43G can take a Athlon XP Mobile processor? I'd like something that is as quiet and energy miserly as possible. Shuttle's site does not include the Mobile line as supported processors on the SK43G's spec sheet.
mike AT perham.net
Posted by mike at April 11, 2004 03:01 PMMike, I don't know for certain that it can, but I'm not aware of any reasons why it shouldn't accommodate the Athlon XP-M. Check out this thread over at Sudhian as that may help: http://www.gearbits.com/archives/000657.html
Let us know what you find out.
Posted by Craig at April 11, 2004 03:53 PMOne follow-up: I've been reading some threads that suggest the SK43G might not be real robust at accommodating Athlons running at faster than 266 MHz FSB speeds. The thread I'm talking about is here: http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.cfm?catid=43&threadid=50166&STARTPAGE=1
For this reason, some folks recommend the Shuttle SN45G -- http://www.shuttle.com/hq/product/barebone/default.asp?B_id=17 -- nVidia chipset (instead of VIA) supporting up to a 400 MHz bus, but no integrated video or SATA header. Just FYI.
Posted by Craig at April 11, 2004 04:45 PMTo leave a comment or read updated entries, please visit GearBits' current site. Thanks.